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again.
    “I’ll be in touch before next month. We have that shipment to discuss.”
    “I remember,” Danny said. “It won’t be a problem.” He waited for the dial tone before closing his phone with shaking fingers.
    Sleep had fled the building, no way to turn off the internal engine after that conversation. Danny’s mind ran on an endless loop, wondering how much Hinestroza knew, where he was getting his information, how long before some of his men—men Danny had worked with for years—showed up at his door to put a bullet in his brain. But the bullet won’t come until after they have some fun with you.
    Danny calmed himself with the certainty that if Hinestroza knew all the facts he would already be dead. Hinestroza wouldn’t have wasted time making small talk. His only call would have been the one that ended with Danny’s death.
    THE sun’s golden rays shone through high, white clouds, light turning amber on Miller’s face as it filtered down through the burnt-orange leaves above his head. The breeze was brisk but not cold. Two men sitting on a park bench wouldn’t look odd; there were dozens of people walking dogs on the paths, bicyclists streaming by in a rush of air.
    Miller saw Danny approaching from a distance, his easy stride unmistakable, unhindered by his injury. He moved gracefully, no hitch in his steps. Miller suffered a moment of envy as he realized that 30 | Brooke McKinley
    Danny was a man comfortable in his own skin, at home inside his body in a way that Miller had never experienced.
    “Hey,” Danny said, voice raspy, as he took a seat on the bench.
    “You’re late,” Miller responded in greeting.
    Danny grinned as he fished cigarettes out of his pocket. “I did that just to piss you off.” He held the pack out to Miller. “Want one?”
    “Sure.”
    Danny passed Miller a cigarette and his lighter, the metal warm from his fingers.
    “Hinestroza called me.”
    Miller snapped the lighter closed and handed it back to Danny.
    “What’d he say?”
    “He knew about me being pulled over.”
    “Shit.”
    “But for right now I think that’s all he knows.” Danny rested his elbows on the back of the bench and stretched his legs out, crossing them at the ankles.
    “You sure?”
    “No,” Danny admitted.
    Miller sighed. “Shit.”
    “You already said that.”
    “I thought it bore repeating.”
    Danny laughed, eyes twinkling like a kid who’d caught his parents cussing and realized they were human after all. Miller jerked his head away, studying a pair of joggers coming around the bend.
    “How does Hinestroza run the drugs up here?” Miller asked, clearing his throat.
    Danny ran his tongue over his top teeth, took a deep breath. “Just jump right into it, don’t you? Not even going to buy me dinner first?”
    “Stop fucking around,” Miller said, too sharply. He thought he might actually be blushing. He didn’t know what the hell was wrong Shades of Gray | 31
    with him. He’d done this dance with informants a hundred times, but today Danny was leading, dancing steps Miller had never learned.
    “I don’t know any specifics about how he gets the drugs from Colombia to Mexico. He keeps that part of the operation separate.” Miller nodded. That made sense. Hinestroza was too smart to give someone intimate knowledge of his entire smuggling operation.
    “Once the drugs are in Mexico City, he has a rotating group of about thirty people who drive them into Texas.”
    “How does he get the cocaine across the border?”
    “In the gas tanks.”
    “Not terribly innovative.”
    “No,” Danny agreed. “But effective. Most border patrol agents are too lazy to get a mechanic to come take apart the gas tank. And if they do and the drugs are confiscated, the quantities are small enough that it’s not going to put a huge dent in the profits. Hinestroza makes sure no car carries more than a hundred pounds of cocaine.”
    “The gas tank,” Miller mused. He’d expected something