Marquez had jotted the codes on a page in his logbook and the DEA was trying to unravel their meaning. He doubted Holsing came up with them on his own and Sheryl backed that up, saying the DEA believed they were part of a Salazar Cartel code. They’d seen something similar on another case. He parked in front of Holsing’s house, walked up and looked through a window near the door. Nothing looked any different. The DEA would keep an eye on the house and collect Holsing’s mail for him while he was away being a fugitive, but no one was doing anything about the newspaper delivery. Marquez stepped over yellowing newspapers as he walked back out the driveway.
In the Bay Area gray fog sucked in by the valley heat darkened the sky as he drove across Marin County. He took a call from his stepdaughter, Maria, after he was on Mount Tamalpais and climbing toward the house.
‘Dad, when are you getting home?’
‘I’m almost home. What’s up?’
‘Mom says you might lose your job. How could that happen if you weren’t even there?’
‘I was Brad’s supervisor.’
‘But you weren’t even there.’
‘I’m responsible for my team wherever they are. That’s the deal.’
‘You can tell me to shut up, but how can that be fair?’
Brad’s death was about chain of command and he tried to explain that, but wasn’t sure he got through. Then Maria revealed that she called for another reason, as well.
‘I broke up with a guy I’ve been seeing.’
‘That can’t be easy.’
‘It’s not.’
‘When did it happen?’
‘Last week, and I’d like to talk with you, but not on the phone.’
Maria shared a house with three roommates in the Noe Valley in San Francisco. She worked part time for a web designer and part time for a guerilla web marketer. She was bright, quick, and restless, twenty-three and trying to figure out what to do with her life. She was an inch taller than her mother and with dark hair and a body made lean by cycling. She was currently anti-car and very worried about global warming. She’d also had something of a political awakening and asserted her opinions with the confidence of a TV preacher.
That night Katherine asked, ‘Did Maria call you?’
‘She did.’
‘I’m glad she’s breaking up with him. I didn’t like him at all.’
Later that night Katherine woke him by kissing him. He was never going to be exactly what she hoped for in a marriage. He loved the warden work, the SOU too much. He needed the feeling he was making a difference more than he needed money, and Katherine would never say it but she was more than ready for his undercover career to end. But sometimes you forgive a person for being who they are, as opposed to what you want them to be. He and Katherine had been separated once and close to it a second time, before they found a way through. He woke to her kisses on his face and chest and belly, and drew her close, and she whispered with her face pressed against his, ‘They’ll never have anyone ever again as good as you.’