Dean Harper

CASE: PI-M-B-V-7954 I got a call from a sheriff out in Arizona. Seems his little dustbowl of a town had a string of break-ins, vandalism, and a few folks who'd gone missing without so much as a goodbye. He'd gotten my name from one of my sources, which meant somebody thought I was the right sucker for the job. Lucky me. I packed my bags and headed west. The sheriff filled me in when I arrived, and before long he was pointing me toward a drifter named Dean Harper, holed up in a rundown motel on the highway just outside town. Every lead seemed to point in Harper's direction, and I don't believe in coincidences any more than I believe in honest politicians. I headed over to his room, expecting the usual collection of cheap whiskey, dirty laundry, and bad decisions. But Harper was nowhere to be found. Instead, I found a bloodstained photograph, a cryptic map, and identification cards belonging to people who, according to every record I could find, had never existed. Now, I've chased enough ghosts to know when a case has teeth. This wasn't some two-bit drifter raising hell in a sleepy Arizona town. Somebody was playing a much bigger game, and Dean Harper was either the man holding the cards or the next poor devil to disappear. Either way, I intended to find out who was dealing.