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fully recover? You have friends or relatives somewhere away from Tahoe where you can recuperate?”
    “I’ll figure it out. Once you drop me off, you’re home free. Not your problem.” She figured he was worried about what it might mean for him. “As long as you don’t know where I went, or who I contacted, you can get away from this. Just get me across the lake.”
    “No problem. Unless, that is, somebody spots the car. I tried to get a piece from my uncle, but he wouldn’t give me one. That makes me unhappy.”
    She wondered what his real reason for coming to Tahoe was and what he’d actually done in Mexico. There was a lot about Marco Cruz she was curious about.
    Feeling like shit, thinking being hit by a couple of bullets—even only ricochets—wasn’t a good thing, she looked over at this guy who’d saved her and said, with both sincerity and a bit of sarcasm, “Well, whatever else happens…on this day, you’re my hero.”
    He glanced askance at her, eyes tight, and said, “Everybody’s a hero on a good day, but nobody’s a hero every day. Don’t get used to it.”
    She smiled. Hard not to like this guy, whatever he was.
    As they approached the half-dozen casinos on the South Shore, Sydney said, “You should take the Lake Parkway loop. It probably didn’t exist when you were here last. It’ll get you past the slow traffic at the casinos.”
    They went around back of the Montbleu, the newest of the hotels. Then she had him get off on the Pioneer Trail, avoiding Lake Tahoe Boulevard traffic altogether. It was longer but safer, the road most used by locals.
    He asked, “This house you’re going to safe?”
    “The owners are very private. I come over every now and then to check to see it’s not been messed with. I don’t broadcast when I do that.”
    “How far?”
    “A mile or so before you get to Tahoe City,” she said. “It’s past The Pines.”
    “Neighbors who might pay a visit?”
    Babysitting her a little. But she was thankful. “The house sits back in the trees by the lake. No close neighbors. It’s very secluded.”
    As they headed down a back road behind the State Line casinos, he said, “How deep is my uncle involved in whatever this is?”
    “Half the people in Tahoe are knee deep in it one way or another,” she said.
    She watched him as he checked every truck and car, rode the mirrors constantly, and tried to keep from getting bottled up. When they approached the busy intersection of 89 and the 50, he slowed, pulled off, and waited a bit until the lights were turning in their favor, then he shot through and headed up the western side of the lake toward Camp Richardson.
    Sydney had been so isolated since getting let go from the DA’s office that appreciating somebody who might understand what she faced was hard to resist. But she couldn’t drag him any further into this, much as she might want to. What the future would be, once he hooked back up with his uncle, was another story.
    They headed north up 89, past Camp Richardson and past Emerald Bay, the traffic not nearly as heavy as around the South Shore. But there was little room to run if somebody was parked along the road waiting for a red Mustang convertible. Then, past Emerald Bay, it thinned out.
    “We close?” Marco asked.
    “Just up ahead.”
    “It has a feeder road?”
    “Yes. You can go down with lights out. I’ll tell you when we’re close”

7
    Shaun Corbin couldn’t believe his bad luck. He’d shot at least fifteen goddamn bullets at the woman and she still got away.
    You goddamn fool. You botched it. She got away. Thorp will have you killed for this ! Now he was in the crisis of his life . He’d made a big, big mistake. His whole thing was that he would get her before his cousin brought in a pro. It’d make him a hero. This greatest of all ideas he’d ever had—killing Sydney Jesup so his cousin would finally accept him as worthy—now looked like the stupidest idea he, or anyone, had ever had.