“I guess they work when they please down there,” Amanda grumbled. “Will, your report said Dell approached you around eleven-thirty last night. He took you straight to the job?”

“I was just coming off my hospital shift. He stopped me in the parking lot.” Will hadn’t considered the timing until now. “Maybe he needed me to fill in for someone else.”

Faith asked, “How did Dell pitch the job?”

“He asked if I wanted to make five hundred bucks cash for keeping my mouth shut and my eyes open.”

Faith said, “Five hundred bucks is a lot of money for being a lookout. You could get a guy killed for less than that.”

“You’re right.” Will was beginning to think he’d missed a lot of things last night. Adrenaline and sheer panic had never enhanced anyone’s short-term memory.

He said, “I noticed when they were outside Lena’s house that they all shook hands. Not the shoulder-bump bro thing, just a formal handshake, like they didn’t know each other well.”

Faith twisted her lips to the side as she considered the situation. “So, the plan was thrown together at the last minute. They didn’t have a crew in place.”

Will said, “Dell hangs out at a place called Tipsie’s just about every night. It’s a strip joint off the highway, caters mostly to bikers and ex-cons. I went with him a few times to build a rapport.”

“A rapport?” Faith echoed.

Will ignored her sarcasm. “If you’re looking for a guy to help you kill a couple of cops in Macon, Tipsie’s is the place to go.”

“I’ll check it out,” Faith said. “Hopefully, Macon PD will be more helpful than Major Branson. There’s something a little too go-getter about her for me. Who wears all their ribbons for a downtown meeting? And what was that snickery smile on her lips?”

Amanda told them, “This sounds like a character-building exercise. Attempted murder on two cops, one man dead, another critically wounded, and the chief sends her to brief us? That’s not a plum assignment.”

“Especially if she’s been up since one-shitty in the morning,” Faith pointed out. “For what it’s worth, Branson sounds to me like she’s on-side with Lena. Could be an ‘us against the world’ thing, like they’re both the same kind of bad.”

“Maybe,” Amanda allowed. “Misery loves company.”

Will tuned out their voices. He thought about last night, the drive to Lena’s house. Dell had been fidgety, but that was pretty much his default. He’d played with the radio, tapped his fingers on the dash, the steering wheel, his leg, as he drove one-handed toward what they both thought was an easy score. Dell had talked the entire time: about the weather, his ailing mother who lived in Texas, a woman at the hospital he was dying to sleep with. All Will had to do was nod occasionally to keep him going. Dell didn’t need any more encouragement. He actually talked too much for his own good. Major Branson had been fed the story backward. Tony Dell was the original target of Will’s investigation. His first day undercover, Dell would not shut up about a big-time dealer named Big Whitey.

Will realized that Amanda and Faith had gone silent.

Faith asked, “What is it?”

Will shook his head, but he still told them, “Big Whitey.”

“It can’t be coincidence,” Amanda said. “You’re down there for Dell. Dell turns you on to Big Whitey. Big Whitey kills cops. A little over a week later, two police officers are attacked.”

Will said, “It’s the timing that’s bothering me. If I’m going to kill some cops, I don’t do it on the fly. I plan it out. I follow them around. I figure out what their habits are. It would take several days, maybe a week, to get a team together. There must’ve been a clock ticking on the hit, otherwise they would’ve never used Dell and they sure as hell wouldn’t’ve hired me sight unseen.”

Faith asked, “You think some of their original crew chickened out?” She answered her own question. “It would make sense that they wouldn’t tell you and Dell what they were really up to after their first choice walked away.”

Will said, “That would explain the five hundred dollars. You overpay to keep the questions down and buy an easy yes.” He went back to the timing. “Bad guys don’t play the long game. This was something recent. The hit was put out in the last two weeks, maximum. So, we figure out what happened in the last two weeks.”

“Macon is in Bibb County now.” Amanda tapped some keys on her computer. “That’s region …?”

“Twelve,” Will supplied.

Amanda raised her voice again. “Caroline, get me Nick Shelton on the phone.”

Will said, “I’ve been reading the Macon paper every day.” He ignored the surprised looks they gave him. “About a week ago, two cops were hurt raiding a shooting gallery that was selling mostly meth and pills. The details were sketchy. One’s still in the hospital. The other’s taking disability.”

“Anything else?” Amanda asked.

“They netted some cash under the drug seizure rule. Paper didn’t give an exact number, but Macon PD was talking about using it to buy new cruisers, some AKs for SWAT.” Will shrugged again. “The rest was just the usual blotter stuff—missing teenage girls, pot bust at the school, a guy died on the toilet.”

Amanda clasped her hands together on the desk. She was obviously done with talking. “All right. We have a plan?”

“My hospital shift starts at eleven.” Will told Faith, “You’ll have to figure out a way to get me and Lena in the same room without blowing my cover.”

“I’m sure she’ll cooperate.” Faith sounded skeptical. She asked Amanda, “Do you think it’s worth me going to the trailer park where Zachary and Lawrence lived?”

Amanda shook her head. “Branson’s probably flipped the place upside down by now. Give it a day or two. Go in soft so there’s a nice contrast.”

“All right,” Faith agreed. “Speaking of Branson, I’ll double-check the information she gave us, run down the records on Zachary and Lawrence, make sure there’s nothing she’s leaving out. Might as well run Adams and Long while I’m at it. I’ll send everything to data analysis so they can track down bank accounts, mortgages, known associates, family members, whatever else pops up.”

Amanda said, “That’s going to be a lot of information to sort through. Pull some help from the field office. Make them do the bulk of the work on Jared Long so we have a long paper trail if this goes to trial. We don’t want to be accused of prejudicial thinking.”

“You mean again?” Faith pushed herself up from her chair. “I’ll call the cell phone company and get a list off the towers near Adams’s house. Midnight in a rural area, there can’t be that many active calls.”

“Let me know if they give you any push-back,” Amanda said. Cellular providers were getting stingy about data mining lately. “If we need a warrant, it’ll take a few days.”

“Amanda?” Caroline yelled. “Nick Shelton’s on line two.”

Amanda picked up the receiver, but she put it to her shoulder instead of her ear. “Will, be careful. Keep your phone on you at all times so we know exactly where you are.”