Niceville

After-Action Reports.”
    Nick thought about that. “Okay, well, if that shrapnel came out of Haggard’s chest, I’d say we’ve gone from a disappearance to a homicide.”
    “That’s what I think too. We’re declaring Temple Hill a crime scene. And we’ve got everybody we can spare out looking for any sign of either of them. Are you going to go back to Delia’s house after you see Rainey?”
    I’d rather stick hot needles in my eyes
.
    “I don’t think so. We’d just get in the way. But keep me in the mix, will you?”
    “I will. I talked to Mavis, a while ago. She called in to ask exactly the same thing you asked. ‘How did Nick like the house?’ What the hell went on up there, anyway?”
    Nick was quiet for a moment, watching Lady Grace fill up the windscreen. He realized, abruptly, that he had not heard back from Kate, and for some reason that bothered him more than it should have.
    “I don’t know, Tig. Beau and I saw some crazy stuff, hard to explain. Got to run, Tig. We’re at Lady Grace.”
    “Okay. Check back.”
    “I will.”
    Beau pulled the cruiser to a stop at the main entrance to Lady Grace. Lemon Featherlight was waiting outside, under the arch, smoking a cigarette and watching them, looking jumpy and spooked. He came up to the passenger window as they cracked their doors.
    “Nick, they won’t let me back in to see Rainey! Talk to them. I really think I can help.”
    “So do I,” said Nick. “Let’s go.”

Saturday Night

Danziger Checks In
    After a very hectic but productive afternoon during which he worked out and executed a seriously entertaining way to manage the Cosmic Frisbee Exchange with Byron Deitz, Charlie Danziger was back at his home, a mid-sized horse farm he ran a few miles up into the rolling countryside just north of Niceville, a large log-framed rancher furnished mainly in bare wood, Mexican rugs, gun racks, and saddle-leather chairs with steer-horn arms—Danziger, like Ralph Lauren, was a man of simple cowpoke tastes—and some brand-new pine-board stables, beside a fenced-in paddock for breaking and training, a few acres of rolling grassland, enough to keep eight quarter horses happy.
    He showered, shaved, showered again to be on the safe side, replaced his bandages—he had to admit for a Sicilian pervert dentist, Donny Falcone knew how to sew up a chest wound—changed into clean clothes, burned his old ones, with the exception of his navy blue boots. A prudent cowboy never threw away his lucky boots.
    He cooked himself a huge bloody steak and poured himself a massive jug of cold Pinot Grigio, consumed both with real enjoyment, lit himself up a borrowed Camel—he owed Coker three packs by now—and then, rested and reasonably calm, he sat down at his computer to see how well the flash drive that he had given to Boonie Hackendorff had actually worked.
    Because, aside from the names of all his Wells Fargo associates, the flash drive he had given to Boonie had also carried a program, available on CopNet, which, when the flash drive was plugged into the mainframe, did some cyber-voodoo thing that gave Danziger a backdoorlook at everything that was going on in Boonie Hackendorff’s desktop computer.
    His PC got all warmed up and he typed in a few keystrokes, listening to the cross talk between the Niceville PD and the State Patrol on a police scanner set on a sideboard in his dimly lit office, the walls of which were covered with very nice oils showing various scenes of the Snake River country and the Grand Tetons where he had grown up and the Powder River country where he hoped to be buried if the circumstances of his demise left enough of him to justify the trouble and expense.
    The screen flowered into cool blue light, and he was looking at the crest of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, over a red-lettered warning bar letting it be known that all ye who enter here had better have their shit together or else.
    A few minutes later, he was looking at Boonie Hackendorff’s notes on the Gracie Bank robbery, Incident Number CC 9234K 28RB 8766.
    Boonie’s notes on the Gracie robbery were clear, concise, well organized, very professional, in Charlie’s view a credit to the service. By the time he had gotten to the end of them, he had concluded that he did not have nearly enough Pinot Grigio in the house to drown this ugly-ass bad news, or enough cigarettes to smoke it away.
    He and Coker needed to talk.
    He called Coker and told him so.
    Coker replied that