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to see Lopez arrive with her badge, nightstick and bad attitude. It wasn’t their deliberate obstruction that had set her
off, just their idle dismissal. Two broken noses, a severed knee tendon and one fractured collarbone later, fugitive James Watson sheepishly surrendered and was dragged by Lopez over the groaning
bodies of his would-be protectors. It had been over before Ethan had even got through the door.
    ‘Just looking out for you,’ he said finally, raising his hands and making for the driver’s door. ‘We’re no good to each other if one of us is in jail.’
    ‘You’re the one with history,’ Lopez remarked as they climbed into the SUV. ‘My record’s pearly clean.’
    ‘You’s a jailbird?’ Mickey Ferranto muttered from the back seat, looking at Ethan.
    ‘Can it, Mickey,’ Ethan snapped as he started the engine and looked at Lopez. ‘I’m a reformed character. You’re the one on the slippery slope into shameful
lawlessness.’
    Lopez shook her head and laughed as they pulled out into their lane.
    ‘We set ourselves up to catch bail-jumpers and fugitives. They don’t obey the law, we have to bend the rules to pick them up.’
    ‘That how it is?’ Ethan asked rhetorically.
    ‘That’s how it is.’
    ‘That really how it is?’ Mickey Ferranto complained.
    ‘Shut up,’ Ethan glared over his shoulder. ‘My point is that there’s plenty of competition out there and we can’t afford to get ourselves busted.’
    ‘We can’t afford much at all,’ Lopez muttered and jabbed her thumb over her shoulder at Ferranto. ‘We’re not bagging enough of these losers to make ends
meet.’
    ‘I ain’t no loser,’ Mickey complained.
    ‘No?’ Lopez turned round in her seat to look at him. ‘You’re a twenty-three-year-old who’s just cost his mother a couple of thousand bucks jail bond for nothing
more than possession of an illegal substance. You’d turned up in court like you were supposed to, you’d have probably been released because you’re not important enough, Mickey;
you’re a nobody. Only a loser like you could turn a nothing into a jail sentence.’
    Mickey avoided her gaze and looked sulkily out of the window as Ethan turned toward Cook County Jail.
    ‘Maybe we should spread out more, cover more area,’ Ethan suggested. ‘Maybe even link up with some of the other bondsmen out there.’
    ‘Maybe,’ Lopez echoed. ‘Or maybe we just need to stop scraping around in the dirt for nobodies like Mickey here and pick up something more lucrative.’
    Ethan began to answer when a black sedan pulled out in front of the SUV, passing within inches of his front fender. He was about to remonstrate when another identical car pulled alongside him,
boxing the SUV in.
    ‘What the hell?’ Lopez muttered, instinctively reaching for her pistol before remembering that she was no longer legally allowed to carry one. Her hand rested on her baton
instead.
    ‘Government plates,’ Ethan said, glancing at the rear of the sedan in front of them as it indicated it was turning off the road.
    ‘You gonna follow?’ Lopez asked.
    Ethan shrugged, then turned to follow the sedan.

5
    The sedans guided them north on Harlem Avenue before turning off the highway into Waldheim Cemetery. Lonely ranks of gravestones spread across several acres of carefully
manicured lawns shaded by hundreds of trees. Ethan followed the lead car until it pulled into a secluded spot off Greenburg Road in the northwest corner of the cemetery.
    Ethan killed the engine and looked in his mirrors suspiciously.
    ‘What the hell is this shit, man?’ Mickey Ferranto whined. ‘I want to speak to my attorney.’
    Lopez shot him a toxic look.
    ‘See all these gravestones, Mickey? You wanna join them, you just keep talking.’
    Ethan climbed out of the SUV and closed the door. Lopez joined him. For a moment, nothing moved. Then two men climbed out of each vehicle, all sporting gray suits, designer shades and earpieces.
They moved