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place lacked in grandeur, it made up for in hominess. The blue shutters against the white siding, ferns hanging in pots along the whole expanse of the front porch, and American and Maryland flags flapping gently off poles affixed to the porch columns made it appear the kind of house you called a home. Something he never had.
    Everything was quiet, and it wasn’t yet dark enough to discern lights or movement within.
    Marz slipped the pack off his shoulders and removed a few pieces of equipment as Beckett did the same. Onething they’d always bonded over: gadgets. They both loved to use them, and Beckett had always been particularly good at modifying them. As Beckett powered up an X-ray camera with see-through-the-wall technology, Marz slipped on a pair of headphones that connected to a bionic ear, a handheld listening device that amplified sound from up to a hundred yards away.
    The moment Marz turned on the supersensitive microphone, he picked up the soft strains of music from inside. No voices, but there were other noises. A soft clinking, a low hiss or sizzle—sounds that made him think of cooking. He looked to Beckett, who tilted the screen of the tablet camera toward him. The cutting-edge technology was essentially a radar system that measured changes in WiFi wave frequency through walls as thick as one foot. The screen revealed one disturbance to those waves.
    One person inside.
    Marz nodded to Beckett.
    “Oh, my God, that’s good,” came a woman’s voice through Marz’s headphones. His gaze returned to the house and scanned from window to window as he imagined what Emilie Garza was doing. Sounds like doors or cabinets opening and closing. The clinks of plates and glasses. The scrape of a chair against the floor. “Oh, forgot the jalapeños,” she murmured.
    She apparently had a habit of talking to herself, as it continued throughout the whole meal until the rushing sound of water suggested she was doing the dishes. And then it got quiet again.
    A cool darkness had fallen over the peaceful yard. Lights illuminated the front porch and glowed from the water side of the house.
    Marz’s thighs were pitching a fit about kneeling, sohe carefully readjusted onto his hip. He didn’t even have to look at Beckett to know the guy’s eyes tracked his movement.
    “Okay, stop putting it off,” Emilie said in a soft voice.
    And then music to Marz’s ears—the tones of a phone dialing. Finally, something he could work with. He closed his eyes as they sounded out and immediately translated them to numbers. He pulled out his cell and texted Charlie: Look up 703-555-2496 . When he was done, he put his hand up to his own ear to signal to Beckett that Emilie was making a call.
    A moment later, he received back: Will do .
    From inside, one ring, then another, and another. “Hi, you’ve reached—” Click .
    Damnit . No conversation and not even a name from the message. At least Charlie could trace the number. Marz made a cut signal across his neck, and Beckett nodded his understanding.
    More time passed. Nothing glamorous about surveillance. Most of the time it was a whole lotta sitting around hoping something informative would happen while you fought to keep your mind focused and your eyes and ears sharp.
    Numbness radiated from his right hip and crawled down his thigh, and Marz shifted again. Having lost a leg wasn’t all bad. His leg might be weaker, but at least it no longer mattered when one half of a pair of socks went AWOL in the dryer.
    Silver linings, man. He’d always looked for them. Because, really, what choice was there? To wallow in life’s hard knocks and give up? He’d have been down and out at the age of five if that’d been his approach. Fuck that.
    It wasn’t that Marz didn’t think losing a leg suckedass. It totally did. For a time, it had shredded his psyche, his soul, his sense of self. And it definitely changed his life—like right now, when the squeeze of the sleeve, pressure on the stump,