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three A . M . bed check. Missing woman. Missing private detective who killed her. Police called me to see if I could shed some light on this coincidence. I activated your tracer and you’re running around Schenley Park in the frigging dark.” Max pulled off his baseball cap and swatted Ukiah with it. “ What the hell were you thinking! ”
    At least this was the Max that Ukiah was expecting. This was the Max he knew. “I needed to study the trail before it got ruined by another rain.”
    â€œYou need to get your head examined! Why the hell didn’t you call me?”
    â€œBecause you wouldn’t have let me out of the hospital.”
    â€œDamn right!” Max snapped. “This isn’t our normal case of find the kid snatched by his loser father or a stupid messed-up runaway. Something big and ugly is going on here, Ukiah. I ran a check on the girl—Dr. Janet Haze had a top-secret clearance. They don’t give those to whacked-out drug users. Even if they did, we’re talking cum laude from MIT. You don’t make grades like that while messing with drugs. I watched the recording, and she’s tripping deadly on something and acting pretty surprised about the matter.”
    The light ahead changed to red, and Max slammed the Hummer to a stop. He turned to glare at Ukiah. “Someone slipped her something really nasty. Someone snatched her body, all her body parts and even her blood samples. The night-duty coroner happened to be in the way, and from what I gather, someone messed him up good before killing him. And whatare you doing? You’re chasing after that damn someone without a gun or backup or even one fucking person who knows that you’re not safe in the hospital!”
    â€œSorry, Max.”
    â€œSorry won’t cut it because it won’t cut it with your moms when you get yourself killed. Sorry, Jo. Sorry, Lara. I dragged your child out into the big bad world and got him killed. That will go over just great.”
    Ukiah hated it when Max treated him like a kid. He hated it more than anyone else treating him like a kid—maybe because Max had been the first to treat him like an adult. Somehow Ukiah never saw one of these “that was amazingly stupid” speeches coming. Things would be going fine and then suddenly he’d be jerked back to the wrong side of the kid/adult line.
    â€œI promise I won’t do it again,” he said, meaning it. “If I feel the need to chase after someone, I’ll carry my gun and I’ll make sure I have backup.”
    â€œThat’s what I want to hear,” Max grumbled, geared down to first, and started out as the light changed. “The police said, when I found you, I was to bring you down to the coroner’s office.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œActually, they said there or the police station, and the station seemed too close to being arrested, so I opted for the coroner’s.”
    A McDonald’s was coming up on the corner. At the sight of the sign, Ukiah’s stomach rumbled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since lunch yesterday. “Can we pull through the drive through and grab something to eat first?”
    Max didn’t answer, but veered hard into the McDonald’s parking lot. Three minutes later, theypulled out, with Max eyeing the pile of food on Ukiah’s side of the Hummer. “Hope you don’t regret that when we get to the coroner’s.”
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    There was mass confusion at the morgue. Max announced their arrival to the first uniform they saw, but the man shrugged and directed them inward. “From the sounds of it, the FBI wants you.”
    Even if the path to the killing hadn’t been clear, Ukiah could have found it by following the smell. The last door opened to an autopsy room in complete disarray and splattered with blood. The body of a middle-aged black man was huddled in the far corner, his lab coat soaked red by his blood.