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direction. Not a word had been spoken since.
    Matt took a sip of coffee and watched Cabrera dig into his bacon and eggs French-toast special. Cabrera was still doing his best to ignore him, and it looked like it was costing him. When the food hit his mouth, he would turn and gaze out the window at the strip mall on the other side of the parking lot. After he swallowed, he’d grunt or mutter something undecipherable, launching his eyes on a low path back to his plate.
    Matt finally looked away. It was a partnership with some rough edges, but he couldn’t worry about it right now. He’d already pushed aside Cabrera’s betrayal and all of the anger that came with it, because he knew that he had to.
    The security video he’d seen of the holdup and murder was almost useless. He had watched it a second time when Grace left the room to talk to Cabrera. The lens was too far away—almost an entire block away—the camera recording nothing more than a ghostlike figure holding something shiny that flashed, before running off and disappearing into the night. While digital enhancement had come a long way, Matt didn’t need a tech from SID to tell him that giving detail to glowing shapes and shiny objects in images this degraded only happens in the world of make-believe or a shitty TV show.
    He heard Cabrera drop his fork on his plate and saw the waitress walking over with their checks. Cabrera had made it a point to order separately. As she reached their booth, her eyes flicked back and forth between them.
    “You guys really need to keep it down over here,” she said. “You’re disturbing our other customers.”
    It looked like Cabrera didn’t think it was funny. His brown cheeks turned a purplish red and he grabbed his check and stormed off. The waitress turned to Matt and shrugged. Matt didn’t react either. Instead, he left a tip and ordered a cup of coffee with one sugar to go. It was 6:00 a.m. It had been a long night.

CHAPTER 9
    The rain had stopped, the sun burning bright in a vibrant-blue mid-October sky. In spite of the cool air, steam was rising up from the freeways, casting the Library Tower and most of downtown in a milky glow. Matt sat on the steps outside the administration building at the coroner’s office, trying to keep his mind off what was going on in the basement of the building next door.
    It wasn’t easy. It had been two hours, and Cabrera was still there.
    On the drive over, Matt had decided against even entering the lobby. Instead, he bought a copy of the Times from the box on the corner and used the break to work on gaining some degree of emotional distance. The story about the three-piece bandit’s first murder was sketchy, didn’t include the identity of the victim or any photographs, and remained in the Metro Section of the paper. But the journalist had managed to get to Grace before his deadline and the article included confirmation that a security camera had recorded the holdup and murder, and that the victim was an off-duty police officer.
    Matt heard a door open and turned. When he saw Cabrera exiting the building next door, he got up and started walking toward the metallic green Crown Victoria on this end of the lot. He hit the clicker and heard the alarm chirp. As he opened the driver’s-side door, Cabrera stopped and leaned on the roof from the other side, gazing back at him. Something was different. The anger he had been showing on his face had waned. His eyes were glassy, and he appeared quiet and dazed.
    “How’d it go?” Matt said.
    Cabrera thought it over, fighting off a yawn. “All through-and-throughs except for one slug.”
    “What kind of shape is it in?”
    “Okay, but not great. It’s the one that got him in the arm. It passed through, nicked a rib, and ended up in his chest.”
    It was a lucky break, and Matt knew it. Because of the velocity and power of the bullets, he hadn’t expected them to find any slugs in the body, much less one intact. Last night, as the SUV