To his left, a grassy patch with a handful of trees. He focused on a squirrel, watched it sprint across ten feet of open ground and up the trunk of a tree. It stopped a few feet up, clung there, turned its head and stared at him.

Valerie Anderson, he heard it say. Nothing but a lonely old woman who's a little too fond of the bottle.

Carlos thought hard as he stared back at the squirrel. Someone knew his business. That was bad enough. But someone knew his private life, too, and that made Carlos extremely uncomfortable.

When he pulled up in his driveway, Maggie was at the door, waiting for him, Sofia in her arms.

He turned off the engine, pinched the envelope between thumb and fingers, climbed out of the car.

Maggie sauntered over to him, her flip-flops clacking against the soles of her feet, kissed his cheek. "What's so bad you had to come home?" she said, quietly, her eyes too bright and more purple than blue.

He leaned in, saw that Sofia was asleep. He ran his thumb lightly over her scalp, stroked the fair downy hair she'd inherited from her mother. "In the garden," he said, leading the way round the side of the house, towards the back.

"Grass needs cut," Maggie said.

"So cut it," he said.

"I'm just saying," she said.

"Well, don't."

"What the fuck's wrong?"

"Don't swear at me."

"Jesus, Charlie." Her chin dimpled.

He sat down on the bench at the back of the house. "Go put this in the safe." He held out the money. The finances and the paperwork and all that, Maggie's job. He struggled with numbers. No, that wasn't true. He could do it all right, he just chose not to. It bored him, whereas Maggie seemed to get something out of it.

"What is it?" she said.

"Deposit."

"Nice," she said. "You better take Sofia, then."