Stay here for a bit, okay? You can grab a shower if you want.”
“Hmm.” She disappeared under the sheets, just as Beth banged on the door again.
“How do I get myself into this shit?” Nate muttered as he ran back to the table, his bare feet skidding on the dusty linoleum. He scribbled out a check for $150, leaving him twenty-seven until his next payday.
“Is someone in there with you?” Beth asked.
“Just me and the TV.” He handed her the check.
Beth’s eyes narrowed, and for a second Nate thought he was busted, as she had a pretty good bullshit detector. She took the slip of paper, and her face softened. “You eaten anything solid in the past few days?”
“Yeah, I do all right. I’m still seeing Bobby this weekend, right?”
“If you’re not called in, yes.” Beth’s eyes clouded even more. “He sure misses you.”
“Yeah, I miss him, too. Tell him we’re going fishing Saturday, so make sure he has his gear.”
“All right.” She stepped in close and kissed his stubbled cheek. “Try not to get yourself killed between now and then, all right?” she asked.
The corner of his mouth crooked up at their private joke, which had started when they were newlyweds, and had grown progressively less humorous over the years.
“You doin’ all right?”
“I get by. Take care of yourself now.” She strode down the apartment hallway, her hips swaying as she went. Nate shook his head as he watched the best thing that had ever happened to him walk away again.
As he closed the door, he heard the shower going, and trotted back to the bedroom, looking for clues. He picked up the woman’s purse and expertly rifled through it until he found her identification, replacing it as the water shut off. Nate started to clean up the bedroom, but realized he didn’t know where he’d begin, and settled for lighting a cheroot and waiting for her to come back in. A few minutes later, she came out, dressed and drying her hair with a towel.
“You, uh, want to get something to eat?” Nate shifted on the bed, never comfortable with this part of the dance.
His one-night stand looked older in the afternoon light, he mused—with crow’s feet and laugh lines that had been artfully disguised the previous evening. Maybe five years younger than his own forty-four years, she was thicker in the hips and legs than he’d remembered, too. But she wasn’t embarrassed, just gave him a weary smile.
“Shoot, honey, I got just enough time to get back home and cleaned up before I go back to work.”
“Oh, you remember? I’m flattered, Nate. Make that impressed, after everything you put away last night.”
“Um, yeah, well, yesterday wasn’t the best of days for me, at least till I met you.”
“That’s what got me here, you silver-tongued devil. I gotta run.” She walked over and patted him on the cheek.
“If you ever get shot, have them bring you to Providence Memorial—I work the night shift there.”
Ah, a nurse, he realized. “I’ll keep that in mind, but why do you think I’ll be shot?”
“You’re Border Patrol—at least, that was what you said last night—so it’ll probably only be a matter of time. I’ll let myself out. See you around, Nate.”
When she was gone, he locked up and took a shower, then got dressed again and grabbed some water bottles and a bag of beef jerky and headed out to his Bronco. Getting in, he headed south out of town, keeping an ear on his scanner for border chatter.
He stopped about two miles from his destination. Pulling a pair of binoculars from the backseat, he walked out into the scrub and found a good vantage point on a small rise. Making sure the setting sun wasn’t reflecting off his field glasses, he raised them and scanned the area to the south, looking over the cordoned-off crime scene where the Mexicans and the border agents had been killed. He watched Billy Travis strutting around as if he owned the place, barking out orders.
After watching the scene for a few minutes, he panned right and left, searching the horizon for anything out of the ordinary, but he was too far away.
The balding, bespectacled tech mixing up a batch of plaster of paris glanced up to see the sweating bottle hovering above him. “Hey, Nate, thanks.” He drained half the water in long swallows. “Aren’t you on leave pending that drug-bust investigation?”
“What can I say, I happened to be in the neighborhood.”
Kottke handed the bottle back and kept stirring the plaster. “Better check your zip code, then. You’re aimin’ to bust Travis’s balls again, aren’t you?”
“Won’t be a need to as long as he don’t come around and try stickin’ them in my face. What you got so far?”
“Right now, just the three
“What about the truck?”
“Wheelbase and axle width indicate it was a 1.5-ton panel truck, probably a Chevy G30, maybe a small IH model. We’ll know more once we run the tread pattern. The two agents were dumped in the SUV, which was driven out five miles to the middle of nowhere and torched. Second team’s working that now—at least they were dead before they burned.”
“Amen to that.” Nate repressed a shudder at the thought of how the Colombian and Mexican cartels killed undercover agents or screwups. One of the most common methods was to hang a tire soaked in gasoline around the victim’s neck and light it, guaranteeing a hideous, drawn-out death.
“That’s about all we’ve got right now, until we can get everything back to the lab—”
“Kottke, where the hell are you, that tread was supposed to be cast—”
Travis barreled around the corner of the van pulling up short when he saw Nate. “Goddammit, get that plaster over there and take those tire casts now.”
“Yes, sir.” Kottke shot Nate an apologetic glance, then scurried away.
“Now, what in the hell is an agent who’s supposed to be on leave doing sniffin’ around a crime scene he’s got no business being at?”
“Aw, Billy, don’t get your tighty-whities in a bunch. I just thought I’d drop by to see if you guys could use an extra hand, us being so short staffed and all.”
Travis got right in Nate’s face, his words spraying out only inches away. “Jesus Christ, Spencer, what part of
“By God, Travis, you best step back before you find yourself flat on your ass. And if anyone asks, you can say you tripped and fell against the van door,” Nate growled.
The other border agent glared at him for a moment longer, then stepped back. “Get out of here right now, Spencer, or my next call is to Roy, to tell him to put a leash on his dawg.”
“Piss on you, Travis.” Nate spun on his heel and stalked back to his Bronco, hoping the other agent would push it and give him a chance to knock him on his can. But the expected hand on his shoulder never came, and Nate opened the door of his little truck and stopped to look through the window at the busy agents and technicians working the scene.
