Danny wasn’t sure exactly how much of this Amé and the other deputy, Dale Holt, were hearing. The desert and the canyons could play hell with the KEL recorders, which is why he hadn’t been too concerned about wearing one to begin with, but neither the sheriff nor Amé would’ve allowed him to do the deal without one, so he hadn’t argued about it. However, Amé and Dale were a hundred yards or more back in her truck, past a knotted stand of mesquites and the sightlines of the trailer, so Danny had known—hell, they’d all known—that if things went south (like they were going now), it would take them too long to get to him. Too long to do much of anything at all. And Eddy was on the move, now. Danny listened for the rev of Amé’s big Ford, for her sirens, but there was nothing. Not yet.

That moment . . . again.

Go, no-go.

Run, fight.

Goddamn.

Goddamn if he was going to let Eddy Rabbit nearly beat him senseless with a skillet and then bolt like his namesake.

Danny yelled “Go go go” into his shirt where the KEL mic was hidden and started back toward the trailer. It wasn’t his official “Fuck, I’m in trouble” signal—the silly phrase he was supposed to say if things got bad with Eddy—but it was clear enough.

And besides, that moment had passed anyway.

—

DANNY PUSHED HARD through the swinging door, looking left and right and clearing the corners. What few windows there were had been haphazardly spray-painted black so it was like falling into dark, fetid water. The trailer smelled bad, too lived in, or maybe where something had gone to die. There was a futon here, an old cut-up recliner there, a mess of busted lightbulbs everywhere that crunched beneath his boots, and what looked to be a whole porcelain sink sitting in the middle of the main room, filled with crushed beer cans and spent cigarettes. Eddy and his buddies had been using it as a trash can.

There was also the thick, animal odor of weed. A whole lot of weed, and the stink of it clung to the walls Danny brushed against as if the plants themselves were growing there behind the particleboard.

He kept moving.

Ahead, Danny could pick out patchy sunlight pale as mold on the floor and walls, blooming where the kitchen screen door was still hanging open from Eddy’s passage. He’d run straight through the trailer and out the other side.

Danny paused for a heartbeat, crouched, before coming at the kitchen low and fast and at an angle to make sure Eddy hadn’t kicked at the screen door and then backpedaled into a corner to wait for him.

He could still have that damn fork or whatever else he might have grabbed.