Ten

Some weeks earlier, in a suburb of Salt Lake City, Daniel had been waiting for an audience in a meth dealer's living room. He sat alone for two hours before the door finally opened.

"Daniel," Paul said. He'd changed very little since Daniel had seen him last, although Daniel had forgotten about his tattoo, a large bright goldfish on the side of his neck. It was obvious that if he was still dealing meth, he hadn't indulged in his product. His teeth when he smiled were even and white, and he had none of the hollow-eyed blankness Daniel saw in his drug arrests. His handshake was firm. "I'm surprised to see you again. What's it been, ten years?"

Paul shrugged. "Honestly?" he said, and for just a moment Daniel saw a flash of the man Paul had been when they'd first met, when they were working construction together during the summer before Daniel's last year of high school. They'd been friends once. "It's all cartels now," he said. "It's not like it was. I don't even work for myself no more."

"A few years back. I like it like this. Clean, that's the word the decorator kept using. Clean lines." Paul sat on the hard gray sofa across from him. Except for the carpet, which was deep enough to silence every step, nothing in this room was soft. "Now," he said, "why don't you tell me what you're doing here?"

" Thank you. I don't like to think of her death in these terms, but the fact of it is, she told me a while back that I'd be getting some money."

"Paul, I'd like to pay back Anna Montgomery's debt. The hundred and twenty-one thousand." His gaze kept drifting to Paul's hands. He had watched Paul beat a man almost to death once and he wished he could forget what it had sounded like, Paul's fists against the man's limp body. He wished he could forget that he hadn't intervened.

"I don't. I wanted to come here quickly and work something out, but it's likely the estate won't be settled for a few weeks."

as the words were leaving his mouth he understood that he had made a colossal mistake, because before Paul's face returned to impassiveness and he leaned forward to begin negotiating the repayment there was a brief light in his eyes, the faintest flicker of confusion, and Daniel saw that Paul had had no idea what Daniel was talking about.

"H a s s h e been in Florida all this time?" Paul asked, when their negotiations were nearly at an end. He had insisted upon a substantial amount of interest. Daniel tried to console himself with the thought that he was doing the right thing after all these years, but he was sick with remorse. He had thought that the photograph of Chloe meant Paul had found them, but it seemed obvious now that Paul had no longer been looking. It wasn't that Paul had found the woman who'd stolen a hundred and twenty-one thousand dollars from him, then— it was that Daniel had brought her whereabouts to Paul's attention.

"I went to a lot of trouble to find her, back then. I even hired a private detective, but it was just a dead end once I got to Virginia."

Daniel was silent for a moment, but he was too afraid of Paul to lie. " Major Crimes division," he said. "I'm in the Vice and Intelligence unit."

It occurred to Daniel that no one in the world knew where he was today. If he disappeared in Utah he might never be found. "Gaming," he said. "Prostitution, prescription fraud, narcotics."

"Narcotics." Paul seemed amused by this. "Well, you keep up the good work," he said. "America's children depend on you, man. Daniel, there's one last thing. Did you know my mother was in the insurance business?"

"Well, she was. My mom and I, we didn't see eye to eye on most things, but one thing she always used to say was, a person's got to have insurance. And you know, I think she was right about that."

"When I come down to Florida," he said, "for the payment, I want the girl there when I'm counting the money. Just in case the count's off."

"Come on," Paul said, "don't look at me that way. If you're in narcotics, you know how it works these days. You pay with money, or you pay with your family."