Cactus Heart

Prologue

I didn’t know if I would ever tell this story. It was 1999, a strange time, not long after I had returned to Phoenix. Everybody seemed flush, pundits predicted the Dow would reach 36,000, and even deputies day-traded stocks. Health-conscious yuppies smoked fifty-dollar Churchills in plush cigar bars, and the Internet was everywhere. Peralta kept giving me work at the Sheriff’s Office, and I was spending my nights with a young woman named Lindsey. Later, what happened next would seem like a dream, like another man’s life. I would never have gotten into such troubles. But I did. This is how it happened.