Monday, August 5, 3:58 p.m.

Will groaned as he climbed out of Beau Ragnersen’s truck. The aspirin had definitely worn off. His muscles were locking up. He glanced around, noting a few cars, some dog walkers, but the Albert-Banks Park was experiencing an afternoon lull. Will nodded for Beau to lead the way. The man kept his head straight, hands in his pockets. Will did the same, following him across a strip of neatly cut grass.

There were no tracking devices on either of them. Amanda hadn’t suggested it and Will would not have let her anyway. His bigger concern was that he might not be able to bluff his way through his backstory. Will’s bona fides had him as an ex-soldier with an ax to grind. Will had used the identity before and learned the hard way that he wasn’t up on any military lingo. He hadn’t taken the time since then to study for the part. All he could do now was go for the quiet, menacing type. The quiet came naturally. The menacing had fallen into place the second Sara had been taken.

Will’s face was still unshaven. His hands were cut up. He was wearing a baseball hat and dark sunglasses. His wrinkled gray suit was in his work locker. Will had changed into jeans and a black, long-sleeved shirt that he normally wore to the gym. His biceps strained against the material. His running shoes were splattered with rusty red stripes that looked like dried blood.

Paint.

Two months ago, he had remodeled his bathroom to surprise Sara. Will hadn’t realized until she’d pointed it out that the chocolate-colored walls made the small room feel even smaller. He’d put in a new vanity so she had a place to store her lady things. He’d painted the walls red to brighten the space, then he’d painted over the red with three coats of light gray because Sara was surrounded by bloody crime scenes almost every day. She probably did not want to shower in one.

Beau’s hands were out of his pockets. He gave an audible sigh as he stepped off the paved path. He was pouting, which was irritating. He’d made it clear he didn’t want to be here. Amanda had made it clear that he would end up dying in prison if he didn’t help Will get into the IPA.

How that was going to happen exactly was still up in the air.

Beau sighed again as he turned toward the baseball diamond. Will shifted the duffel bag full of medications to his other hand. He clenched his fist. He told himself it would be a bad idea to punch Beau in the back of the neck if he sighed again.

This was for Sara. That alone was enough to unclench Will’s fist. He had to convince Dash’s Flunky to make an introduction. Beau had mentioned a guy in a van who served as backup during the pill trades. Will assumed that the van driver was higher up the food chain. That was the guy he needed to meet. Dash was four men down. He was planning something big. He seemed to like to work with ex-law enforcement and military, and he would be actively recruiting. Will’s first obstacle was convincing Dash’s Flunky to make a call to the Driver. The second obstacle was making sure that the Driver didn’t shoot Will in the head.

He looked around. No sign of a van.

Beau took another turn, gave another sigh.

Sweat dripped into Will’s eyes. He was glad to have the dark glasses. The sun was pounding onto the top of his head. He wished that Faith was here. Her meeting was probably important, but he knew if shit went down, Faith would always have his back.

He spotted the first undercover GBI agent sitting on a bench by the playground. A baby stroller was in front of her. She had her head down, her nose in a phone. Another agent was jogging on a paved path between the tennis courts and one of the baseball diamonds. A green station wagon was in the far parking lot with a male and female agent who were playing the roles of married people who were not married to each other. There was a second chase car parked at a tavern down the street and another parked at the water treatment plant but to Will’s thinking, none of this was going to work because his gut was telling him that Beau was going to fuck him over.

Was his gut right?

He wasn’t getting the bad feeling off the pitiful sighs or the Charlie Brown drag of Beau’s feet across the grass. It was because the man was a junkie, and all junkies cared about was getting high. Amanda had let Beau keep a handful of pills in his pocket, but Beau had started tossing them back like Chiclets before they’d left the building. The special ops soldier could do the math as well as Will. Eventually, the pills would run out, and by the time that happened, Beau could be on the wrong side of a jail cell.

Will tried to think like Beau was thinking. There were three ways the man could get out of this situation: He could send a signal to Dash’s Flunky that Will was a cop. The Flunky would shoot Will, end of story. Door number two, Beau could make a run for it. He wouldn’t get far, but he didn’t know that. The third option was the most troubling. Beau was a highly trained combat soldier. His brain didn’t have to be fully functioning for his muscles to remember how to kill a man. Will’s folding knife was in his pocket, but he still wasn’t good with it. His Sig Sauer was held to the small of his back by an inside-the-waistband holster. He was a very fast draw, but not with a broken neck.

“This way.” Beau walked along the pie-shaped fence lining the ballfield. He looked at his watch, so Will looked at his watch.

3:58 p.m.

They were supposed to meet the Flunky at four. There was no going back now. Whatever Beau was planning, it wouldn’t be improvised. He had clearly already made up his mind. He seemed thoughtful, almost contemplative, as he let his hand brush against the chain-link fence.

Will’s gut sent up another warning flare.

When faced with danger some guys hyped themselves up, pounding their chests, screaming for blood, blinding themselves with so much adrenaline that they ran straight into the bullets. Then there was the other kind of guy, the one who knew the only way to survive the hell that was about to rain down was to lull himself into a trance.

Beau was that second kind of guy. The transformation was obvious. This wasn’t the pills. His training had taken over. His breathing had slowed. He’d stopped fidgeting and sighing. He oozed Zen like a Buddhist monk.

Will recognized the signs, because he was experiencing them, too.

“This is the spot.” Beau climbed the bleachers to the third row and sat down. He looked at his watch. “Might as well park it, bro. He’s not always on time.”

“Where’s the van?”

“Fuck if I know.” Beau stretched out his legs. “These guys aren’t stupid. He’s not gonna drive up and show you his face. That’s what the Flunky is for.”

Will tossed the duffel bag onto the seat between them. He sat down. He looked out at the baseball diamond. The fence was nice, covered in black vinyl. The park felt foreign to Will, who’d always lived in the city. No needles or junkies or homeless people. Just women wearing Gucci as they walked their well-groomed dogs.

Will had already studied an aerial map of the twenty-three-acre green space. The entire undercover team had spent hours strategizing, proposing alternate routes and scenarios, discussing the best places to park the cars and station the female agents. Twelve lighted tennis courts. Three baseball fields. A rubberized ballfield. A tennis center. A large picnic pavilion.

Will worked to get his bearings. He had never been good with left and right, but he knew that they were sitting beside home plate on the diamond that was farthest from the main road. The clay tennis courts were behind him, which meant that the elementary school’s football field was on the other side of the woods.

The school was a no-go zone for obvious reasons. The last bell had rung an hour ago, but there were after-school activities that put at least one hundred kids and a handful of teachers and administrators in the building. Technically, Dash’s Flunky could approach from that direction. Beau had told them the man would park in the nearby lot, but Beau was a junkie liar.

Here was the problem: If push came to shove, Will couldn’t chase the Flunky into the schoolyard with his gun. The cover agents couldn’t risk parking a chase car in the lot without alerting school security, and school security would not be happy to hear that the GBI was conducting a covert operation on their premises. They would be especially pissed off if they found out it was taking place in a public park.

Will was desperate to find Sara, but neither one of them could forgive him if he accidentally hurt a child.

Beau said, “Dude, you look like you’re in some pain.”

Will shrugged as if his joints were not lined with concrete.