Three years into it, his own wife played an angle, taking him for nearly a million dollars and half his income until their daughter reached eighteen. Jose sold the business and became a one-man show, working for just enough money to pay the rent and his greedy ex-wife, and, recently, giving the rest of his services away to Casey's legal clinic, which desperately needed an investigator.

Jose was just over six feet with arms that tested the limits of his shirtsleeves and the wide V-shaped torso of a linebacker. The cops Casey knew still talked about his time as a patrolman on the street and the way the sight of Jose in blues would send gangbangers scrambling for cover. One story had him snatching a chrome-plated.45 right out of the hand of a drug dealer and beating him senseless after he'd threatened to kill Jose and his partner.

"And," Jose said, "this place wouldn't be the same without Tina."

On cue, Tina, a small dark girl with waves of kinky black hair, appeared blushing beside Jose and apologized for being late.

"No worry," Casey said. "We're going to skip the meeting and open the floodgates. Is Stacy here yet?"

"Waiting for all of you!" Stacy Berg shouted from the other side of the wall. "And the line's not getting any shorter."

"So, here we go," Casey said.

Jose gave Casey an unusual look and angled his head toward her office, disappearing that way himself. Casey got up from the plastic table and walked past Stacy, who sat behind the filling station counter, ready to direct the human traffic that came in the door.

"Before you send me anyone," Casey said, "I need five minutes with Jose."

"You and every red-blooded woman on the planet," Stacy said, eyeing the investigator as he disappeared into Casey's office.

Casey followed him in and closed the door.