"That's what I thought." Dorian turned and headed for her pickup.

"See you later."

Dorian said over her shoulder, "Not if I see you first."

I pulled on my backpack and turned to Bailey. "I hope our 'connection' doesn't make you feel left out," I joked.

As we were about to get into Bailey's car, Dorian called out to us from her truck. "You can have that cell phone the day after tomorrow."

When we reached Mulholland Highway, my phone played the default tune, "FM" by Steely Dan. I looked at the screen but didn't recognize the number. A reporter? Unlikely. Sandi, the DA's media relations chief, had been doing her job well and had managed to keep me out of the fray. A job that was made significantly easier by the fact that Vanderhorn had such big love for the fray. And so far there'd been no leaks of any real information. The press, and especially the tabloids, were trying to keep the story going by digging up background "color" about Hayley's life, but surprisingly, they'd been kind. I had the feeling that might be due to the fact that the biggest of them, the National Inquisitor, had set the tone by printing sympathetic vignettes supposedly garnered from her "closest buds." And since those stories were selling, the rest of the papers had fallen into step.

I decided if this was a reporter, I'd just hang up. It was my go-to strategy with the press, which explained my wild popularity. I answered warily, without giving my name. "Hello?"

A man cleared his throat, then spoke in a deep, rolling baritone. "Am I speaking to Rachel Knight? This is Sterling Numan. Dorian asked me to take a look at your soil and plant samples. Sorry to disrupt your weekend-"

"No problem." It was already fully disrupted.

"-but I thought you'd want to hear from me as soon as I had something to tell you."

It took me a moment to shift from surly to grateful. "Mr. Numan, thank you for calling."

"Dr. Numan, and you're entirely welcome. I'll be preparing a formal report, of course, but I've made some notes and I have some preliminary findings that might be of help to you. Ordinarily I wouldn't relay my preliminary findings. I prefer to wait until I've completed the analysis, but Dorian told me this is a matter of some urgency." He cleared his throat again.

"Yes, that's correct. Thank you for making an exception, Dr. Numan."

"I only ask that you bear in mind that when I complete my analysis, I may alter my conclusions-"

"I understand."

Numan cleared his throat again. "The plant debris and soil composition found on the vehicle associated with Hayley Antonovich's body-"

"The Toyota, correct?" I was careful not to say it was Brian's car on a cell phone.

"Correct. The levels of sand, silt, and clay revealed particulates most commonly found in the northwestern portion of the Santa Monica Mountain Range-"

"As in Boney Mountain?" Where Brian's body had been found, and where I'd just been.

"Yes. Trails on Boney Mountain such as the Mishe Mokwa, for example."

"Did you also examine soil samples taken from Fryman Canyon?" Fryman Canyon, where Russell had left the ransom money, was forty to fifty miles away, depending on what route you took. I needed to know whether the soil in Fryman Canyon was different from that on Boney Mountain.

"I did. And to answer the question I believe you intend to ask, no, the particulates I identified on the Toyota could not have come from Fryman Canyon."

"And what about the soil and plant debris on Hayley's body?"

"The same. The likely source was Boney Mountain."

"How much could your findings change when you complete your examination?"

"Well..." He gave a formal chuckle, heh-heh-heh. "One never knows what one may find, but I wouldn't expect my final conclusion to be radically different."

I thanked Numan and ended the call.

"So the soil on the Toyota and on Hayley's body comes back to Boney Mountain?" Bailey asked.

"Yep. And he excluded Fryman Canyon as a possible source."

"Which means Brian and Hayley must've driven up here."

"The question is, why?" I asked. "If the ransom drop was in Fryman Canyon, what were they doing forty miles away on Boney Mountain?"

Bailey frowned and shook her head. We rode back downtown in silence.

"I feel like I spent the night in a ditch."

"I could use a shower myself," Bailey said. "It's almost six o'clock. I can justify knocking off for the day. How about you?"

"I don't have any better ideas."

We got to my room and headed for the showers. I changed into a fresh pair of jeans and a lightweight blue jersey tank top. We met in the living room and flopped on the couch.

"I'm wiped," Bailey said. She'd changed into cutoffs and a T-shirt.

"Yeah. I guess it's the heat." And the constant gallop we'd been doing since we caught the case. This was the first time we'd knocked off before nightfall that I could remember.

"Room service?"

Bailey's favorite thing. I'd just picked up the phone to place our orders when Bailey's cell phone rang.

"Keller."

I gave our orders to room service while Bailey took her call. Seconds later, she put down her phone.

"We got a ping from Hayley's iPad," she said.

Another effort to mislead us into thinking Brian was still alive? It's what we'd been hoping for.

"An e-mail?"

"No. Just the signal that the iPad had been activated."

"Where?"

"New York," Bailey said. "NYPD's running it down."

I would've loved to fly out there and chase down the asshole myself, but it would waste hours in flight time, and we couldn't afford an extra minute. We'd gotten lucky with that signal from Hayley's iPad. Now we just had to hope we'd gotten that signal soon enough.

29.

Abe Furtoni, the NYPD officer who'd given Bailey the news, had promised to call in with updates the moment anything broke. Waiting for a call like that is nerve-racking, so just to give us a little diversion, I turned on the television and found a mindless reality show about rich housewives.

"You think they really live like that? Just doing lunch and backstabbing each other?" Bailey asked incredulously.

"No. Sometimes they go to parties and backstab each other."

Bailey's phone rang and we exchanged a look as she picked it up. "Keller."

After a few "okays" she ended the call.

"They've traced the signal to a deserted building near the Staten Island ferry station. NYPD's on their way to Rosebank right now. Furtoni'll call back when he's got more."

My pulse kicked up several notches, all traces of fatigue gone. Unable to sit still, I began to pace. Bailey, a sphinx in these situations, loves my pacing.

Bailey eyed me as I made my first two laps. "Why don't you go to the gym? Work off some of that nervous energy."

"I don't want to miss the call." Just saying it out loud made me pace faster. After three more laps, Bailey'd had it.

"You'll miss the call if I lock you in the closet too."

I went to the window and looked down at Pershing Square. At eight o'clock the sun had finally begun to surrender and the last few rays of light were sinking under the weight of darkness. I walked out onto the balcony to enjoy the first cooler breezes of night air. Desiree, a flamboyant cross-dresser who seemed to spend his time parading between Temple Street and Grand Avenue, strolled by in five-inch leopard-print platform shoes, black spandex short shorts, and a bright yellow tube top. I thought the yellow and brown feathers woven into his near-waist-length black ponytail were a nice touch. I would never have had the patience. This was one of his most restrained outfits. I waved and he favored me with a nod and a little smile.

Bailey's phone rang again. While she took the call, room service brought our dinners: steak and salad for Bailey, a Caesar salad and grilled shrimp for me. Too nervous to eat, I watched Bailey's face, trying to read her expression. This was a lost cause if ever there was one, because Bailey has the classic poker face. The call went on long enough that I was ready to jump off the balcony by the time Bailey finished.

"Okay, here's the deal," she began. "Three kids, late teens, had the iPad. The youngest one coughed up the story first. They were hanging with friends in Manhattan and decided to keep partying all night, so they got a room at the DoubleTree Inn in Times Square. They saw the maid's cart parked in front of a room with the door open, but no one was around. The iPad was lying out on the desk, so they stole it along with a watch and some other junk."

"And that room was registered to?"

"We'll find out pretty soon. They're on their way there right now."

"We need to know when that person checked in too."

Bailey looked at me. "Gee, really?"

"Sorry, just thinking out loud."

"No, it's cool," Bailey said. "I'm a little uptight myself."

I looked at her. "A little?"

"Shut up."

An hour-and many frayed nerves-later, she got the next call. This time it was brief. When she ended the call, she scrolled on her cell phone for a few moments, hit a key, and then looked up.

"The room was registered under the name Stuart Connor," Bailey said. "Check-in date was the day after the ransom note was sent-"

"What time exactly?"

"Early in the morning. Around seven thirty."

"So he picked up the ransom money, killed Brian and Hayley, and hopped a red-eye?" I asked.

"Yeah. I'm not a hundred percent clear on how one guy, even a big one, could overpower both Brian and Hayley on that mountain. But more than that, this Stuart guy-whoever he is-couldn't have been at Russell's house when the kidnapping note came in. Everyone who was there at the time hung around too late to have gotten out to Boney Mountain."

Russell's house in Bel Air was over forty miles away from Boney Mountain. "And everyone who'd been in the house that evening was also around the next day. No one was missing in action." Stuart Connor had been out of town for days by now. That meant only one thing. "He had to have someone on the inside tell him Hayley'd been kidnapped..." That reminded me. "Did Harrellson run down our buddy Legs Roscoe?"

"Oh, yeah. He was heading up a study group that night. Has about a dozen alibi witnesses."

So much for that. And regardless of whether this Stuart guy did the murders alone or not, he definitely was our number one "person of interest." At least for now. "How long after he checked into that hotel was that ticket to Paris purchased on Hayley's iPad?"

"A day, maybe? I'll get more specifics when I hear from Abe," Bailey said.

"Is Stuart Connor still there?"

"No. He checked out the same day those kids snatched his stuff. They're checking surveillance cameras at the hotel, see if they can catch an image of him."

I thought about that a moment. "If this Stuart character was using Brian's credit card, he might be using his ID. There was no wallet on Brian's body, was there?"

Bailey squinted. "There was...some stuff. Papers or something, but no. No wallet."

"Then we should send Brian's photo out to NYPD. See if anyone on the surveillance footage bears a resemblance. It's easier to get away with using Brian's ID if he looks at least somewhat similar."

"I'll get hold of Brian's photo-"

"And when you talk to your contact..."

"Detective Abe Furtoni."

"Right," I said. "If they find this Stuart Connor on the surveillance footage at the hotel, tell him to make a still photo out of the best frame-"

"Yeah, so we can show it around."

"And they've got an alert out for this guy at all the-"

"-airports, bus terminals, blah, blah, blah. Yes. And I was thinking we should have them check out the iPad. See if there's any info that'll help us track this guy. Maybe some e-mails..."

I looked at Bailey. "It's our case. If they mess up anything on that iPad, it'll be our asses. I say we get that thing back here ASAP and do the work ourselves."

Bailey nodded. "We should get it in a couple of days if they send it FedEx."

"To hell with FedEx," I said. "If that iPad turns out to be evidence, I'll be eating dirt through the whole trial about all the ways it could've been messed with en route. We need them to have an officer hand-deliver it to us."