Niceville

side, a hard-edged man with cool gray eyes and good lines around them. He was wearing a crisp black dress shirt, open at the collar to show a section of tanned neck, charcoal slacks, well cut, and a pair of slim black wing tips. He had his bright gold CID badge clipped to his belt and a large stainless-steel Colt Python in a holster on his right side. He looked … 
fine
 … she thought. She leaned up to get a cheek kiss from Nick and inhaled his scent, which reminded her of tropical beaches and drinks with umbrellas in them.
    His hands on her shoulders were strong and warm and having him up close like this was probably going to be the best part of her day.
    They broke and she led him into her office, a bare-bones affair with a poster of a sailboat gliding across a teal blue lagoon to a palm island with clouds floating above it.
    “Thanks for coming, Nick.”
    “Always happy to see you, Lacy.”
    “Me too. I was surprised when Kate told me you had some time. I figured you’d be all over this Gracie shooting.”
    “No. Cap City Feds have it. We’re not wanted at the dance.”
    “Boonie Hackendorff?”
    “Boonie’s a good cop, Lacy, under that dipshit beard.”
    “If you say so. Did you know any of the guys?”
    He shook his head.
    “Not if you mean like friends. Darcy Beaumont was tight with Kate’s brother, Reed, and the Goodhew kid had helped us out once on a biker thing. But no, not like that. You?”
    She shook her head.
    “No, me neither.”
    There was nothing else to say and it was damned depressing to think about it, so they didn’t.
    “Anyway, where’s our guy?”
    “He’s got a client next door at Wiggles. He’ll be here in a minute.”
    “He’s still
dealing
, even now?”
    Lacy lifted her shoulders, said, in a fake Spanish accent, “I know nothing. I am from Barcelona.”
    “Manuel.
Fawlty Towers
.”
    That got a big smile.
    “I’m trying to find Lemon something better to do with his life.”
    “Such as?”
    “If he can beat this ecstasy bust, I think he might be willing to go into one of our Better Chance programs. He taught himself how to fix helicopters when he was with Recon in Iraq. A good aircraft mechanic can pull down more than you and me together.”
    “You’re putting a lot of faith and effort into a hustler, Lacy.”
    “Hope springs eternal.”
    “It sure does in you.”
    He liked her for that, among other things.
    “So. You want to lay it out for me?”
    She did. Lemon Featherlight’s status as a street source for the Niceville Drug Squad guys had apparently meant dick to the Cap City DEA unit, who set him up on an ecstasy sting for reasons which, it seemed to Lacy Steinert, arose chiefly out of sheer boredom.
    Nick, who secretly felt that the DEA was an agency with no reason to live, was thinking about a reply when there were steps in the hall and then a tall tanned figure, blade-slim but broad at the shoulders, filled the doorway.
    Nick got up and turned to face him as Lemon Featherlight paused at the threshold.
    Featherlight was wearing well-cut navy blue trousers, some kind of Italian slippers in dark green leather, a white shirt open a couple of buttons to show a well-muscled chest. He had a fine-boned face with eyes as sea green as Lacy’s and the same Chinese eyes. It struck Nick that they could have been brother and sister.
    Featherlight’s black hair, parted in the middle and combed straight back, was long and as shiny as a raven’s wing. He looked back at Nick with a direct but nonchallenging expression, and, after a moment, put out a tentative hand.
    Nick took it, a firm dry hand, with a powerful grip, shook it once, looking back at Lemon Featherlight in that way he had, expressionless but searching, a cool light in his gray eyes.
    “Detective Kavanaugh. Thanks for coming,” said Featherlight in a baritone whisper, a trace of that flat twangy South Florida accent. Lacy, aware that Nick had other things to do, got right to it.
    “I’ve filled Nick in on your situation. He’s making no promises, but I think the best thing you can do is sit down and tell him what you know.”
    Featherlight took a wooden chair, pushed it back against the wall to give himself some distance from Lacy and Nick, paused a moment.
    “Where should I start?”
    Nick, leaning on the wall next to the door, his arms folded across his shirt, said, “You were involved with the Teagues. Tell me how.”
    Featherlight went quiet for a moment, seeming to gather himself, and