Ava reached into her purse, just as she’d done many times before, but Henry Rojas seemed to be reaching for a weapon of his own. Ava didn’t hesitate and Henry never had a chance. The first bullet caught him full in the chest. He tried to rise to his feet. Ava fired twice more, which made for three more shots than she had wanted to discharge. Obviously her carefully laid plans of making his death look like suicide had come to nothing.

Worried that a neighbor might have heard the racket and started peering out windows, Ava abandoned the walker and raced through the kitchen to the garage. She needed to have Henry’s car off her driveway and concealed inside her garage before anyone else came snooping around. Outside, she breathed a sigh of relief. No lights had come on in neighboring houses. No one was visible out on the street.

Ava hurried to the vehicle and was dismayed to discover that the door was locked. She had to go back inside and search Henry’s bloodied body for a key fob. She pressed the unlock button as she came through the garage a second time. It wasn’t until she was seated inside and trying to figure out how to operate the engine that Ava realized with numbing shock that she was not alone. There was someone else in the car with her—­a woman.

Ava’s fingers went stiff and clumsy as they searched for the ignition button. Once the engine started, she sped into the garage so far that she banged the front bumper on the far wall before braking to a stop.

Ava leaped out of the car and hurried to close the garage door behind her. Then she went to the passenger side of the car and wrenched the door open. As she did so, the interloper was pulled out of the vehicle, landing hard on the concrete floor. Her hands were cuffed together and they had somehow been affixed to the door itself.

“Who are you?” Ava demanded. “What are you doing here?”

Momentarily stunned, the bound woman didn’t answer immediately. “Help me,” she whimpered finally. “Please help me.”

“Of course,” Ava said. “Just a minute.”

There had been an abandoned workbench complete with tools in the garage when Ava had bought the place. She’d mostly ignored the tools as she came and went, but there was one thing there on the bench that she needed now in the very worst way—­duct tape. She picked up the roll, ripped off an eight-­inch-­long strip, and returned to the passenger side of the car.

Ava kept the tape out of the victim’s sight until she knelt down beside the woman who, half in and half out of the car, was struggling desperately against her restraints.

“Hold still,” Ava said calmly. “Let me cut you loose.”

As soon as the woman quieted, Ava slapped the tape across her face. Then she stood up without noticing that, in the process of her covering the writhing woman’s mouth, Ava’s prized olla had somehow spilled out of her pocket.

She straightened up and stood for a few moments considering what to do next. She’d have to decide on a permanent solution for the captive woman eventually. She couldn’t very well shoot her right here in the garage. There wasn’t as much soundproofing here as in the house. But for now, at least, there would be no screaming for help. Ava definitely couldn’t tolerate any screaming—­not now and not tonight.

CHAPTER 27

EVEN TO THIS DAY, NAWOJ, if you go to that water hole, you will hear Shining Falls singing. The sound of her voice is so soft and sweet that, if you listen to it long enough, you may fall asleep. Sometimes, even the White-­Winged Doves who are always there at the water hole fall asleep, too.

AVA UNDERSTOOD THAT PANIC WAS her enemy. She had put a good deal of time and effort into making sure none of her DNA would be found in the house. She had planned on one final scrubdown of the things she knew she’d touched after the cleaning—­her wineglass, Henry’s shot glass, the doorknob to the back door. That was why she had sat so still, waiting for him. She hadn’t wanted to risk leaving behind any trace evidence, but in her rush to retrieve the car keys and move the car, she’d handled Henry’s body without first putting on a pair of latex gloves. She understood that these days it was possible to lift fingerprints and DNA from a victim’s clothing. Time and the elements had worked their evidence-­destroying magic on the bodies of Amos Warren and Kenny Mangum, but this time she wouldn’t have that luxury.

She paused for several long moments in the living room, staring at Henry’s still body and worrying, then she did the only thing that made sense. She stripped off all Jane Dobson’s clothing, donned a pair of latex gloves, and went to work, removing Henry’s bloodied shirt, pants, and underwear and sticking them in a garbage bag. Henry would stay here when she finished; his clothes would be going somewhere else.

BRANDON DIDN’T EXACTLY FOLLOW HIS own advice. He disregarded every speed limit sign he saw. Luckily, he didn’t get caught. Twenty-­three minutes after leaving Gates Pass he arrived on Calle de Justicia. The houses all had two-­car attached garages. A few had an extra car or two parked either in the driveway or out on the street. None of the visible vehicles were Lani’s bright red Fusion.

Brandon redialed Todd Hatcher’s number. “Is the phone still pinging from the same spot?” he asked.

“Hasn’t moved,” Todd replied.

“Good,” Brandon said. “Thanks.”

He went around the block and parked on the next street over, S. Avenida de Aventura. He couldn’t very well go into battle with guns blazing. He already knew that Carlos and Paul José had died in a hail of automatic gunfire. That probably meant that he was severely outgunned from the get-­go. He was at a physical disadvantage as well. Henry Rojas was a ­couple of decades younger than Brandon Walker and most likely hadn’t had a triple bypass, either. Brandon knew that Bozo could possibly level the playing field some, but he didn’t know by how much.

He fumbled in the glove box and found the leash he kept there. He fastened that to Bozo’s collar, then the two of them scrambled out of the SUV and onto the pavement.

Over the years, Brandon had enjoyed watching Dan Pardee work with and train his dogs—­first Bozo and later Hulk. Brandon had always been fascinated to see how each dog magically became an extension of Dan himself. Over time, Brandon had become acquainted with the simple but useful commands Dan used—­find, quiet, get him, wait, off, leave it. He also remembered the dogs’ joyous barks after successfully executing one of those commands.

Tonight Brandon worried that a spontaneous bark might warn Henry Rojas that Brandon and Bozo were outside—­that they were onto him.

Bozo was already on the ground and shivering with anticipation when Brandon brought out the scrap of material that was Lani’s bikini. He held it up to the dog’s nose.

“Quiet,” he ordered first. Then, a moment later, he added, “Find.”

Brandon had no way of knowing if the swimsuit had been laundered. At the very least, it would have been rinsed out. Would there be enough of Lani’s scent present for the dog to get a reading? The only way to find out for sure was to try. Brandon and Bozo set out at a brisk pace, with Brandon hoping that they looked like nothing more threatening than a man and his dog out for a late-­evening walk.

Looking down at Bozo, Brandon was gratified to see that the dog was on full alert. His ears and tail were up, his head swinging from side to side. Brandon was lost in thought when Bozo made a sudden jerk to the right and lunged up an empty driveway. Taken by surprise, Brandon almost fell on his face as the charging dog dragged him toward a closed garage door. While the dog stood with his nose pressed to the lit crack under the door, Brandon leaned down and whispered in his ear, “Good dog, Bozo. Good find.”