I nodded.

Hub was at the airport, she said, doing some work on his airplane in preparation for a flight they were planning to take to Mexico the next day. She expected him back soon. Did I want to come in and wait?

I said I did.

Crissy made sure to double-latch the door behind me. “Coffee? I just made some.”

“Sure.”

I followed her into the kitchen, the scent of lilac soap wafted behind her.

“So, Mexico, huh?”

“Hub just wants to get away for a few days. Says things around here are getting too stressful. He’s right. Also, there’s a pediatric ophthalmologist I found online in La Paz. American guy. Very innovative. He’s supposed to know everything there is to know about Ryder’s eye condition. We’re taking her down there to see him.”

Mexico. Where investigators would have a tougher time finding Walker.

“Where’s Ryder?”

“Still sleeping,” Crissy said.

“Been a awhile since I was able to sleep this late.”

“You and me both. I can’t seem to sleep at all anymore.”

She poured me a cup.

“I was thinking over what you said about Ray,” Crissy said. “I don’t know if this matters but, for what it’s worth, I do know he’s extremely jealous of Greg Castle. Ray’s convinced he’s the real brains at Castle Robotics. Thinks he never gets any credit. If you ask me, he’d stop at nothing to get his hands on that company.”

“How do you know all that?”

“How do I know?” Crissy fumbled for a credible answer. “Ask anybody who knows him. They’ll tell you. Ray’s got a little bit of a nasty streak in him.”

I sipped my coffee.

“So, what was it you wanted to see Hub about?” Crissy said. “He told me he already paid you what we owed you.”

“I’d prefer to discuss that with him directly.”

“Sure, whatever.” She pulled the kimono tighter around her. “Well, like I said, he should be home any minute now, and I really do need to go get ready. I’ve got another big meeting at Animal Planet up in LA this afternoon.”

“Cat Communicator?”

“They’re making noises like they’re actually going to pick up the series,” Crissy said as she padded down a long hall. “Can you believe it?”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

I waited until I heard her bedroom door close, then called Rosario to tell her that Walker wasn’t home, but would be back soon. She put me on hold for nearly a minute.

“Change of plans,” she said when she came back on the line. “SWAT’ll move into position and take him down when he pulls into his driveway.”

“Works for me. Then I’m out of here.”

“Just do me a favor and stay put until we’ve got him, Logan. If he’s due back any minute and decides to resist, I don’t want you walking outside into the middle of a firefight.”

Getting shot before finishing one’s first cup of morning coffee is no way to start the day. I agreed to hang loose until Rosario called me back with the all-clear. Besides, I wanted the chance to confront Walker and ask him why he did what he did. Better, I figured, to pose that question after he was restrained.

“Just so you know,” I told Rosario, “there’s a little kid in here. Walker’s granddaughter.”

“Thanks for the heads-up. We’ll be extra careful.”

My phone beeped with another incoming call. I told Rosario I’d wait to hear from her and pushed the green button.

“You disconnected me yesterday,” Savannah said.

I had totally forgotten to call her back.

“There was nothing preventing you from calling me back, Savannah.”

“You mean other than phone etiquette? You cut me off, Logan. Etiquette requires that you should’ve called me back.”

“Duly noted. I’ll try not to let it happen again. Anything else?”

“I didn’t call to chew you out. I actually have some great news. I talked to the hospital. Mrs. Schmulowitz is being released today.”

Great news, indeed, but I wasn’t much in the chatting mood as I fretted about the pyrotechnics that I feared might ensue when Walker arrived home.

“I appreciate you letting me know, Savannah.”

“You sound distracted. I’ll let you go — oh, one thing before I forget. You know my client I told you about, the one who works at Animal Planet?”

“The panicky programming executive.”

“That’s a bit callous, Logan, don’t you think?”

“I have to go, Savannah.”

“OK, well, anyway, I mentioned that idea to him, the one Crissy said she was pitching, about the cat trainer. He said he’d never heard of it, or her.”

“Could be she’s dealing with some other panicky programming executive. There are probably lots of them in Hollywood.”

“My client says Animal Planet has no record of her ever having been in for any kind of meeting. The weird thing is, he really likes the idea. He wants her to come in and talk about it.”

I told Savannah I’d have to call her back.

The disquieting scenario that unfolded inside my brain made what had become a chronic headache only worse. Ray Sheen had been shot dead hours before Crissy Walker claimed to have left San Diego for an early morning meeting at Animal Planet in Los Angeles, and before her husband woke up. I wondered if the alleged meeting was intended as an alibi, to put time and distance between Crissy and Sheen’s murder. She certainly would’ve had her own motives to kill Sheen. He’d refused to terminate their affair, and had threatened to blackmail her when she tried to end it.

I gulped down the rest of the coffee, hoping the caffeine jolt would help clear my mind, and tried to focus.

Someone other than Sheen had to have driven his truck into the hills east of San Diego that night. Sheen, after all, was driving his MINI. Maybe he’d called Crissy after we crashed and asked her to come pick him up. Maybe she’d realized he was out in the boonies, where no one would see them, took matters into her own hands, along with her husband’s German pistol, and put an exclamation point on the end of her affair with Sheen — not to mention his life.

I still had more questions than answers. Who tampered with my airplane? Who stabbed Janet Bollinger? And why had Sheen come after me with such a vengeance?

On the counter to my left was a stainless steel toaster. On my right was a photo in a gilded frame of Hub and Ruth Walker embracing after her graduation from the U.S. Naval Academy. Next to the picture was the butcher block carving set I’d admired four days earlier, when Walker had paid me the final money due me. There were slots for thirteen pieces of high-end, black-handled cutlery, eight of them matching steak knives. I noticed that two of the steak knives were missing. I slid one of the remaining knives out of the block.

The blade was about six inches long.

The edge was serrated.

I remembered the fatal stab wound Janet Bollinger had suffered to her abdomen. The edge was jagged. The kind of wound a serrated blade would’ve left.

Plenty of knives have serrated edges. The fact that two of them were missing from Crissy Walker’s carving set, I reminded myself, proved nothing. They were probably misplaced, somewhere in her kitchen. I began looking for them, if only for my own peace of mind.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

I turned. Hub Walker was standing behind me. In his right hand was one of the missing knives.

“Crissy said you were out at the airport,” I said, closing a drawer and hoping my surprise didn’t register with him.

“I don’t know where she would’ve got that idea,” Hub said. “I’ve been out in the guesthouse all morning, trying to fix that drip you told me about.”

“With a steak knife?”

“Water supply line’s rusted out. Had to cut away some drywall to get at the angle stop. Just don’t tell my wife. She loves these knives. She should. They cost a small fortune.”

I stepped aside as Walker washed the knife off in the sink.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he said. “What are you doing here? I thought we were all settled up.”