“Wrong,” Walt said as Coltrane passed him. “She’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

17

THE NEGATIVES OF DUNCAN REYNOLDS. How had they disappeared from the vault? The question kept nagging at Coltrane all the while he drove angrily down from the mountains. Darkness obscured the peaks, but he wouldn’t have paid attention to them even if he had been able to see them. There was too much on his mind. When he had discovered that the negatives were missing, he hadn’t thought clearly about the implications. He had taken for granted that someone had broken into his house and stolen them, and that their disappearance was related to Tash’s disappearance. If he could find out what happened to Tash, he would find out what happened to the negatives, he had reasoned. Both were tied together, because Tash was the only person besides himself who knew that he had taken photographs of Duncan Reynolds spying on her. The logical conclusion, then, was that Tash had been responsible for their theft, but that explanation hadn’t made sense. Why would Tash want to steal evidence that would help imprison the man who was stalking her?

Stalking. The memory of what he had been accused of sent a shock wave through his mind. The sheriff had even gone so far as to imply that Coltrane was the person who had stalked Tash in Malibu. Dear God, what have I gotten myself involved in? He felt he was being sucked into a spinning vortex, totally without balance and direction.

The dismaying sensation was reinforced by a sharp curve in the mountain road that his headlights didn’t reveal in time for him to reduce his speed. He almost veered out of control and narrowly avoided careening into the trees at the side of the road. His palms sweating, he fought with the steering wheel, steadied the car past the curve, and sped onward through the night.

Tash. Because it had seemed improbable for her to steal evidence that would help her, Coltrane had automatically rejected the idea. With no other explanation, however, the mystery had been thought-jamming, another on Coltrane’s list of many baffling questions that he needed to ask her. But not anymore. Now that Tash had denied any knowledge of the negatives and Duncan Reynolds, Coltrane’s thoughts were no longer blocked. Without his bias in favor of Tash, he saw the problem in the direct way that it should have struck him at the start. His house had not been broken into; there had not been any sign of forced entry. So how could Tash have gotten past the locks and the intrusion detector? She couldn’t have. But someone else could have – the one person who stood to benefit by the theft of the negatives: Duncan Reynolds.

Coltrane hadn’t had time to change the locks – Duncan still had a key. Although Coltrane had changed the numerical code on the intrusion detector, most number pads could be programmed with several codes, and Duncan must have known about an existing one that Coltrane did not know. Motive and means. It was the only way to explain so clean a theft. The reason Coltrane hadn’t suspected Duncan was that Duncan hadn’t been aware of the incriminating photographs Coltrane had taken of him. Duncan wouldn’t have had a reason to invade Coltrane’s house and steal negatives that he didn’t even know existed.

Unless Tash had warned him.

Why?

Coltrane shot around another curve and saw the glow of Riverside below him. But instead of taking Highway 10 northwest toward the Hollywood Hills and home, he headed west, toward Newport Beach.

18

THE RED-AND-BLUE FLASHING EMERGENCY LIGHTS STARTLED HIM as he rounded the corner. Outside the estate that Duncan had inherited from Packard, police cars blocked part of the exclusive street. An ambulance was in the open-gated driveway. An unmarked car with a flashing dome light pulled in behind it. Radios squawked. Policemen came and went along the driveway. Feeling as cold as when he had hiked through the snow to reach Walt’s cabin at Big Bear, Coltrane parked far enough back that his car wouldn’t be in the way, then got out in a daze, slowly approaching the commotion. Neighbors had left their houses and formed troubled groups on the sidewalk.

“What happened?” Coltrane asked numbly, reaching the nearest group.

The well-dressed neighbors eyed his battered lips with suspicion.

“Do you live around here?” a policeman asked.

“No.” The flashing lights were oppressive as Coltrane watched an attendant open the back doors of the ambulance in Duncan’s driveway.

“Then please get back in your car, sir, and-”

“I came to visit the man who lives in that house.” Coltrane’s voice sounded faint to him, far away.

“Duncan Reynolds?”

“Yes.” Coltrane felt colder. “I haven’t talked to him in awhile. I was in the area. I thought I’d see if he was home.”

“When was the last time you spoke with him?”

“A couple of weeks. What happened here?”

“Was he depressed about anything? Money problems? Problems in a relationship? Problems with-”

“No money problems. His employer died in November. The will was generous.”

“Did the death hit him hard?”

“What are you getting at?”

The policeman hesitated. “A gardener noticed a smell. He hadn’t seen your friend in several days. All the doors were locked. He peered through a back window and saw a trouser leg projecting from behind a chair.”

“Dear Lord.” Coltrane’s mouth was so dry that he had trouble forming the words.

“When we forced the door open – I’m sorry to have to tell you this – we found your friend’s body.”

“What caused-”

“I’m not the medical examiner, but the way it looks now, he shot himself.”

19

COLTRANE’S THOUGHTS WERE SO DISJOINTED THAT DRIVING down the hill toward his house, he was slow to notice the car parked in front: a BMW. A minute earlier, he would have sworn that his emotions couldn’t possibly have gotten more complicated. He would have been wrong. After pressing the garage-door opener, he steered into the driveway, stopped in the garage, and got out. On the street, the BMW’s door opened and closed. High heels clicked on concrete, coming toward him.

Jennifer, wearing a blue business suit, her short blond hair glinting from the light above the garage, stopped in front of him.

He felt awkward, embarrassed – didn’t know what to say.

She broke the silence. “I promised I wasn’t going to bother you again.”

“Actually, I’m glad to see you.”

She went on as if she hadn’t heard him. “I’ve got a speech prepared. I don’t want to forget any of it.”

“Then you’d better not stop.”

“I vowed I wouldn’t phone you. Not show up at your home. Not happen to cross paths with you the way I did the last time we broke up. But here I am. The fact is, I’ve been leaving messages on your machine for the last two days. When you didn’t get back to me, I figured you were determined to avoid me.”

“I didn’t know about the messages. I’ve been away.”

“So I had to break my word and show up here and wait for you.”

“You might have had a long wait,” Coltrane said.

“It already has been. As soon as I got off work, I drove over here. Three hours ago.”

“Somehow, I get the feeling it’s not because of my irresistible charm.”

Jennifer nodded. “You pretty much wiped out your charm the last time we talked.”

“Then…”

“Just because I’m furious at you, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t feel terrible if something happened to you. Her real name isn’t Natasha Adler.”

“What?”

“And men have a habit of dying around her.”