“Was his ol’ lady with him?” Wiley asked. Turning to Shaw, he added, “He had a live-in who ragged on him.”

Hickam said, “She was there, all right, and did more than rag on him. They got into it. Put on a floor show for the crowd, the bartender said. She stormed out with two girlfriends. No sooner had she left than Royce started tangling tongues with another girl. Around midnight, he and the newbie staggered out together. All this has been corroborated by the witnesses they’ve been able to locate.”

“What does Royce’s ol’ lady have to say about it?” Wiley asked.

Hickam told them that Morrow himself had gone to pick her up at her place of employment. “She oversees the paint department in a big-box store. Morrow said she dropped to her knees and started wailing when he broke the news. Said her shock and tears looked genuine, but he brought her in anyway. She swears she didn’t see or speak to Royce after leaving the bar.”

“She lawyer up yet?”

“No, but he sent deputies to round up the two friends who drove her home last night. They were questioned separately, and their stories match hers. They took her back to the apartment she shared with Royce where they killed a couple bottles of wine toasting the good riddance of him. Around four a.m., the friends decided they were too drunk to drive home, so they crashed there at her place and got up this morning barely in time to drag themselves to work.”

“What’s Morrow’s read on her alibi?” Wiley asked.

“He tends to believe it.”

“I do.”

At Shaw’s succinct statement, Wiley turned around to look at him. Hickam was watching him in the rearview mirror. He said, “It doesn’t sound like a crime of passion. Not the way you described the scene. The shooter fired once? With intent?” He shook his head. “That’s not a pissed-off girlfriend’s kind of kill. A recently dumped ol’ lady would have emptied the pistol into him, then called the cops herself and told them where to find his sorry dead ass.”

Wiley nodded, looking glum. “Unless evidence places the recent ex at the scene, I’ve gotta say I agree.”

Shaw addressed Hickam in the mirror. “What about the newbie? The bartender said they left together.”

“They exited together. They could have parted ways in the parking lot.”

“Or not,” Shaw said.

“Or not. Because there were partial footprints outside the passenger door. But first responders found the pickup empty except for Royce. ME estimated time of death between midnight and two a.m.”

“Who called it in?” Wiley asked.

“The side road is a private drive that leads to a house way back in the woods. The property owner is retired. He and his wife were leaving for an early lunch. Royce’s pickup had them blocked in. The missus got out to check, so it could be her footprints outside the truck. They’re making casts.”

“The retirees know Royce?”

“No.”

“Okay,” Wiley said. “Leaving Morrow, where? All he has so far are the current two women in Royce’s life.”

“They’re trying to track down the newbie,” Hickam said. “But Morrow didn’t have a positive on her name, much less where to find her. He has a lot on his plate. Pulling off that act to spring you,” he said to Shaw in the mirror. “Now this. He asked us to give him a heads-up when we’re five minutes out.”

Again, Shaw laid his head back and closed his eyes while the two of them lapsed into a conversation about an asshole of a coroner and the brisk trade he was doing this week.

Shaw tuned them out and thought about Jordie—more specifically how rancid her thoughts about him must be. Why did you do the rest of it? she’d asked, referring to all the awful things he’d subjected her to. Fear, deprivation, humiliation, browbeating.

A kiss.

What really sucked? She would forever think that the kiss had been just another maneuver to try to get information from her, and not a matter of life or death. His life, not hers. He’d had to kiss her. Simple as that.

Although it wasn’t simple at all. He was a federal agent. She was a material witness in a criminal investigation. Which, by the rule book, placed her off-limits in capital letters. But he bent rules all the time, and he had no control over his dirty dreams.

A half hour later, Wiley roused him from a light sleep. “Kinnard? We’re almost there.”

Wiley placed the heads-up call to Morrow. Shaw put on the hoodie, wincing as he pushed his arms through the sleeves, which caused a strain on his incision and all the internal stitches. The blue lenses of the sunglasses probably made his complexion look sickly. At least it felt sickly. He was clammy all over. His limbs were weak and shaky. His side hurt like the very devil.

He wished he could lie down, close his eyes, and stretch out along the backseat the way he’d stretched Jordie out, adjusting her inert arms and legs, lifting her hair off her cheek.

Swearing under his breath because he couldn’t stop thinking about her, he flipped the hood over his head, opened the backseat door, and got out. Instantly he was enveloped by the swampy heat, made worse by the fleece hoodie. Goddamn Hickam had chosen it on purpose.

The sheriff’s department annex was an old and ugly building. At the back corner of it was an unmarked employee entrance where Morrow was waiting for them. He frowned at Shaw. “You shouldn’t have come.”

“We tried telling him,” Hickam said.

“You look worse off than Royce Sherman,” the deputy said.

“I’m okay.”

“Listen.” Morrow held up his hand in front of Shaw’s chest. “Nobody in this department knows what we pulled this morning except the dispatcher and the two deputies who posed as the ambulance drivers. All friends of mine. Not even the sheriff himself knows. It gets out, I’ll probably get canned.”

“Nobody’ll hear it from me. I know you stuck your neck out. Thank you again.”

“You’re welcome. But it’s not just that. This building is full of officers who were in on the manhunt for you. They wouldn’t take kindly to you being here.”

“They should thank me for the overtime.”

“What I’m saying is, I don’t think this cool getup is going to fool anybody.”

“You’d be surprised. What people aren’t looking for, they rarely see.”

Still concerned, Morrow said, “If an officer does spot you, he might shoot first and ask questions later.”

“If it comes to that, feel free to blow my cover.”

“At least you shaved.”

“Part of the hospital’s grooming and personal hygiene service.” His identifying scar didn’t show up as well without a scruff, so he hadn’t objected when the guy who’d given him the bed bath started lathering his face.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Morrow ushered them into the building and led them down a short hallway to a doorway with a wired window. “Take a look.”

Wiley and Hickam looked first, then it was Shaw’s turn. He tipped down the sunglasses in order to see better. Inside the interrogation room, two officers were unsuccessfully trying to calm down a young woman whose head was bent low over her chest as she sobbed into her hands.