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Hell, she shouldn’t have come out here in the first place. She was just starting to hit her stride in Denver after moving back from LA just under a year ago. She had a string of solid—if boring—jobs lined up and ready to go. And this crew had “questionable” written all over them. But that same questionability was what had her sticking. She knew what it felt like to be lost. Now she tracked down the lost and reunited them with their friends and family . . . or, if they were better off lost, she helped them stay that way. Saving the world one person at a time , Fallon had called it. And he hadn’t even been mocking her. Not much, anyway.
    “Tell me about the target,” she said. Routine question, nice and open ended.
    Strike’s expression didn’t change. “It’s the same guy you bagged out from under me that day in the warehouse. Snake Mendez.”
    He said something else, but she couldn’t hear him over the roaring that suddenly filled her head.
    Mendez. Oh, Christ.
    She had to lock her knees to keep from sagging when it all tried to come rushing back—memories, pain, guilt, betrayal, grief. Keep breathing , she told herself, struggling with her poker face. She couldn’t go there again. Not now, when she was just starting to put her shit back together. Not now, when losing him had nearly killed her before.
    More, there were warning bells beneath the pain. What the hell was going on here? How much did this guy know? Who was he working for?
    Her instincts chimed in with a Time to go!
    Feeling far shakier than she wanted to let on, she retreated a step toward the doorway. “Mendez is dead.” She forced herself to say it, though the words tasted foul. “He was killed last year in Denver. The Varrio Warlocks got him.”
    His parole officer swore that Mendez had been playing it straight, but as far as she could tell, he had died as he had lived: trying to run the world one city block at a time.
    “Wait.” Strike stretched out a hand. “Don’t go.”
    “You don’t need me to find a dead man.” Another step back put her in the doorway.
    “He’s alive.”
    The words didn’t compute at first, coming one at a time, disconnected, echoing in her ears like someone screaming inside an abandoned warehouse. He’s. Alive. He’s. Alive. He’s alive. He’s alive . . . alive . . . alive. Not dead.
    “Bullshit.” The word was little more than a whisper. “The VWs claimed the kill.”
    “They lied. Dez has been working with us in New Mex for the past year. He took off two days ago, and we need him back.”
    “He . . . ” She trailed off as the numbness grew teeth and bit in.
    Dez. The nickname had been reserved for the inner circle. And three years ago, Strike had called him “Mendez,” just as she had used “Snake,” trying to remind herself what he really was. Poisonous. A manipulator.
    Hearing the nickname now meant . . . Jesus, she didn’t know what it meant. But her instincts said Strike was telling her the truth.
    They lied.
    Her breath rasped in her lungs and the world took a big spin around her.
    Dez was alive. Holy. Shit.
    The blond cop said softly, “He was more than a paycheck to you, wasn’t he?”
    Strike glanced at her, surprised, then looked back at Reese more closely. “No shit. What were you? Friends? Lovers?”
    “We were . . . ” What? She didn’t even know anymore, couldn’t think, could barely even breathe. Shock loosened her tongue and she blurted, “We knew each other as kids, as runaways. We watched each other’s backs. At least we did until that night in the storm. After that . . . ” Getting dizzy now, she pressed the back of a hand against her mouth. “Could I . . . Shit. I need a minute.” Heart hammering sickly in her ears, she gestured back the way she had come, toward the restrooms she had passed on the way in.
    “Of course.” The cop shifted on her feet, like she was going to offer to go with her.
    Reese waved her off, swallowing hard. “I’ll be right