“You’re going to sit here. I’m going to scout around the neighborhood in case he got here ahead of us, though I doubt that. I don’t really expect him until after dark.”

“You’re basing this on what, intuition?”

“Did you finish reading Orrin’s document?”

“Not all of it. Not yet.”

“You have it with you?”

“A printout. In my bag.”

“Why don’t you read the rest of it, and we’ll talk about it when I get back.”

*   *   *

She read it while Bose did his drive-around, and she was within a few pages of the end when he pulled back into the lot. He parked behind the restaurant’s Dumpster where the car would be hard to see from the street—an act of prudence or paranoia, she thought. “Find anything?” she asked when he came through the door.

“Nope.” He ordered another coffee and a sandwich and she heard him ask the woman behind the counter, “You mind if we sit here a while more?”

“Sit as long as you like,” she said. “We do most of our business at lunch. It’s mainly drive-through after three. Make yourselves comfortable. Long as you buy a little something now and then.”

“There’s a tip in it for you if you keep a fresh pot brewing.”

“We’re not allowed to accept tips for counter service.”

“I’ll never tell,” Bose said.

The woman smiled. “Looks like the rain’s starting. Good time to be indoors.”

Sandra saw the first fat drops strike the restaurant window. Moments later, water was washing down the glass in quavery sheets. Rain bounced from the steaming asphalt of the parking lot, and the scent of moist, tepid air seeped under the door.

Bose peeled a layer of plastic wrap off his sandwich. “You finished Orrin’s story?”

“Just about.”

“You understand why I think he’s headed here?”

She nodded tentatively. “Orrin—or whoever wrote this—obviously knows a few things about the Findley family. Whether they’re true or not is a different question.”

“I’m more concerned with what’s going on in Orrin’s head than what’s true. Remember what he told Ariel? ‘Tonight’s the night.’”

“He has unfinished business. Or at least he thinks he does.”

“Right. What he doesn’t know is that Findley and his people are on high alert. There are private security cars parked all around the perimeter of the warehouse.”

“Private security? What, like Brinks?”

“No, not like Brinks. These guys aren’t bonded and they don’t advertise.”

Sandra shivered and told herself it was because of the sudden damp in the air.

Outside, in the flooding rain, a city bus pulled up. A puddle had formed around a blocked storm drain and the bus’s wheels splashed the three indifferent blue-collar guys who were waiting for it. They got on. Nobody got off. The bus pulled away.

“Orrin could get hurt,” she said.