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laughter.
    The air in the apartment was foggy with cigarette smoke, Danny lighting up with a vengeance as he sprawled on the couch.
    “Slow down with those,” Miller said. “You’re gonna run out by tomorrow.”
    Danny shrugged. “FBI’s buying, right?”
    Miller shook his head, annoyed, but didn’t protest when Danny passed him the pack so he could have a smoke of his own.
    “What’s the plan now?” Danny asked. “For me?”
    “You continue feeding me information. Once we’ve got everything sewed up tight, we indict Hinestroza. Then you testify against him.”

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    “There are two major problems with that scenario,” Danny said, holding up his fingers to illustrate. “One, Hinestroza hardly ever leaves Colombia anymore, so getting him to trial will be next to impossible.
    And two, he’d blow the courthouse sky high before he’d let me take the witness stand.”
    “That wouldn’t happen. He’s not God, Danny,” Miller observed.
    Danny’s eyes were full of fear and memories, his voice harsh as he looked away. “That’s what you think.”
    “Are you ready to tell me how you got hooked up with him?”
    “Not really,” Danny said, attempting to blow a series of wobbly smoke rings toward the ceiling.
    “Well, time’s up. I need to know.”
    “I’ll bet you’re a fucking barrel of laughs on a Saturday night, Sutton.”
    “I’m not here for fun. I’m here to nail Hinestroza.”
    “Like I need reminding,” Danny muttered.
    “Did you find him or did he find you?”
    “Oh, I think it’s safe to say he found me.” Danny hesitated, eyes focused on something Miller couldn’t see. “I was eighteen, living in Dallas, working at this shitty car wash. The kind where you get out of your car and they run it through and then some down-on-their-luck kid dries it for you. That was me, the loser with the chamois rag.” Miller thought back to when he was eighteen, how close he could have been to Danny’s situation if his father hadn’t pushed him into college, practically forcing him to go, a grown man being dragged like a kindergartener. Without that push, he could easily have ended up like Danny, aimless and adrift with no hope for the future. Jesus, Miller, why don’t you get out the violin and play him a sonata? Danny made his own fucking choices—all of them bad.
    “One day this car pulled up and Hinestroza was inside. He offered me a job. And I got in the car. End of story.” But it wasn’t the end of the story and Miller knew it. Danny’s eyes were jumping faster than Shades of Gray | 53
    feet on fire, his Adam’s apple bobbing crazily in his throat.
    “I’m going to have to hear the rest of it, Danny, at some point.”
    “Just… not tonight, okay?” Danny said. “It hasn’t been a great couple of days.”
    “Okay,” Miller agreed. “But soon.” Not willing to give Danny too much leeway, he was careful to maintain the upper hand.
    “Want another beer?” Danny asked, heading into the kitchen. He didn’t wait for Miller’s reply, came back with two bottles hanging between his fingers. He handed one over and took up his previous position, flopped on the couch, bare feet dangling over the arm.
    “What does your wife think of you being stuck here?” Miller pushed back in the recliner, the footrest popping up with a squawk. “I don’t have a wife,” he said, eyes on the TV screen.
    “Then who were you talking to when you called me the other night?”
    Miller never talked about his personal life with informants.
    Never. It was a rule within the FBI, both spoken and unspoken, and he followed it as though to break it would constitute a personal failure.
    “That was my fiancée. Rachel.”
    “Fiancée?” Danny scooted upright on the couch. “When’s the wedding?”
    “We haven’t set a date yet,” Miller replied, wishing he’d never opened his damn mouth.
    “How long have you been engaged?”
    Miller scowled at Danny, who looked back at him blandly, a