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negatives?’

Mike found a crusted rag and used it to plug the drain. ‘We’re out of options.’

As the water rose, he spread several moving blankets out on the floor beside the basin and angled a set of floodlights directly down onto them. ‘We have to peel them apart right away.’

When Mike cut the water, the silence was pronounced, every plink from the faucet reverberating off the high rafters.

They crossed to the safe and lifted it from either side, careful to keep the door clamped shut. With some effort they carried it over and rested it on the lip of the basin. Shep’s eyes were shiny and excited. ‘Ready?’

They slid the safe over, and it hit the water with a slap, a wave rolling back and splashing their thighs. A spike of two-by-four gouged the underside of Mike’s forearm, but he held tight, settling the safe gently on the bottom.

He stepped back and shook his arms, spattering the concrete with drops of blood and water. Shep stayed put, elbows resting on the edge of the basin, a dugout-railing lean. After testing that the blankets had warmed beneath the floodlights, Mike went to Shep’s side, mirrored his position, and peered down. Bubbles streamed from the drill hole in the top of the safe. They made the faintest sound when they hit the surface, like guppies feeding.

Mike tried not to think of the water seeping into those photo negatives. He tried not to think about what would happen if they got ruined, if the wires sparked when the door opened despite the water, if they weren’t the negatives Two-Hawks was looking for. His knee vibrated up and down, a nervous tic.

They waited, watching the safe slowly fill.

Chapter 52

William and Dodge sat in the musty kitchen of the clapboard house, flipping desperately through the list of foster homes in California and the neighboring states. They had narrowed the list considerably but still had a mile of addresses. Boss Man had been breathing down their necks, so William and Dodge had forgone sleep for two nights running. After last night’s heist, Boss Man’s impatience had turned to fury. William had been calling in favor after favor from various patrolmen in various departments, crossing names off the list with a bloody red marker. He had cops spreading out through four states, checking in on foster homes, looking for new faces.

The kitchen was so far gone that months ago he and Dodge had given up any pretense of trying to clean it. Grease spattered the wall above the stove, dust clouded the windows, spills of salt dotted the floor like mini pyramids. And yet somehow they managed, cleaning out a coffee cup or a plate at a time before returning it to the dirty dishes mounded in the sink or stacked along the counters. Perched anomalously atop the long-broken microwave was a fax machine, a few dead flies caught in the paper feed.

Dodge sat across from William, reading a graphic novel and sipping deliberately from a glass of hot tea. In the soft light, his features looked even more indistinct, the edges of his nose blurred into his cheeks as if smoothed out with a putty knife. Now and then he absentmindedly rubbed the broad pad of his thumb against his forefinger, giving off a rasp. That was how he showed impatience when he was itching to use his hands.

William had just plugged in his cell phone to recharge when it trilled. The movement of Dodge’s thumb paused.

William checked the caller-ID screen, then picked up and asked, ‘You got him for us?’

‘Those bastards at Susanville PD aren’t going to turn Shepherd White over to us.’ Boss Man’s voice was tense and driving. ‘In fact, he was released nearly three hours ago.’

‘Released?’ Rattled, William sat on a waist-high stack of brittle newspapers. ‘Dodge prepped the cellar already. Where the hell was Graham?’

‘Dead,’ Boss Man said.

‘Graham’s dead,’ William repeated for Dodge’s sake.

Dodge looked up, sipped his tea, and lowered his gaze again to the comic. His thumb resumed the gentle scratching motion.

‘He’d gone offline, so I had Sac PD send over a car to take a look,’ Boss Man continued. ‘Shot in his bed.’

William realized what he’d heard in Boss Man’s voice that had made him so uneasy. Something he’d never heard in it before. Desperation. William breathed out through his nose, scratched his cheek, quelled the rush of concern in his chest. ‘It’ll be okay.’

‘Oh? You’ve handled this before, have you? You’ve dealt with state officials when they come knocking? You know how to pull strings inside a murder investigation of the goddamned director of an agency?’ His breaths filled the receiver. ‘Don’t tell me what’ll be fine. I say when it’ll be fine.’

‘Yessir.’

‘Now, fortunately we still have plenty of friends. I’m sitting across from one of Graham’s chiefs right now. It seems Graham sent us a little gift from beyond the grave. Our soon-to-be partner here has been monitoring a particular individual’s activity. Once he caught word of Graham’s death, he came here to deliver the news personally.’ A heightened pause. ‘He managed to back-trace a signal.’

William shot a breath of relief, then said, past the phone to Dodge, ‘We have an address.’

Dodge set down the graphic novel, smoothed his hands across the cover, and rose.

‘The name is a familiar one,’ Boss Man said.

William flipped over a piece of paper and held the bloodred point of the marker at the ready. He felt his lips stick to his teeth and realized he was grinning in anticipation.

‘Go get answers,’ Boss Man said. ‘Any way you can.’

Chapter 53

The photo negatives – aside from the top one in the stack, which had disintegrated in Mike’s hands – had emerged from the water surprisingly intact. They had stuck together at first, which actually served to protect the ones in the middle. Mike had been eager to deliver them, but Shep had forced him to let them lie for a time after drying so the floodlights could bake out any hidden moisture. Now it was a few minutes past midnight, and Mike sat alone with Two-Hawks in a sealed room behind the fill bank at the Shasta Springs Band of Miwok Casino, where jackpots were paid out. The table between them was stainless steel, and a matching cart in the corner held a money-counting machine, an accountant’s calculator, a heavy phone, and a Polaroid instant camera. This was a room that changed the course of people’s fortunes, and tonight, Mike prayed, would be no exception.

Shep was waiting nearby, parked on an unlit road, prepared to unleash hell if Two-Hawks failed to deliver what he’d promised. On the way over, Shep and Mike had stopped to make an addition to the growing stash hidden behind their motel room’s heating vent – the Deer Creek tribe genealogy report. Back in the dank warehouse, with the footlights warming his shoulders, Mike had stared down in wonderment at his family tree, that official scalloped seal marking the top of the wet page. All those names and dates, the entanglements and forks, a history in which he was embedded. When he saw the place reserved for his own name, Michael Trainor, amid the vast and intertwined lineage, he had felt too overwhelmed to speak. But hours later, once the water had dried, leaving the pages stiff, it had struck him that the words were only ink on paper, that he’d already had a place in the world. The only path to reclaiming it ran through the man sitting opposite him now.

Two-Hawks raised each negative to the light and squinted up at it, his dark eyes moist. Wrinkles fanned through his cheeks. His tribe would keep their federal recognition, certainly, but it was clear that the images meant much more to him. He was soaking them in one at a time, and Mike’s patience had grown thin enough to put a fist through.

‘Thank you,’ Two-Hawks said. ‘These are amazing. I’ve dreamed about that settlement since I was a young boy. Did you see?’ He offered a fragile negative across the table, but Mike just stared at him.

Two-Hawks’s expression of wonder was replaced by sheep-ishness. He rode his rolling chair over to the cart and murmured something into the phone. A few minutes later, Blackie entered and set down a safe-deposit box on the table in front of Mike.