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were notoriously difficult to keep tabs on that way. Which was why he’d been standing among the crowd watching when he’d been made. He decided to humor Bax by feeding him what the other man would consider information. “They were talking to people before the service started, but none of it was really one-on-one. Looked like regular funeral stuff.”
    Jesus, the air-conditioning feels good. Texas in August is hot as hell . Who could live full-time in a place like this?
    For an instant Finn thought of Wyoming: the weather would be beautiful, cool and sunny, nothing like this raging furnace. He’d give a lot to be back there right now, working the ranch he’d bought and was slowly whipping into shape. Fixing fences, constructing shelters for the herd of Angus cattle he was building up, tending to the livestock—all that had been therapy for him after his last assignment had gone disastrously wrong. He’dalmost been killed, a friend had been killed, and he’d retired. For almost three years, he’d been free. Had thought he was free forever. Then the summons had come: they needed him again.
    His lip curled: it was one of those offers you couldn’t refuse.
    He hadn’t even thought they knew where he was.
    â€œYou really think one of them knows where the money is?” Bax asked.
    â€œHard to say,” Finn responded noncommittally, knowing that Bax was referring to the Cowan women who he was watching, too. “George had to know his house of cards was going to collapse someday. No way he didn’t prepare for the eventuality. No way he doesn’t have a stash. No way he didn’t tell somebody where to find his stash. Was it one of them? I don’t know yet.”
    â€œMy money was on Jeff. But with him dead and no activity anywhere . . .” Bax shrugged and his voice trailed off. Once Finn had informed him that he hadn’t killed Jeff, Bax had been able to take a more objective view of what had gone down. By no activity, he meant none of the literally thousands of communication channels the government was monitoring had lit up in the wake of Jeff’s death.
    â€œDoesn’t mean he didn’t know,” Finn said, glancing at the camera. “Just means he didn’t tell anybody we know about before he died. At least, not so we’ve discovered.”
    If Jeff had talked to whoever had killed him, the sharks wouldn’t still be hanging around. Word spread fast in a community like theirs, and somebody would be making a grab for the money. Unless the recipient of Jeff’s confidence was smart enough not to make a move.
    His gaze fastened thoughtfully on Riley Cowan, holdinghands with her mother-in-law, whose other arm was around her wilting and tearful teen daughter.
    Despite the heat, and the tragic circumstances, the three of them still managed to look coolly elegant as they stood for a moment talking to the minister with the crowd in motion around them. They were no longer card-carrying members of the one percent—far from it—but despite the spectacular fall in their circumstances they still had that indefinable air about them that marked the rich. He supposed that wasn’t so surprising in the mother, Margaret, who was rail thin with the kind of carefully kept, chin-length blond hair that seemed universal to wealthy women of a certain age, or the sister, Emma, a pretty teen with a long, flaxen ponytail, who incidentally was the only one to show the kind of emotion he would have expected from the deceased’s loving family. They’d been born rich, lived all their lives in a silver spoon world. The ex-wife—the joker in the deck—whose bright red hair and killer curves made her stand out in the crowd, was the one who surprised him.
    Who kept on surprising him.
    For the funeral her sleeveless dress was knee-length, figure-­skimming, conservative. A far cry from the short, tight number she’d been