Assassin Fish E-Book

Amy Lane

• Herausgeber: Dreamspinner Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: Desert Fish
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 531

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2026

Beschreibung

Eric Chistiansen—not his real name—has been looking for sanctuary for a long time. He finally thinks he's found a crime syndicate that might watch his back while he tries to disentangle himself from his highly lucrative, highly illegal job as a killer for hire, albeit a picky one. He's ready to hang up his guns for some peace. Brady Carnegie came to this little slice of desert between Meth and Hell because he wanted to help bring crime down. He's deeply disappointed to find that his new boss and others in the department are crooked. But Brady has stumbled onto the key to ending the corruption plaguing the stretch of desert he's coming to love, if he can stay alive long enough to use it. Brady finds unexpected allies in the same unlikely group that's sheltering Eric and starts to realize that the good guys may not wear badges, and the bad guys who do have enough to lose to put his new friends at risk too. Brady's always been a solid law and order man, but he finds himself shifting allegiances like the desert sands shift beneath his feet. As Eric grows more protective of the earnest deputy, it becomes clear that a true warrior never gets to hang up his guns, and redemption doesn't come without a price. Can a hidden nest of vigilantes bring justice to their barren land while the cop and the hitman find comfort in each other's arms? Or is the cost of redemption only measured in blood?

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Blurb

Dedication

Author’s Note

Unwelcome

A Pond of Sand

Friendly Rattlesnakes

Regular Human Things

So Many Inconvenient Things

9-1-1

Night Swimming

Charlie’s Not Sorry

Awakenings

Sunshine and Blood

You Know What I Am

At the Hanging Stoplight

Moving Parts

Dues, Son. Dues.

Lines Dissecting Love

Serenity

Big Hard Sun

Blind Faith

Read More

About the Author

By Amy Lane

Visit Dreamspinner Press!

Copyright

Assassin Fish

By Amy Lane

Eric Chistiansen—not his real name—has been looking for sanctuary for a long time. He finally thinks he’s found a crime syndicate that might watch his back while he tries to disentangle himself from his highly lucrative, highly illegal job as a killer for hire, albeit a picky one. He’s ready to hang up his guns for some peace.

Brady Carnegie came to this little slice of desert between Meth and Hell because he wanted to help bring crime down. He’s deeply disappointed to find that his new boss and others in the department are crooked. But Brady has stumbled onto the key to ending the corruption plaguing the stretch of desert he’s coming to love, if he can stay alive long enough to use it.

Brady finds unexpected allies in the same unlikely group that’s sheltering Eric and starts to realize that the good guys may not wear badges, and the bad guys who do have enough to lose to put his new friends at risk too. Brady’s always been a solid law and order man, but he finds himself shifting allegiances like the desert sands shift beneath his feet.

As Eric grows more protective of the earnest deputy, it becomes clear that a true warrior never gets to hang up his guns, and redemption doesn’t come without a price. Can a hidden nest of vigilantes bring justice to their barren land while the cop and the hitman find comfort in each other’s arms? Or is the cost of redemption only measured in blood?

You guys—this was so much fun to write. Mate and Mary get super props, of course, but going back into this world and revisiting these people and writing an ensemble-cast action-adventure book was SO MUCH FUN—and for this one, I owe my readers, who kept asking me questions and wanted to see the wrongs of the world RIGHTED and the right people punished and the good guys to have love. So thank you to my readers and Patreon people. The hope that good wins at least some of the time sustains us all.

Author’s Note

Just for the record, vigilante justice is really only okay if you’re Batman or a Fish in the desert. In real life I don’t really approve, but fiction is for fantasies, right?

Unwelcome

BRADY CARNEGIE wrinkled his nose, clutching the plastic bag with the cell phone in it to his chest almost like a child.

Well, children’s pictures had been on the cell phone, but not the good kind. The terrible kind, imprinted in Brady’s unwilling gray matter, burned behind his eyeballs for the rest of his life, those sweet, innocent babies and the preacher of the revival tent church nearly forty miles away.

And of the man whose skeleton was currently charred beyond recognition in the burned-out carcass of his police SUV.

The phone, relatively unscathed, had been unlocked, and somebody had made the homemade pornography the phone’s wallpaper.

Deputy Roy Kuntz showed up in some of those pictures, but most of them featured his brother, Preacher Donnie Ray Kuntz as the star.

Brady had lived in the area for about a year and some change. He’d heard of Preacher Donnie Ray, who worked under the big revival tent about a parking lot away from a really big recently refurbished house.

And he’d worked with Roy. Hadn’t liked Roy. Had done backflips and double shifts and worked holidays to avoid being partnered with him. Had never thought the man had his back.

But they’d been coworkers nonetheless, and these… these abominations on the phone by Roy’s barbecued vehicle were blood-freezing and awful.

The sheriff, Arlen Cuthbert, didn’t seem as disturbed as Brady.

A big man, much of his high school football weight sagging on his middle-aged bones and much of his gray hair reduced to a tired hula skirt around his bald scalp, Arlen Cuthbert nonetheless held some power in this weird territory in California.

East of San Diego and Los Angeles, they were also south of Meth and north of Hell—at least they were on some of the maps Brady had seen. On the one hand, there wasn’t much out here but a whole lot of long, desolate roadways that cut through the Mojave Desert and Death Valley.

On the other hand, there were small towns strung together by hundreds of miles of two-lane freeways, towns that had banks and meth labs and mini-marts and innocent civilians and desperate people, all of whom could clash at unreasonable times.

Brady had done his research before he’d taken this job—he’d seen that the crime rate had been steadily on the decrease over the last two years before he’d transferred. He’d wanted in on that action, some police work that gave his profession a good name!

The one thing he’d realized over the last year was that whatever was affecting the crime rate, diminishing the mob presence, reducing the meth labs, getting rid of the dangerous people with guns who liked to knock over small businesses and banks—whatever the hell this force for good was, it was not the police force.

Not south of Meth and north of Hell, anyway.

And it sure as shit wasn’t Arlen Cuthbert.

“Well, Donnie Ray and Roy, they was tight,” Arlen said.

“This isn’t guys at a barbecue!” Brady heard the disgust cracking his voice and wondered at his own sanity. The contents of this phone were an abomination—everything he knew about the world said that. How could Arlen be so unfazed? “This is two pedophiles and a whole bunch of kids who are never going to be the same!”

Arlen hawked and spat, the spittle landing close enough to the still smoking remains of the SUV to sizzle. “They’ll be okay, I guess,” he said, not meeting Brady’s eyes.

Brady fought the urge to scream. “What about Roy?” he asked. “Will he be all right?”

Arlen stared at the blackened thing in the SUV for far longer than Brady’d had the stomach for. “Don’t reckon it matters much now what he did when he was alive,” he mused, and Brady wondered if he could be convicted for shooting his boss.

“It matters to those children!” he snapped. “It matters to their parents! My God, Arlen, somebody killed Roy Kuntz. Don’t you even care?”

“You got anywhere to start looking for that man?” Arlen asked him.

Brady gestured helplessly to the other wreck on the road, an empty Chevy Impala that lay, crushed and useless, a good seventy-five yards away.

The car was demolished—nobody could have walked away from that disaster. And yet, nobody had. There were no prints in either direction of the wreck, and although Brady had searched for fifty feet in either direction of the entire collision site, he couldn’t find a sign that anybody had been nearby when the Impala had T-boned the cop car and gone rolling off into the desert.

So… what? Was it a magic fucking Chevy Impala? It just tootled along, causing destruction and mayhem wherever it may roam? Brady loved cars—always had—but as far as he knew, his dream of a magic car that talked and made decisions of its own had gone the way of Santa Claus and the Easter Buggy… erm, Bunny.

Brady choked back a snort of laughter at that, and Sheriff Cuthbert eyed him sourly.

“What’s so goddamned funny?” he asked.

“Who was driving the goddamned Impala?” Brady snapped.

“Who cares?” Arlen snapped back.

“You should!” Brady cried. “Arlen, whoever was driving that vehicle murdered a law officer!”

Arlen held out his hand and wobbled it, and Brady had to concede.

“Okay, they wreaked vengeance on a pedophile,” Brady muttered, clutching the phone to his chest. “Either way, don’t you want to get to the bottom of that?”

“The phone or the crispy critter there?” Arlen asked.

“Can we do both?” Brady asked.

Arlen rolled his eyes. “Son, you’ve got an inflated opinion of our little station house. What do I got? Eight, ten deputies? For how many square miles?”

“Then call in the CBI!” Brady told him. The California Bureau of Investigation was made for things like this, right?

“They’d just make a lot of fuss about that phone,” Arlen said, spitting again. The spit still sizzled, so neither of them were going anywhere.

“They should!” Brady burst out, and Arlen’s pose of annoyance gave way to absolute hostility.

“We don’t need to be digging into what’s already dead,” he said with conviction. “Now give me that thing, and I’ll put it in an evidence locker―”

“And let it rot?” Brady yanked it back from him. “No. No, Arlen. I’m taking this thing to the CBI in Sacramento if I have to drive there myself.”

Arlen blinked at him slowly—not as though he was surprised, but like a rattlesnake, calculating how and when to strike.

“You think you can do that?” he asked.

Brady fought the temptation to swallow. “Yes,” he said. “I’ll leave as soon as I clock—”

Arlen snatched the phone from his hand, and while Brady had fast reflexes, he pulled back before he broke the older man’s arm.

“What in the fuck?”

“You swear like a faggot,” the old sheriff said. “I don’t need you to do my job for me. Go write a ticket or something.”

While Brady stared at the old man, he hawked back in his throat and made to spit again—on Brady’s feet. Brady hopped backward, practically dancing, completely disgusted, and Arlen Cuthbert laughed.

“Go home, ya fuckin’ pansy. Or go back to your desk. Or go suck dick. I don’t fuckin’ care. This was one of ours. We’ll take care of him, and we don’t need no help from you.”

Brady’s eyebrows went up to his SCSD baseball cap, because this wasn’t Texas, but he still needed something to shade his eyes. “Roy and his brother haven’t been in Southern California much longer than I have,” he said, stung.

“Yeah, but I grew up with their daddy. Go the fuck away, Deputy Carnegie. I don’t fucking need you.”

“I’ll go file an accident report,” he said with dignity. He didn’t add, With the CBI, asshole! Because he didn’t think Arlen knew about that.

And he was on his way to do just that, heading west toward Barstow, when he got a call on his radio. Dispatch—who apparently didn’t know Arlen had lost his mind—was calling for all officers in the area to come to the residence of one Donnie Ray Kuntz.

He’d been murdered.

Brady was close enough to be the first responding officer on the scene, and as he stood in the man’s study, looking in horror at the puddles—puddles—of blood that had drained from the man’s arm as he’d sat half-naked at his desk in front of his computer, Brady listened to the screaming and sobbing of the women in the childcare wing of the house/church and had to fight off nausea.

There were pictures on that computer to match the ones on the phone near Roy’s flaming corpse.

Pictures, Brady was certain, that had been taken somewhere in this house.

Without second-guessing himself, he pulled out his cell phone and called his local FBI contact, Missing and Exploited Children department, and told them about the murder—and the evidence.

And then he told them that they had to get their asses out to the church before Arlen Cuthbert destroyed the crime scene the same way Brady was certain he was going to destroy the phone.

They were there before any other deputies from Brady’s station house arrived, and Brady turned the scene over to Jessica Chambers, a stout forty-ish woman who had competence written all over her freckled face.

“You sure you don’t want to help with this?” she asked, watching as her agents started taking the women aside to interview. It was a hard slog—so many children to contend with, most of them whimpering or outright screaming with upset.

Brady raised his eyebrow. “Is that a rhetorical question?”

She turned a rueful face toward him and then registered his expression. “What aren’t you telling me?” she asked.

So he told her. About the phone, about his sheriff’s refusal to investigate, about Brady’s threat to call the CBI—about all of it, and Jessica Chambers got a look of motherly concern that almost made Brady cry.

“Got it,” she said softly. “Yeah—we’ll investigate him. I’ll call you when I need information. What will you do?”

He shrugged and gave his best “aw shucks, ma’am” impression. “Well, here I was when suddenly the FBI just showed up. They must have picked it up over the airwaves somehow. I have no idea how they heard.”

Jessica nodded, but she didn’t look appeased. “Brady, we can offer you protection here. Are you sure you don’t want to take it?”

Brady thought of Arlen’s cutting words—and the homophobic slur—and shuddered.

Yes, a part of him was ready to be quit of this whole scene. He’d come here to be part of some exciting new law enforcement and had found himself embroiled into the same ol’ white boy corruption.

But… but… he still didn’t know why the crime wasn’t worse around here. It should be worse around here with Arlen Cuthbert in charge.

But it wasn’t.

“There’s something… odd about this area, Agent Chambers,” he said thoughtfully. “And a part of me loves it a lot. I think I’ll hang out for as long as possible. I’ve got some questions I need to answer, you know?”

“Fair, Deputy. Just… you know. Keep my number on speed dial. And let me know if any other developments in this case run by your desk, okay?”

Brady nodded his head, feeling a little like a secret agent.

At that moment, two squad cars from his department rolled up, sirens on full, humiliating blast.

“If you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I need to go lie to my fellow deputies.”

A Pond of Sand

HIS NAME may have been Eric James Christiansen on his driver’s license, passport, registration, and the deeds to three of his properties in the United States and Canada, but it wasn’t the name he was born with. Sometimes he liked to think he didn’t know the name he was born with—nuh-uh, couldn’t remember, no such person ever existed, who were we talking about again?

But then everything in his chest and brain would become rootless, unfocused, a foggy wasteland without a point of reference.

He’d be forced to backtrack through each name, each identity, each kill in order to clear the fog, to make everything hard-edged and crystal in his mind and heart, or he’d be lost in the past and he’d forget his name now.

It was easier to simply keep that past on the periphery and know he could go there if he was ever forced to again.

But it wasn’t his past that he was obsessing with today.

No. Today, it was whether he should put his bright and shiny name on the new, unfurnished house that he was currently pirating water, electricity, and sewage from via illegal RV hookups.

Pensively, he pondered the neighborhood as he sat on the steps of the RV itself, pushing at the six- and seven-toed kitten who kept trying to flounder his way out the door.

“No,” he said, hoping his voice was firm. It was hard to be firm when you were talking to a special-needs black cat. Black cats as a whole were stompy and loud and perfect, and while this one could barely walk, he was no less stompy and loud and perfect.

“Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow…,” his little friend complained, pushing his nose against Eric’s back.

“I wouldn’t let you out even if you had four toes,” Eric told him crisply. “This isn’t a special needs thing, this is a ‘I don’t want you to become a coyote’s dinner’ thing. Give it up….” He floundered for a name. He’d told people it was Oliver, but somehow that wasn’t sticking right now.

“Eddie,” he said, inspired. A fragment of his education—both the one he’d had in high school and the one he’d subjected himself to so he could appear cultured and well-read—drifted through his consciousness. Something about “clubbed feet.”

Oedipus.

Oedipus.

Eddie. Puss.

He started cackling to himself. Finally, after a month of cohabitation, he’d found the name for his stompy, loud little friend.

“Mew.” This next push against his back was a little harder. Not because the little tiger stripe was more agile, but because the tiny cart that carried her back end was so well-balanced, the kitten could breathe against the ground and push it half a mile.

“Katie,” he said to the kitten. “Katie, my darling little girl, no, my little one. Simply no.”

“Mew.”

He reached behind him and smoothed her crinkled whiskers back against her crimped, tiger-striped fur. Both kittens forgot immediately about escape, and she folded her paws in front of her and leaned against his backside, while Eddie gamboled to his sister to clean her ears.

He didn’t even have to look at them—he’d seen this dance before—and while his eyes had never left his new neighborhood, he sharpened his concentration on it again and tried to make his decision.

If this cul-de-sac—hell, if this block—had been placed anywhere else in the country, it would have been seen as a prime piece of real estate.

The houses were well-crafted, individual, and spacious, and their landscaping was drought friendly, which was great since they were practically in the middle of a place called Death Valley.

Death Valley tried to kill life forms dead—who wanted to live there?

He was lucky, he figured. He’d landed here in late February, about a month after an historic inland flood—a western hurricane, which was a once-in-a-hundred-year event—and he’d had a couple of days to figure that the high sixties was what passed as winter in a place that got to 120 regularly in the summer.

He needed to have his shit together by then, he thought, sipping his coffee appreciatively. If he was going to keep Katie and Eddie—most definitely Eddie—then he had to have a place that he could keep cool when he was not in it.

The RV he’d been living in for the last two months didn’t qualify—although he had seen some beautiful scenery traveling from Northern to Southern California between December and January.

But if he wanted to stay here, he had to… what?

He glanced around the cul-de-sac again, remembering that one of the residents had told him that while only one person on the block kept his pool filled, they all knew each other, and were welcome to use it.

On the one hand, it sounded unbearably ’70s and “let’s all get naked in the disco pool,” but having met all the residents, Eric had realized that while some of those men were criminals, none of them were “let’s get naked in the disco pool” types. This was both disappointing and reassuring, really.

Reassuring because Eric had realized that his “fucking everything that moved” days needed to be left in his rearview—that sort of thing could be fun, but it wasn’t good for him, not when he’d been craving a place to be accepted—and maybe redeemed—for the last nearly two decades of his life.

Disappointing because, well, damn. He was surrounded by taken gay men, not one of whom he’d kick out of bed for eating crackers.

Oh, and speaking of whom… here came one now.

Ernie—it was the only name he’d been given, and Eric knew better than to dig—was in his early to mid-twenties, willow slender, with dark curly hair and eyes so brown they were almost black. He had a narrow, almost vulpine face and an appealing, dreamy-eyed smile.

And his boyfriend was possibly one of the scariest motherfuckers Eric had ever met, in a long line of scary motherfuckers that Eric had either worked for or killed.

No, Eric would not be jumping into the disco pool with Lee Burton’s boyfriend, thank you very much.

But he would accept a pastry from the plate Ernie carried, because he understood Ernie’s donuts were a rite of passage and a blessing in the little community he’d found himself in.

“Oh my God,” he muttered as Ernie got near and the scent wafted toward him. “Cinnamon rolls?”

Ernie gave a winsome smile. “Yes, I know,” he said smugly. “Your favorite.”

Eric stared at him helplessly. “I, uhm, have some milk if you’d like to sit down with me?” He’d worked with psychics before—or people who had little tiny bits of the gift strewn in with their psyches here and there.

He’d never worked or met with an Ernie before. Ernie had taken one look at him, shaken his hand, and known him. The good and the bad. And oh boy, did Eric Christiansen have an awful lot of bad in his soul.

But Ernie had given him a chance—given him a vetting—into the exclusive little club that centered on this cul-de-sac, and he could only be grateful. He seemed to recall that gratitude involved social niceties. He’d have to brush up on his etiquette.

“I’d like that,” Ernie said. “Here, give me the coffee, and you can pick up the babies.”

“Thanks,” Eric told him, and he really was grateful. He scooped up the sleeping kittens and placed them gently in their top-loading crate. The inside of the crate featured a thick, soft bed, and if he was careful and timed it right—no more than two hours of napping in the crate—he could manage to get both kittens to their litter box before anything untoward happened.

Right now, it kept them from being underfoot, which, given that the RV was not exactly spacious, was what he wanted.

“Have you decided yet?” Ernie asked when they were situated with a glass of milk each and the amazing cinnamon rolls between them on the RV kitchenette table.

“Decided what?”

Eric was inhaling his pastry reverently, breathing softly in.

“Whether to move into the house,” Ernie said patiently, and Eric nodded in acknowledgment before pulling off a piece and dipping it in milk.

He took a bite that was like an explosion of innocence and lust on his palate and made sounds he would have been ashamed to make in bed.

Swallowing almost left him drained.

After another deep breath—and a tentative bite of the pastry to see if it was just as good as the first (it was)—he relaxed a little and met Ernie’s patient gaze.

“Was this to talk me into it?” he asked.

Ernie shrugged. “You made an impression at the barbecue. Sonny is already asking if he can visit the kittens, and while he’s a grown man and can take disappointment, I like to cushion the blow a little.”

Eric blinked. Sonny Daye, definitely not his real name, had been… interesting. Eric knew that there was something fundamentally broken in himself, something that made killing no big deal, that left him absolutely oblivious to the suffering of his fellow human beings once they’d passed a certain line in the sand.

Sonny should have been on the other side of that line, except Sonny had never killed another human being outside of battle.

Ever. His lover and protector, Ace (also not his real name), had shielded him from that choice.

Sonny was, for all intents and purposes, an innocent psychopath.

Eric rather enjoyed the little man’s company. He was like a small, misbehaving dog. He was a good dog at heart, but he had… intrusive thoughts. Eric rather desperately wanted the good dog to win out. That meant there was hope for him as well.

And Sonny really loved the kittens.

“What would I have to do?” Eric asked, not even sure he knew who to contact to buy the house he was currently squatting next to. Hell, he had no idea how this entire cul-de-sac functioned—there was power, water, even trash services, but to quote a movie, they were out in the middle of the fucking desert! How did you apply for a lease on a house in a cul-de-sac in the middle of the fucking desert?

“Tell Burton and Jason,” Ernie said, seemingly oblivious to Eric’s grimace.

If Burton was one of the scariest motherfuckers Eric had ever met, Jason Constance had trained that man, and he was also a scary motherfucker. Both of them were military, Eric was positive. Some sort of special operation. But also both gay and living out here with their boyfriends.

He should have been looking for munchkins and a field of poppies while he was here.

“They both own this place?” he asked uncertainly.

“Well, Burton bought our house from a real-estate company that probably fainted, and then Jason supplied power and water and got services running, and then they both pooled their resources—don’t ask. I’m sure you don’t want me to know about your money. Same. But this place is theirs. So you ask, you pay them whatever they think is fair, and, you know, maybe don’t fill in your pool. Or if you do, make it available, but seriously….” He grimaced. “Jason keeps his full, and since he and Cotton are only here for the weekends—”

“Anybody can use it,” Eric said, nodding. “You told me that. Does it get used a lot?”

Ernie snorted softly. “Yes. We all use it. Even Sonny and Ace, on their day off.”

They ran a garage across the highway from a filling station/Subway/mini-mart. They had a little house on the same property, and a tiny little dog—which is probably where Eric had gotten the analogy—and Eric got the impression that they’d started this little gathering in the desert and were quite surprised to find they were now surrounded by/responsible for other people.

They seemed to have just wanted to run their little garage and live their little lives, but Ace was meant for more than that, and he couldn’t seem to squelch that sense of responsibility, of leadership, in himself.

Of all the people Eric had met in this little corner of the desert, it wasn’t the scary military motherfuckers that Eric was afraid of dealing with. It was Ace.

“So their day off is….” he said, not sure if he’d be at the pool because of Sonny or not at the pool because of Ace.

And of course, he’d forgotten he was dealing with a psychic.

“Ace isn’t going to kill you in the pool,” Ernie said, obviously amused. “If he didn’t like you, he would have told you to move on and left it at that.”

Eric grimaced. Sure, Ace would have done that. But given that he’d seen the results of Ace’s work the day he’d arrived here, he was still a little wary.

Ernie let out a sigh. “Look, I can see that you still don’t quite get us. But please believe me when I say you have to be a real scumbag to have to worry about one of us offing you. I mean, I’m all-but-married to a government assassin. I was supposed to be a hit.”

“He couldn’t do it?” Eric asked, surprised. After meeting Burton, he didn’t think anything could interfere with the man’s agenda.

“Well, he was studying me as a hit, and he realized that it wasn’t that I was dangerous to the population, but what I knew was very dangerous to the man who’d tried to train me to help create assassins.”

“Oh! Karl Lacey?” Eric’s old unit, Corduroy, had been going to hook up with Admiral Lacey’s little psychosocial experiment—with an emphasis on psycho. He saw the expression on Ernie’s face and said, “God rot his soul in hell.”

Ernie nodded. “Yup. That’s the fucker. Burton figured out I could bring Lacey down, so he and Jason worked an undercover op to do that. We had some help, and it’s not all wrapped up yet, but yeah. Burton and Jason both have a conscience—and a skill set. Same with Ace and same with Jai.”

“The, uhm….”

“Giant bald Russian enforcer,” Ernie said. “Yeah—hi, Jai!”

“You are here,” said the giant bald Russian enforcer from Eric’s doorway. “I thought so. George is at work, and I am going to the garage. You are coming?”

Ernie grunted. “Yeah. I told Ace I’d work today. I wanted to show Eric how to care for the cats so he could be—”

“You wish to indoctrinate him into our happy neighbor assassin cult,” Jai said, and his broad face was so intimidating, Eric had trouble deciding if he was kidding or not. Only a twitch of his full mouth gave it away. “No need for the high pressure. You had him at cinnamon rolls.”

Eric was going to protest that he wasn’t that easy, but his mouth was full, and he didn’t want to rush the cinnamon orgasm that was about to explode in his palate.

Ah yes. He could breathe now.

Okay, then.

He gazed at Ernie and Jai in pure bafflement and said, “If I’d known my soul could be bought so cheaply, I might have settled for petty theft and assault before graduating to full-out assassin.”

Ernie guffawed like the twenty-something he appeared to be, and Jai’s laughter shook the RV. From their crate, the kittens purred contentedly, and Eric decided they would be fine in the mild temperatures while he took a tour of Ernie’s house.

OH, THIS was a mistake.

The house was… lovely. It had an open-plan kitchen/dining room/family area, a glass-bricked hallway to three bedrooms, one of which was filled with cat trees and cat beds (and cat boxes on the tiled floor), and the other of which was relatively cat free, but which had a carpet and a king-size bed. The third was used as a den, with a desk and a computer and a guest bed.

Ernie obviously lived in the spacious kitchen, which had restaurant-sized appliances, including a mixer, a blender, a deep fryer (for donuts, he explained proudly), and three ovens.

Much of it was done in white tile with red or wood accents, and while it wasn’t to Eric’s taste, it was….

Luxurious. Very individual. And obviously decorated for the people who lived there, including the cat fur, which some people might have objected to but Eric thought was the perfect finishing touch.

The fact that he knew people who agreed with him on that seemed more of a miracle than the assassin thing.

“So,” he said, after getting the tour and memorizing all of the places cat food needed to go and how often the many boxes needed to be cleaned. “Why are these houses here again?”

Ernie let out a laugh. “Well, the nearest we could figure was that when Karl Lacey was running his illegitimate military ops not far from here, an enterprising contractor caught wind of it and thought, ‘Hey—officers live off campus!’ So he started building an officer-quality neighborhood. But Lacey was off-book—and crazy—so no officers. By the time he was killed, the contractor was freaking out because he was about to take a bath. So when Burton offered to buy the one place, the contractor practically gave it away—and let on that the power, gas, and water hookups were partially completed through the military base. Jason heard about it and thought, ‘Hey, that could be handy, being gay and in the military and stuck out here in hell,’ and since it was going for a song—”

“He arranged for the hookups and bought the property,” Eric filled in.

Ernie shrugged. “Burton, Jason, Jason, Burton….” He held his hand up and wobbled it back and forth. “See, the desert is sort of an amazing place. Everything here has to fight to survive. This cul-de-sac is like water from a cactus, or maternal instinct from a coyote. It’s designed to give shelter to the creatures who belong here.”

Eric swallowed and glanced out Ernie’s window to his RV, parked in the driveway across the street. “You think so?” he asked, rather moved by Ernie’s poetry.

“You know who Karl Lacey was?” Ernie asked.

Eric swallowed grimly, remembering how Corduroy had seemed a decent place to work with a skill set like his, and then it had fallen apart when Lacey had signed on to give “perfect assassins” to his boss.

“I left,” he said through a dry throat, “shortly after he entered the picture. I wasn’t surprised to hear things went to shit with him, but I don’t know who killed him.”

Ernie chuckled. “You’ve met him,” he said, giving Jai a waggle of his eyebrows that made Jai crack up. “But unless you stay here for a month or two, I won’t tell you who it was.”

Eric’s breath caught. A puzzle. He hated puzzles. They drove him insane. It was how he got good at his trade. Every death was a perfect puzzle, the kind that, when assembled appropriately, was so seamless only the most discerning minds could figure out how it was put together.

And Ernie had just put a puzzle in his lap and told him he had the key.

He glanced back at the RV and sighed. “How long?” he said after a moment. “How long would it take for the sale to go through?”

“A month,” Ernie said without thought. “I’ll tell Burton you’re putting in an offer, you can have the keys in a month. The hookups will be fine until then, and the weather will stay mild, so the kittens will be safe in there, unless you’d rather leave them in my place when you’re going somewhere.”

Eric frowned at the RV again and thought about the awkwardness of driving it on errands—or even to Baker, which was the nearest town that could be considered a town.

“I’d have to—”

“You can use whatever I’m driving while I’m at work,” Ernie said brightly. “And ask Sonny and Ace to get you a vehicle.”

Eric tried to make that fit. “They could get me an SUV?”

Jai—who worked as a mechanic for the two men—snorted. “Ernie has already told them to be on the lookout for one.”

“Are they a dealership?”

Ernie laughed. “No,” he said. “Not even close.”

Eric Christiansen turned to Jai, hoping for some hints, but the big man only smirked. “I… I don’t understand.”

Jai shrugged. “Understand or don’t understand. Today you can drive my Cadillac if you need to shop. Drop us off at the garage and go on your way.” He frowned. “But maybe do leave the kittens in Ernie’s cat room. Ernie will shut the door and give them a quiet place.”

And like that, Eric’s day, which had started out peaceful and rather… unfocused, had purpose.

“Let me go shower and—”

“Shower here,” Ernie said decisively. “I know you’ve got the posh RV, but seriously, a real shower will give you an orgasm just by not bumping your head.”

Eric slow blinked. “Let me get my clothes and the kittens,” he said with dignity, wondering how Ernie knew he liked to, uhm… in the shower.

“I’m psychic,” Ernie said complacently. “But you should hurry. Ace and Sonny’s will get busy in an hour.”

As Eric strode off—or fled—he was mentally going through the clothes he’d brought with him in the RV and wondering what he had clean, and Ernie’s call of “And bring your laundry!” only sent him scurrying along more quickly.

How had he ended up here again?

Friendly Rattlesnakes

BRADY ADJUSTED his cap and watched as the tow truck backed slowly from the two-lane freeway onto the hardpan lot of the auto repair shop that was the only such place that existed this far from Palm Springs or Las Vegas.

“Are you guys sure you want this?” he asked. The SUV had been involved in a multicar pileup near Vegas, and while the man who’d driven it had gotten out alive, the car had been totaled. Brady, who sometimes patrolled the desolation between Las Vegas and Baker, including Victoriana, had been told that the scrapyard was backed up, and this was the last vehicle to dispose of. He’d seen various vehicles in construction as he’d passed this strip and the one toward Barstow, and he’d always been impressed by how quickly the project cars worked up.

And yes, he’d noticed the probably illegal street-racing vehicle that they tried to keep hidden on the shady side of the station. The color of a yellowjacket, with black and silver trim, the Ford SHO was a flashy beauty—and Brady had heard whispers of street races in which other rides wouldn’t even show up if they knew the SHO was coming.

He figured he was up to his eyeballs in meth labs and human trafficking, and the last thing he needed to do was bother two guys minding their own, but boy, would he like an excuse to get next to that SHO.

He figured maybe offering a Trojan Horse might do it.

He hadn’t reckoned on slightly less than six-feet of sex-on-legs auto mechanic to be his entrée to that beautiful vehicle, and he was doing his best reverse psychology to get the man to take him up on the bait.

The auto mechanic eyeballed the smushed SUV with one eyebrow raised in a tanned face. “Want it?” he asked. “Well, sure. We can fix about anything, and another vehicle ain’t no big thing.” He pronounced it vee-hi-cul, which seemed to be some sort of weird aphrodisiac for Brady, and he’d had no idea. “I just need to know how big a chunk of my soul I gotta sell for your busted-ass SUV, Mr. Officer, sir.”

And then those sleepy hazel eyes pinned Brady to the grill of his police issue Chevy Tahoe, and Brady started to sweat.

“No chunk of my soul,” Brady swore. “I mean your soul. I mean….” He gave his best smile and realized he came off as a needy car geek who hadn’t been laid in a really long time. “I just want to see the car, is all.”

The mechanic pulled the brim of his battered Padres baseball cap a little lower over those stunningly sharp eyes, throwing them into shadow again and giving Brady room to breathe.

“Why?” he asked sharply. “What car?”

Brady wanted to groan. “I swear, Mr., uhm—”

“Atchison. People call me Ace. Why you wanna see Sonny’s SHO?”

Ah! So Ace Sex-on-Legs knew what car. And didn’t like playing stupid.

Brady decided he didn’t want to play stupid either. “Listen—I’m not trying to get you into trouble. I know there’s street races here, but I’m not part of that patrol. I’m on human trafficking and meth labs mostly, and the last guy who liked to harass street racers died violently a couple of days ago, so you’re safe.” God rot Roy Kuntz’s soul, but he didn’t want to think about that right now. “I just….” He felt so stupid. “I have loved cars all my life, Mr. Atchison. I stare at books with them, I go to trade shows, I go on test drives. That vee—erm, vehicle is a thing of beauty, and I really want to get a closer look.”

Ace grunted, furrows between his nose and eyebrows digging a little deeper. “What’d he die of?” he asked. “The feller who liked to harass street racers?”

Brady swallowed, suddenly uncomfortable. Arlen Cuthbert hadn’t said a word to him since that day, less than a week ago, and neither had most of his coworkers. Brady had apologized for letting the “feebs” take over Donnie Ray’s death scene, but he had not apologized for the scene near Roy’s smoking corpse. He couldn’t understand their indifference. One of their own had been killed, yes, but oh my God, didn’t they care what he’d been into! Wasn’t anybody interested in a pedo ring right there in their own station house?

The question—and possible answers—left Brady sick and sad, and he didn’t want to talk about it.

“A car crash,” Brady said shortly, feeling a little nauseous. How much of that had spread, he wondered? How much of that terrible story did the general populace know, and when would the scandal break in the press?

Ace brought his attention back with a chuckle, and the sound had a rough and dirty sand-crackle sound to it.

“Sort of ironic, right?” he asked, and Brady nodded.

“Yes,” he said simply. “He… I didn’t know him well, but by all accounts he, uhm, won’t be missed.”

Ace snorted. “That was mighty unprofessional of you. I approve. Why are you giving me this gift of an SUV from heaven again?”

Brady had to beg. “I really want a better look at your beautiful car.”

And a miracle occurred. This hard man’s face softened a little. “It’s Sonny’s baby,” he said. “You stay here and I’ll ask him. Won’t lie. Got a friend who’ll probably need that Subaru. A donation never hurts. But it ain’t my call.”

Brady knew his eyes widened, because this man… this man seemed to be in charge of his domain, and for a moment he wondered what kind of man he would have to defer to in order for Brady to get closer to the car. The vee-hi-cul.

He put his hands in his pockets and waited until Ace disappeared around the corner into the auto bay before sauntering closer to the opening, hoping to hear the conversation.

“Sonny, you wanna work on a Subaru?” Well, Brady thought. That was blunt.

“They payin’ us?”

“Yeah, they’re paying us a Subaru Forester, slightly dented, but I’m bettin’ the engine’s sound, and we might have need of one of those.”

Brady heard a hawk and a spit. “Ain’t had a project since the Kia, and that’s about ready to go live with Ernie. What’s the hitch?”

“Guy wants to pet your baby.”

There was a clatter of what was probably bolts in an oil pan and some swearing that made Brady widen his eyes.

“He wants to fucking what?” the mysterious Sonny finished with, and Ace’s voice next sounded… well, odd. If Brady hadn’t just met the man and found him as cuddly as a cactus, Brady would have said he sounded tender.

“Sonny, quit moving and let me help you. Yeah, you’re bleeding. Jesus, if you could stop jumping like a fucking Chihuahua every time something new is mentioned, we’d go through fewer Band-Aids. Yeah, I’ll get the bolts. You start washing your hands so we can get your head.”

“Don’t know why I’m washing my hands if you’re gonna doctor me.” Sonny sounded young in that moment, and sullen. And hurt.

“Well, maybe I’m gonna have you shake hands with the young police officer lurking around the corner listening to us,” Ace said, some humor lacing his tone. “And then we’re gonna show him your car, ’cause I think he’s got a crush, and it would mean something to him to pet it. You remember what that’s like, right, Sonny? Wanting something like that so bad you just wanted to touch it?”

And then Sonny said the thing that knocked Brady off his course for the rest of his life.

“You talking about you or the car, Ace?”

It was the little bit of flirt in that voice, and Ace’s warmth when he returned it, that grabbed Brady Carnegie by the balls and shook him hard.

“Either one, now, Sonny. But we’re only letting him touch the car.”

“Fine,” Sonny huffed. “He can’t sit in the driver’s seat, though. Only you can do that.”

“Or Burton,” Ace said, no bullshit in his voice.

“Fine.”

Then Ace raised his voice, meant to carry. “Officer Carnegie, you can come round here, if you need to. Let me patch Sonny up, and he’ll be happy to show you the SHO.”

Brady rounded the corner and saw a neat, obviously newly repaired garage, with a sunken workstation under a cattle guard so a grown man could work on the underside. In this case, it was a newly painted blue Kia on the rack. In the corner, a smaller man—smaller than Ace anyway—sat on a stool and waited patiently for Ace to wipe a divot on his forehead with some antiseptic, before putting a butterfly bandage on it.

Brady studied him curiously, figuring he was in his early twenties—Ace was maybe four, five years older—and what Brady’s mother would call “puny.” He was slender, with wiry limbs that spoke of lots of hard work and good food now, but of lots of malnutrition and some bad times as a kid. He had blond hair, slicked back from his head like he wore a hat like Ace’s, and as Brady walked in, he turned a stunning pair of gray eyes, set in a fierce triangle face, toward him.

Ah. Not conventionally handsome—but definitely appealing. And Ace, who could probably have had any man, gay or straight, in the lower half of the state, was gazing at him softly, like he didn’t care who saw them.

“This that guy?” Sonny asked, and while the question was rude, it wasn’t rudely asked—more like Sonny didn’t want to make a mistake.

“Yessir, he is.” Ace turned toward Brady, the gauze and such in his hand. “Give me a sec and I’ll shake on it and make it official. Brady’s doing us a solid, and I think he just wants to talk cars with a fan. Since it’s your baby, I figured you’d do the honors.”

Brady hadn’t felt this awkward since his mother had arranged a playdate for him in the sixth grade. The sixth grade. If the other kid hadn’t loved Hot Wheels as much as Brady had, the whole thing would have spelled social disaster.

Sonny turned toward Ace and said, “I can move now?”

“Yeah, Sonny, you can move.”

Sonny gave him a blinding grin and then turned toward Brady, hand extended. “Nice to meet you, Officer Carnegie. It was real nice of you to give us a car. Wanna see my baby?”

Brady extended his hand and they had a hard good ol’ boy handshake. “I’d love to.”

Sonny didn’t skimp on the tour. In ten minutes he’d cracked the hood and was in full cry about how he’d managed to add a zillion miles an hour to the engine by reinforcing the engine block so he could add NOS to the fuel mix. Brady didn’t bat an eyelash at this, although there was no street legal reason to add nitrous oxide to your fuel mixture, because God, this car was beautiful. It had been in one accident before Ace bought it, according to Sonny, and then it had been reborn.

So it was that Brady was bent over the vee-hi-cul—and God, it really was as sexy as Ace made it sound—when a giant powder-blue Cadillac pulled around the garage. Instead of parking on the hardpan, with two Audis, a minivan, and the totaled SUV, the Caddy pulled around to the hardpan in front of the little house to the side of the garage.

Brady looked up in time to see three people get out—an enormously tall bald man with a goatee, who was zipping the top half of coveralls like Ace and Sonny wore, over biceps as big as Brady’s head; a skinny twenty-something youth with curly dark hair and dreamy eyes; and a tall, elegant man in his thirties with dark blond hair, well-cut and slightly gray at the temples, tan slacks and green sweater set that was right out of a men’s fashion catalog for casual wear; and the sharpest, iciest pair of blue eyes that had ever cut Brady to the depths of his soul.

The big bald guy and the kid sauntered toward the garage like they were comfortable there. The kid wore a hooded gray San Diego State sweatshirt, frayed jeans, and tennis shoes, and he wandered over by Sonny and took a look inside the SHO.

“Whatcha doin’, Sonny?” he asked, a note of coyness in his voice. “You, uh, working on the SHO?”

Sonny shot the kid an indulgent look, like you’d give a younger brother.

“No, Ernie, I’m not working on the SHO. I’m giving this cop a tour, ’cause he’s giving us a Subaru carcass. Ace said I could make it rise from the dead, like a zombie car, and I’m gonna make that shit sexy like a vampire. It’s a solid engine. She might even fly.”

Ernie grinned at him. “So if you’re starting a new project car….”

Sonny grinned back. “Yeah, your Kia’s all done. I was giving it a last once-over when this cop fella arrived. You want me to drive it off the rack for you?”

Ernie gave a happy little wriggle. “When you got time,” he said, obviously extremely tickled.

“Well, you’ve been patient,” Sonny admitted. He glanced up at Brady with apology in his eyes. “I don’t want to cut this short,” he said, “’cause you ask good questions and you’re not entirely stupid. If you come back around six, we can talk cars some more.” He said it like a kid remembering his manners, and Brady was unexpectedly charmed.

“I’ll try,” he said. “I’m on the clock now, but if I can get away by then, I’d love to come ogle her some more. I haven’t even gotten to the four on the floor or the suicide webbing lock.”

Sonny nodded happily. “There’s a nice show in Nevada in a month that….” His eyes grew big then, and he looked like he wanted to clap his hand over his mouth. “Never mind. We have nothing to do with that. It’s a good show is all.”

“Don’t worry,” Ernie said, calling over his shoulder as he meandered toward the auto bay. “He won’t arrest you for street racing.”

Brady glanced at Ace just in time to see him scowl at Ernie. “Well, I hope not,” he said grimly, but Ernie shrugged.

“When you know, you know, Ace. He’s a good one.”

“I do enjoy a good car show,” Brady said, trying to be diplomatic. “I’ll check it out.”

Ace sighed, long-suffering like, and said, “Out near Sparks. The illegal shit don’t happen until after dark, but folks park their sweet pieces out there and talk about ’em.”

Brady grinned at him, so much more than pleased. “I’ll leave the uniform behind,” he promised.

Ace snorted. “Probably a good idea if you want folks to not run away screaming.” Then he gave a nod to somebody over Brady’s shoulder. “Eric,” he said cordially.

“Hello, Ace,” the nicely dressed man in the slacks said, and Brady almost jumped.

“Dear God, you’re quiet,” he snapped, because damn, the guy was suddenly really close.

He, uh, smelled sort of good. Like sandalwood and hot sand, but that may have been the desert.

“Apologies,” the man named Eric said, and his voice was low and cultured—fancy, as Brady’s parents would have said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

He left it at that, but he stayed there, at that not-quite-uncomfortable distance, and Brady took a step back because he didn’t play dick-measuring games.

“We were just, uhm, talking about—”

“Illegal street racing,” Eric said dryly. “I do understand nuance.” He gave Ace a brief, deferential glance. “Ernie said I could use Jai’s vehicle to run errands, but I had to ask you first.”

Brady felt a tiny stab of disappointment. He was hoping for that super-sexy emphasis—vee-hi-cul—but this Eric guy was too snooty for that. Vee-ickle. Oh well.

Ace rolled his eyes. “Sure,” he said, sounding baffled. “It’s Jai’s car, but fine, yeah. If Jai says so, go to town.” He chuckled. “Which I guess you were going to do anyway.”

And Brady got it—“go to town” meaning “go wild” or “have a good time,” and well, “Go to Barstow or Palm Springs or any place with a grocery store that sells salad and a bakery with soft bread.”

“Which town would you suggest?” Eric asked, and Brady had to look at him twice to see if he’d gotten the joke. A corner of his mouth was quirked up, so, well, maybe.

“Palm Springs,” Ace said decisively. “They got a Walmart like everybody else, and it’s farther than Barstow, but since it’s cool at the moment, your ice cream won’t melt, and you might have a better selection.” He wrinkled his nose. “You got a fridge at your place?”

Eric nodded. “Yes. It’s small—”

“Ask Ernie if you can borrow some of his freezer space.” Ace grimaced. “We are slightly south of hell out here, son. Buy in bulk, worship your fresh fruit if you got some, and plan for a week and a day, minimum.”

“A week and a day?” Brady asked, curious.

Ace grimaced. “I don’t know about you guys, but if I plan to go grocery shopping on one day, something almost always comes up. You plan on a week and a day with some canned soup in the cupboards, and you can stretch it out.”

Brady had to laugh. “That’s good advice,” he said, almost surprised. “I’ll have to remember that on my day off.”

Ace gave a one-shoulder shrug. “Like I said—you live out south of hell, you pick up some survival tips right quick. I’ve got another one about thumping the scorpions out of your boots if you leave them outside your door, but I’m sure you’ve heard it.”

Eric, who had moved a little to Brady’s side, actually whimpered. “No,” he said faintly. “I have not.”

“Well,” Ace said contemplatively, “I might’ve learned that one in another desert. You take that car wherever you need to, okay?” Eric nodded and, with Brady, watched him turn back to the garage, where he hollered to Ernie. “Kid, you ’bout done fawning over that Kia yet?”

“Nope, Ace!” Ernie called back. “She’s just too pretty!”

Ace’s raw chuckle would have sent shivers up Brady’s spine, but… but… but he’d seen that moment, the tender one between Ace and Sonny, and had realized that even if Ace was his kind of man, he was taken.

“What desert do you think he was talking about?” Brady asked, almost in an undertone.

“I’d wager Afghanistan,” Eric said, also pondering. “Although he and Sonny are so very young.”

“They’re grown,” Brady protested, although it occurred to him that Ace might have been younger than he’d first assumed.

“He’s taken,” Eric said quietly, his voice such an echo of Brady’s own thoughts that he had to double take.

“I figured,” Brady said. “How’d you know?”

Eric gave him a condescending look. “I’ve actually seen them kiss,” he said, like it was a special pass to something. Well, maybe it was. “Are you planning to become a fixture here?”

There was something… cagey in that question, and Brady couldn’t put his finger on it.

“I’m only here to drool over the car,” Brady said, which had sort of been the truth when he’d shown up that day, but given how many gay men he’d met in a scant fifteen minutes, after living in this craphole for a year and having to drive to Palm Springs for so much as a lazy smile, he was thinking he might have to rethink his original plan. He didn’t know about the giant man who owned the Cadillac, but that dark-haired kid named Ernie losing his shit over a Kia Sportage had to be gay.

And Mr. Veh-ickle was definitely setting off Brady’s specially honed bells.

“Fair. It’s quite beautiful.”

Brady glanced at him sideways, trying to decide if he meant Ace or the veh-ickle. But Eric’s face was almost impassive, and when he deigned to glance at Brady, his eyes were every bit as arctic cold as Brady remembered.

“So you going to Palm Springs?” Brady asked, wondering which one of them was going to break first and head for their vee-hi-culs.

“Yes,” Eric said, sighing and breaking first. “I have two hungry kittens who wait for no man.”

Aw, dammit. Brady had been building up a right steaming head of hatred for this guy but… kittens?

“You like cats?” he asked, suddenly achingly curious.

“I do,” his new acquaintance said. “I thought I was a dog person, really, but these two kittens….” He shook his head in bafflement. “Special-needs kittens,” he added, and there was almost a question mark at the end of his voice. “They’re really quite… winning.”

Brady nodded, and there went the last of his hatred in a little puff of steam. “My parents had an old three-legged dog before they were killed,” he said, hating himself for this story as soon as it came out of his mouth. “I would have taken him with me, but he passed about a week after they did. I think he didn’t want them to be lonely in heaven without him.”

Those icy blue eyes moved over him, and for a moment Brady expected to be ripped to shreds with a glacially smelted blade of disdain, but instead….

He got a winter-blue sky. It wasn’t warm and human yet, but it wasn’t cruel, either. Instead it was… wistful. Like he was too far away to be warm, but that didn’t mean he didn’t appreciate that the sun was out just the same.

“That’s a lovely memory,” Eric said, the surprise in his voice as distant as his eyes had been. “You should get a dog of your own.” He gave another one of those nonsmiles. “But perhaps you can treat yourself with a four-legged variety.” And with that he nodded his head in farewell and turned toward the Cadillac.

Ernie came running out of the garage on his heels.

“Eric!” he called, sounding frantic and disjointed at once. “Olives!”

The taller man turned toward him in surprise—real surprise, not that distant surprise he’d recently shown. “I beg your pardon?”

“Small cans of olives,” Ernie said. “Two, maybe three cans. They could save a life.” The kid shook his head in confusion, and Sonny came out of the garage and took the young man gently by the arm.

“Was it a doozy?” Sonny asked, guiding Ernie toward the small cashier cubicle of the garage.

“No,” said Ernie. “Just weird.” He glanced up at Brady almost accusingly. “And you,” he said, with surprising authority. “Don’t shoot. Just… I mean, don’t shoot.” And then he allowed himself to be taken to the cashier’s cubicle without protest.

“What in the…?” Brady muttered, and by complete accident, he met that Eric guy’s eyes again.

They were suddenly focused and present and hot. “I don’t know either,” he said shortly. “But if Ernie tells you something, I’ve learned it’s best to go along.”

“So what do we do?” Brady asked, utterly confused.

“Well, I’m buying olives, and you, my friend, had best not shoot.”

And with that, Eric strode to the big powder-blue Caddy, and Brady—after staring after him for a few heartbeats—took his leave of the odd little garage and vouchered the patient tow-truck driver so they could both be on their way.

HE WOULDN’T say it was odd that his patrol took him near Palm Springs that afternoon. It was a vast desert, but there were only a couple of routes through it. One of them took him to Palm Springs with San Diego beyond that. Another way took him to Barstow. Another way took him to an old military base that had been out of operation for years so nobody went there, and yet another way took him to Las Vegas.

Today, he was on the roster to patrol the strip of highway between Victoriana and Palm Springs, so he was right outside the city limits when he got a call for all possible units for a robbery about a mile from his position.

He probably could have guessed it was Walmart.