Grissom smiled. Sara was already kneeling by the pen, sticking her fingers through the mesh and letting them lick her fingers. “They’re so adorable…”

“Yes,” Grissom said softly. “Adorable.”

“-that all, Mr. Grissom?” said Southford.

“Hmm? I’m sorry, Dale. Woolgathering… Actually, I was hoping to tal k to you about one of your customers-a teenage boy named Lucas Yannick?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Mr. Grissom.” Southford frowned. “My customer records are highly confidential. I’m afraid you’ll need a court order to get access to them.”

There was a moment of silence.

Southford burst into a fit of giggles. Grissom sighed, but he did so with a smile on his face.

“Sorry,” said Southford. “I couldn’t resist-I miss working at the lab sometimes. Sure, I know the kid you’re talking about-let me just pull up his file.”

He went behind the cashier’s counter and tapped a few keys on the keyboard. “Here you go-Lucas Yannick. He’s got a Chilean rose-haired tarantula, a striped scorpion, and a praying mantis. Comes in here to buy bug chow.”

Grissom knew “bug chow” meant feeder crickets; spiders and scorpions preferred their food to still be kicking. “Did he ever order anything else? Millipedes, for instance?”

“No, nothing like that. Seemed interested in a snake the last time he was here, though-could be he’s decided to move up, evolutionarily speaking.”

“Thanks, Dale. I’ll pick up that dog food later, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure. Say hello to Sara for me, will you? When she gets back.”

Grissom glanced down at where t wo puppies were wrestling happily. “I’ll do that,” he said.

Diego Molinez stared levelly across the interview table at Catherine. There was no overt hostility in his face, just the blank hardness of someone used to prison.

“Consorting with known felons is a violation of your parole,” said Catherine. “I could have you sent back to a cell right now.”

Diego didn’t respond. Then again, she hadn’t really asked him a question.

“Tell me what I need to know and that doesn’t have to happen,” she continued. “Security footage at the Braun Suites shows you, Lester Akiliano, and Aaron Tyford visiting Hal Kanamu. Hal knew how to party, didn’t he?”

“So?”

“So sometimes a party can get out of hand. Maybe somebody says the wrong thing. Things get out of control-”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“No? Tell me how it was, then.”

“We respected each other. That’s all.”

Catherine studied him for a minute. If there was one principle Grissom had drilled into her, it was that the evidence never lied-but people did. Even so, people were always part of the equation, and Catherine’s ability to read people was finely tuned. Respect was one of those key words in Diego’s world, not one he used lightly. If he was going to lie to her, she didn’t th ink he would do it using that particular term.

He was telling the truth. And she knew what that meant.

6

CLIVE CRABTREE STOOD on the sidewalk, watching the artificial volcano in front of the Mirage erupt. He thought he knew how it felt.

Clive had never been to Vegas before. Gambling had never been his thing, or his wife’s, and seeing big glitzy shows with topless showgirls didn’t really appeal to him, either. But the shift in the 1990s toward a more family-friendly Vegas had changed his attitude; roller coasters and theme restaurants and acts like the Blue Man Group seemed more his speed. Plus, both Clive and his wife had been known to enjoy the occasional buffet, and there had never been any shortage of those in the city.

Fireballs shot into t h e air to the rumble of explosions-recordings of actual volcanic eruptions, Clive had heard. He could feel the heat of the flames on his face, though he doubted real volcanoes came with a drum soundtrack and smelled like a piña colada.

Their first mistake had been to book rooms in a resort they’d never heard of. The ad had claimed it was on the Strip, but that was only technically true; it was at the very end of Las Vegas Boulevard, about as far as you could get from the Strip and still be on the same street. The promised five-star accommodation had turned out to be more like one, and Clive suspected it was a star in danger of burning out. Construction next door had woken them up at six in the morning, and they’d been forced to park across the street because the resort’s parking lot was full of heavy equipment and building supplies.

Smoke and fire belched into the air. Flames da nced on red-tinted water intended to simulate lava. Clive wondered if the pirates next door at Treasure Island ever got a headache from all the noise. Probably not; a propensity toward migraines didn’t tend to steer you down the buccaneer career path.

The biggest mistake Clive and Sheila had made was agreeing to the free breakfast. It turned out to be a meager offering of cheap Danishes and second-rate coffee, accompanied by a two-hour, mind-numbing presentation on time-share condos-located at this very resort, what a bargain, you just can’t beat these prices. The only reason they hadn’t walked out after the first ten minutes was the promise of half-price tickets to a show they’d really wanted to see.

But that hadn’t been the worst of it. After the crappy breakfast and a tour of a show suite in far better condition than the one they were actually staying in came Brent.

Brent was deeply tanned, with large white teeth and blow-dried blond hair. Clive was pretty sure Brent was also a robot, because his single-minded dedication to selling them a time-share verged on the mechanical. No matter how many times they said they weren’t interested, Brent would keep going. He showed them cost breakdowns that to Clive’s eyes-he was a CPA-were laughable, even insulting. Even when Clive pointed out that for the amount of money they were expected to invest they could stay in an actual five-star hotel for a week every year, Brent would not be dissuaded. In fact, he became even more aggressive, his demeanor suggesting that only a complete bona fide idiot wouldn’t grab the deal he was offering.

Clive was not a man easy to anger. It had taken an hour of being badgered, lied to, and treated as no more than a wallet with legs before he’d finally lost his temper. He hadn’t actually punched Brent in the face, but he’d come close. He’d stormed out of the presentation, leaving Sheila to try to claim the promised tickets-which he knew would just turn out to be another con-and marched off down the street in the closest thing to a blind rage he’d experienced since high school.

That had been over an hour ago. He’d walked off most of his anger, gotten to the point where he thought he could talk to another human being without shouting at them. Watching the volcano helped-for all its implied violence, it was strangely soothing. Look at what human beings can do, it seemed to be saying; we can tame even the most destructive forces of nature.

It was an illusion, of course. Just like the whole city. Sexy showgirls you could never sleep with, huge piles of money you could never win. The more Clive thought about it the more he felt that his encounter with Brent, with his empty eyes and his vacant good looks, was like a personification of Vegas itself. Clive had never met s omeone he’d felt less of a human connection to in his life; he was pretty sure that if he pumped Brent’s arm up and down a few times, the salesman’s eyes would spin around and then show a lemon and a horseshoe.

Clive sighed and resumed his walk. He shouldn’t let one bad encounter with a soulless huckster ruin their trip. All he’d lost, after all, had been a few hours of his time-that was a lot better than some visitors to the city could claim. He could have been a real Vegas success story: arrive in a ten-thousand-dollar car and leave in a hundred-thousand-dollar bus.