Shadowfires

contract of some kind.”
    “You're going to keep poking around, aren't you?”
    “I told you, Reese, I feel a special connection with that poor
Hernandez girl.”
    “Don't worry; they'll find her killer.”
    “Sharp? We're supposed to rely on him? He's a jackass. You
see the way he dresses?” Julio, of course, was always impeccably
dressed. “The sleeves on his suit jacket were about an inch too
short, and it needed to be let out along the back seam. And he
doesn't polish his shoes often enough; they looked like he'd just
been hiking in them. How can he find Ernestina's killer if he can't
even keep his shoes properly polished?”
    “I have a feeling of my own about this one, Julio. I think
they'll have our scalps if we don't just let it go.”
    “I can't walk away,” Julio said adamantly. “I'm still in. I'm in for the duration. You can opt out if you want.”
    “I'll stay.”
    “I'm putting no pressure on you.”
    “I'm in,” Reese said.
    “You don't have to do anything you don't want to do.”
    “I said I was in, and I'm in.”
    Five years ago, in an act of unparalleled bravery, Julio Verdad
had saved the life of Esther Susanne Hagerstrom, Reese's daughter and only child, who had then been just four years old and achingly small and very helpless. In the world according to Reese Hagerstrom, the seasons changed and the sun rose and the sun set and the sea rose and the sea fell all for one reason: to please Esther Susanne. She was the center, the middle, the ends, and the circumference of his life, and he had almost lost her, but Julio had saved her, had killed one man and nearly killed two others in order to rescue her, so now Reese would have walked away from a million-dollar inheritance sooner than he would have walked away from his partner.
    “I can handle everything on my own,” Julio said. “Really.”
    “Didn't you hear me say I was in?”
    “We're liable to screw ourselves into disciplinary suspensions.”
    “I'm in.”
    “Could be kissing good-bye to any more promotions.”
    “I'm in.”
    “You're in, then?”
    “I'm in.”
    “You're sure?”
    “I'm sure.”
    Julio put the car in gear, pulled away from the curb, and headed
out of Placentia. “All right,
we're both a little whacked out, need some rest. I'll drop you off at
your place, let you get a few hours in the sack, and pick you up at
ten in the morning.”
    “And where will you be going while I'm sleeping?”
    “Might try to get a few winks myself,” Julio said.
    Reese and his sister, Agnes, lived with Esther Susanne on East
Adams Avenue in the town of Orange, in a pleasant house that Reese
had rather substantially remodeled himself during his days off. Julio
had an apartment in an attractive Spanish-style complex just a block
off Fourth Street, way out at the east end of Santa Ana.
    Both of them would be going home to cold and lonely beds.
Julio's wife had died of cancer seven years ago. Reese's wife, Esther's mother, had been shot and killed during the same incident in which he had almost lost his little girl, so he had been a widower five years, only two less than Julio.
    On the 57 Freeway, shooting south toward Orange and Santa Ana,
Reese said, “And if you can't sleep?”
    “I'll go into the office, nose around, try to see if anyone knows anything about this Sharp and why he's
so damned hot to run the show. Maybe ask around here and there about
Dr. Eric Leben, too.”
    “What're we going to do exactly when you pick me up at ten in the morning?”
    “I don't know yet,” Julio said. “But I'll have figured out
something by then.”

----
13 REVELATIONS
    They took Sarah Kiel to the hospital in the
stolen gray Subaru. Rachael arranged to pay the hospital bills, left
a ten-thousand-dollar check with Sarah, called the girl's parents in Kansas, then left the hospital with Ben and went looking for a suitable place to hole up for the rest of the night.
    By 3:35 Tuesday morning, grainy-eyed and exhausted, they
found a large motel on Palm Canyon Drive with an all-night desk
clerk. Their room had orange and white drapes that almost made
Ben's eyes bleed, and Rachael said the bedspread pattern looked like yak puke, but the shower and air-conditioning worked, and the two queen-size beds had firm mattresses, and the unit was at the back of the complex, away from the street, where they could expect quiet even after the town came alive in the morning, so it wasn't
exactly hell on earth.
    Leaving Rachael alone for ten minutes, Ben drove the stolen Subaru
out the