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  “Gentlemen,” Cody said, looking us over, “I got a call early this morning, and I was wondering if you all might be able to help me with a special assignment.”

  A special cattle-farm assignment? I thought. What could that mean? Sounded organic, and not exactly in the Whole Foods kind of way. Where was that guy from Dirty Jobs when you needed him?

  “Involving?” my skeptical son, Brian, asked.

  “Touchdown,” Cody said solemnly.

  “Touchdown?” Trent said, suddenly wide-eyed. “Oh, no. That’s bad.”

  “Bad? What do you mean? What’s touchdown?” I said.

  “He’s the bull, Dad,” Trent said. “That big boy I showed you the other day. You know, the orn-ry big boy.”

  “That’s right,” Cody said. “Like it or not, Touchdown needs to go on a road trip today, and I was hoping you could help me get him out of the bull pen and into his trailer.”

  After we helped Cody hitch a trailer to his pickup, the boys piled into the truck bed, and we drove over to the bull pen.

  Cody backed the trailer opposite the gate of the bull pen and got out and dropped the trailer’s ramp.

  “Trent?” the farmer said to my son as he removed a stafflike metal pole from the truck bed.

  “Yes, Mr. Cody?” Trent said.

  “I see that Touchdown is way over there on the other side of the field, grazing. Why don’t you hop on over that fence and see if you can’t get his attention.”

  “Really? Oh, wow!” Trent said. “Can I really? Dad, is that OK?”

  “I guess,” I said. “But you better be ready to do some quick climbing back when he sees you.”

  “This is going to be good,” Eddie said, hopping up onto the fence as Trent lowered himself into the pen.

  “Hey, Touchdown!” Trent called as he did some jumping jacks.

  The truly massive black Angus bull kept on grazing until Cody made a yodeling call. At the sound, Touchdown suddenly stopped chewing and popped his head up and over in our direction like a dog being called by its master.

  It was obvious Cody hadn’t needed Trent’s help but just wanted to get my seven-year-old involved. I smiled. The more time I spent with Cody, the more I liked the old farmer.

  “Ah, you don’t scare me,” Trent said, waving at the bull some more. “I’m over here, dummy! Nanny, nanny!”

  Trent hadn’t gotten the third nanny out when Cody yodeled again, and the bull turned and started to approach. We laughed as Trent shot up the fence. A squirrel couldn’t have done it quicker.

  As Touchdown drew up, I suddenly understood why spectators screamed so loudly at bullfights. They were terrified. It was truly monstrous, a ton or more of pure muscle snorting viciously as it trotted toward us.

  I instinctively stepped back from the fence while Cody stepped forward. He shot a hand out over the railing and grabbed the huge, door-knocker-sized ring drooping from the beast’s nose. Then he attached the ring to a clip on the end of the metal pole he was holding.

  I thought the thing would go nuts and rip Cody’s arm off, but instead it just grunted a few times and placidly looked at the farmer.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” Cody said calmly to the bull as we all stood there in shock. “Mike, could you get the pen gate open so I can lead Mr. Touchdown into his trailer?”

  I ran over and followed instructions. Pulling on the pole like it was a leash, Cody walked the bull along the fence and out the gate. The bull paused for a moment on the trailer’s ramp, but then Cody let out with a cowboy “Yeehaw!” and the bull moved his massive bulk the last few feet into the creaking metal trailer like he’d been booted. The septuagenarian slammed the trailer gate closed and ran the bolt. Only then did he unclip the pole and pull it out through the slats in the trailer.

  “OK, everybody,” he said. “Count all your fingers and toes. All there?”

  We nodded.

  “Excellent job, then. Well done, boys. Trailering a dairy breeding bull is about the most dangerous thing done on a cattle farm. Thanks for the backup.”

  “How’d I do, Mr. Cody?” Trent asked.

  A wide smile creased Cody’s weather-beaten face as he put his big hand on Trent’s head.

  “You did fine, son,” he said. “Just fine. We just might make some good country stock out of you city boys yet.”

  “Mr. Cody, where is Touchdown headed, anyway?” Trent wanted to know.

  Cody looked at me. After a second, he took off his hat and scratched at his bald head.

  “Well, he’s got a … well, a date, I guess you’d call it.”

  “A date?” Eddie said, giggling. “Touchdown has a girlfriend?”

  “He sure does,” Cody said, nodding. “Why, just two farms over, the prettiest little cow you ever saw is right now waiting for him to get over there.”

  “What are they going to do when he gets there? Hold hooves and go bowling or something?” Trent asked, beginning to really crack up.

  Great. Here we go, I thought. It was too early in the morning for cows and bulls, let alone the birds and the bees.

  “Something like that, Trent,” I chimed in before Cody could explain things in more minute detail. “Look at the time. Last one back in the truck is a rotten Homer!”

  CHAPTER 27

  AS WE WERE BUMPING our way back to Aaron Cody’s farmhouse, towing the four-footed, twenty-five-hundred-pound bachelor of the month behind us, I noticed on my phone that I’d missed a couple of calls.

  I blinked at the screen, not knowing what to think. I didn’t get many calls these days. Actually, I guess I had a bit of an idea. Both of the calls were from the same person, Emily Parker of the FBI.

  I wanted to call her back right there and then, but I knew I needed some privacy. My little, and not-so-little, Bennett pitchers had big ears, and if it was something important, I didn’t want to get everyone riled up. Or more riled up than usual.

  When we met back up with Seamus and the girls, who were done with the milking, I told Mary Catherine that I was going to walk the mile and a half of country road back to our house.

  “Any particular reason for the sudden return to nature?” my sharp-as-a-tack nanny wanted to know.

  “Just need a little exercise,” I said.

  “Is that right?” Mary Catherine said, her blarney detector obviously going off like gangbusters. “Whatever you say, Mike.”

  Gravel sprayed as she drove away with my brood. I slipped my phone out of my pocket as the car crested the hill.

  “Mike,” Emily answered on the second ring. “I assume you’ve heard what happened.”

  “Assume I live with cows, Parker,” I said. “I couldn’t be more out of the loop if I tried. What’s up?”

  She proceeded to tell me about the previous night’s amazing events in Los Angeles. A half-dozen men with automatic rifles had opened fire in a suburb east of the city. Two LA County narcotics detectives, along with four members of a notorious Vietnamese gang, had been murdered in the middle of a busy street.

  I hadn’t even begun to digest that when she told me about the even bigger news, the home invasion and murder of the celebrity rapper King Killa and singer Alexa Gia.

  “I’m at the home invasion right now, Mike. It’s the same exact M.O. as with the mobster in Malibu. The victims were poisoned with the same still-unknown substance, through the ventilation system. I’ve been to crime scenes, but never in an astronaut suit borrowed from the Centers for Disease Control.”

  “So it’s Perrine,” I said.

  “No question. The Vietnamese and the rapper both had strong ties to the drug trade. Perrine has some kind of elite paramilitary hit team treating LA County like it’s a war zone.”

  “It sure seems like it,” I said. “So how do I fit in?”

  “Don’t be obtuse, Mike. My phone’s been ringing off the hook. The director himself wants you put on this now, more than ever. We need you to come back. Perrine needs to be stopped. He needs to be found—not tomorrow, but now.”
/>   I let out a breath as I kept walking. I looked out at the miles and miles of Cody’s completely empty, tan-colored land. The reddish mountains in the distance beyond. For all my griping, we were safe here. Being in the middle of nowhere had its benefits.

  “Mike? Hello? Are you still with me?”

  “What about my family, Emily?” I said. “You know the price Perrine has put on my guys. I go traipsing out hither and yon, looking for this bastard, who’s going to watch my family? I can’t risk something happening to them if I’m not here. I won’t do it.”

  “Please, Mike. Perrine is outgunning us, outthinking us. Screw the bureau. I need your help. Can’t you come down and just talk with our people, at least for the sake of morale? I’ll get them to fly you down, you give a pep talk, and I’ll have them fly you back. You’ll be gone two days. I promise.”

  I let her hang for a few seconds.

  “I’ll call you back,” I said, and hung up.

  CHAPTER 28

  “OK, FAMILY MEETING!” I yelled when I finally made the last country mile back to the farmhouse. “Listen up, people. I need to talk to you.”

  I poked my head into the kitchen and saw all my guys already arrayed around the kitchen table. They were all staring at me, too. I was waiting for them to yell Surprise! or something, except it wasn’t my birthday. What was this?

  “Oh, there you are. What’s this? A second breakfast?”

  “No,” Seamus said. “We’re sitting here waiting for you to tell us what’s about to happen next, Detective. You don’t think we can tell when something’s up? Find out anything on your little nature walk that you want to share?”

  “Yeah, where to now, Dad?” Juliana asked. “Alaska?”

  “Kazakhstan, probably,” Jane said.

  “Yeah, Dad,” Eddie said. “Do we need to brush up on our Mongolian now?”

  “Hold up, wise guys, would you please?” I said. “Where’s Mary Catherine?”

  “Here I am,” she said, coming into the kitchen. “What is it? Come on. What’s the news on the Batphone? Lay it on us. We can take it.”

  “Exactly,” Ricky said. “We’ve been out here in Nowhereland for eight months, Dad. We can take anything.”

  I let out a breath. My, my, was everybody pissed at me all of a sudden. Getting kicked by Touchdown would have been less of an assault.

  “It’s nothing, OK?” I said. “Some people wanted my advice on a case. That’s it. That’s the big mystery. So don’t worry about it. Situation normal. How are the chickens doing, Chrissy? How’s Homer? Any eggs today?”

  “ ‘Advice on a case,’ my posterior,” Seamus said. “Spill it.”

  “The FBI wants me. They want me back on the Perrine case. There have been a number of new incidents throughout the country, and for some reason, they think I need to be on the case. But I told them that my job is to be here with you guys. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Wait a second, Dad,” my eldest girl, Juliana, said. “What are you talking about? Perrine is the guy who forced us all to come out here, isn’t he? You get him, we go home?”

  “She’s right, Dad,” Brian said. “Perrine wants to hurt us. He’s the one making us hide. If they can’t find him, then you’re going to have to be the one to do it. It’s actually a good idea. Once you get him, we all get our lives back.”

  “And this will all have been a strange dream,” Eddie said.

  “It’s not as simple as that,” I said.

  “It’s not?” Seamus said. “Listen, I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, Michael, but you’ve been about as useful as a … a …”

  “NYPD detective on a cattle farm?” Ricky suggested.

  “Exactly. Or that rusting hay rake on the porch,” Seamus said. “Ever since we got here, you’ve been walking around, mumbling to yourself. And, frankly, your moping around is flat-out depressing for everyone involved. We love you, Mike, but get the heck out of here, would you?”

  I had to admit, they had a point. Emily herself had told me that the investigation had stalled. Maybe I really could get it going in the right direction. The fact that Perrine was trying to kill me and my family was certainly strong motivation. As was the fact that once he was taken care of, we really could get our lives back.

  “Wow,” I said, staring at them all. “I didn’t know how, uh, supportive everyone would be about my leaving. Thanks. I think.”

  “Seriously, Mike,” Mary Catherine said. “Of course we don’t want you to go, but we know that you need to do this. You really need to bag this creep. It’s time.”

  I stared at my crazy family, shaking my head. It was like I was the subject of an intervention or something. But what was I addicted to? Being a cop? I thought about that. Maybe they weren’t so crazy after all.

  “Well, if that’s how you feel, I guess I could be reluctantly persuaded to go back to work. If that’s what you guys want, of course. Because I’m perfectly fine out here, farming and living off the fat of the land.”

  That got them going. I smiled at the barrage of eye-rolling boos and Bronx cheers. I guess they knew me pretty well.

  Better than I knew myself, that was for sure.

  CHAPTER 29

  MARY CATHERINE CAME INTO my room with a stack of laundry as I was packing.

  “Don’t tell me. The kids called me a cab,” I said as she laid my underwear down on the bed, next to my carry-on.

  “Please, Mike. Those kids love you more than life. You know that,” Mary Catherine said. “They’re just frazzled. The one thing in life kids crave is stability, and it’s been about as stable as a house of cards in a wind tunnel lately. Plus, they know how good you are at what you do. They don’t have a single doubt that you’ll be able to find Perrine.”

  “Oh, sure,” I said, tucking my shaving kit into a zippered compartment. “I’ll be back by dinner. Don’t forget to leave the porch light on.”

  “Well, before you go, I have something to show you,” Mary Catherine said, reaching into the back pocket of her jeans.

  When she opened her fist, I saw what looked like a tiny white pebble in the palm of her hand. I grinned. It was a baby tooth.

  “Shawna’s eyetooth!” I said, smiling as I held it to the light like a jeweler with a gem. “It finally wiggled free, huh?”

  “With a lot of wiggle help from Shawna,” Mary Catherine said, smiling back at me.

  “Quick,” I said, opening the closet door. “To the fairy box.”

  From the top shelf, I took down a small box. It was an old, plastic Macy’s jewelry box that my wife, Maeve, had painted over with white and gold, with generous amounts of glitter. On its lid was a dainty, smiling fairy with elaborately swirling butterfly wings. I smiled at it. It was just a few strokes, but Maeve had been an artist, in addition to so many other things.

  I handed it to Mary Catherine, who held it open as I placed the tiny tooth on the little white silk pillow inside it.

  “Make sure she sees it before she puts it under her pillow,” I said. “And don’t try to do the switcheroo until after midnight. You know what an unbelievable skeptic that kid is!”

  “Aye, aye, Detective Tooth Fairy,” Mary Catherine said, laughing as she looked at me.

  Our eyes met. Mary Catherine and I had gotten closer and closer after she’d become part of our family. But right before we went into hiding, we’d gotten into a huge fight, and that had made things pretty tense. In fact, ever since we’d landed in California, she’d been all business, had kept things strictly professional.

  But for a second, as we stood there, looking at each other over the jewelry box, we were suddenly back the way we used to be. It felt good. Better than good. Like suddenly finding something you’d thought you’d lost forever.

  “You know,” I said, staring at her, “I don’t have to go, Mary Catherine. I really don’t.”

  “Oh, yes, you do, Michael Bennett,” Mary Catherine said, closing the jewelry box shut with a loud snap before leaving the room.

  PART
TWO

  BACK IN THE SADDLE

  CHAPTER 30

  TWO US MARSHALS SHOWED up at the farmhouse less than two hours after I called Emily back with my agreement to join the hunt for Perrine.

  I’d met some marshals, since the US Marshals Service was the branch of the Justice Department that ran the witness protection program, but this young team, Agents Leo Piccini and Martha McCarthy, was new to me. They must have had orders to step on it, because after Martha dropped my overnight and duffel into the trunk of the Crown Vic, Leo dropped the hammer.

  The best news of all was that after I caught my flight, the marshals would be heading back to the ranch to guard my family. My kids would be getting extra-special, round-the-clock protection while I was gone. Their safety was paramount, the priority for me. I wanted Perrine bad, but my guys came first. If anything ever happened to them while I was away, I didn’t know what I would do.

  Leo told me we were headed to a place an hour south-east of Cody’s ranch, along the California-Nevada border, called the Amedee Army Airfield. As we drove, I wondered if Amedee was Indian for end of the world, because the area was hands down the most desolate place I had ever seen in my life. On both sides of the faded two-lane blacktop was nothing but mountain-rimmed scrub desert beneath a sky so huge and bright and blue, it hurt my head.

  “Is this where they tested the atom bomb?” I asked as we slowed and turned onto a dirt road.

  “No, sir. I believe that was down in New Mexico,” Leo said from behind his aviator shades.

  “I knew I should have made a left in Albuquerque,” I mumbled as we bumped along.

  We slowed and stopped about five minutes later. I looked to the left and right for the military airport that was our destination, but there was nothing. No planes, no control tower, no buildings. There was nothing but more desert.

  “Um, I thought I was supposed to catch a plane,” I said, scanning the bleak landscape.