"Oh, no, she would have. Brian wouldn't let her. Once, we were all going to go to Gold Class Cinema, and he said he couldn't make it. Hayley told him she'd take care of it, and he, like, said, 'NO.' Not mean or anything, just, like, that was it. I could tell he didn't want her paying for stuff for him."

Gold Class Cinema is a movie theater with first-class airplane-style recliners that make into a bed, and full food and alcohol service delivered right to your seat. It could set you back an easy fifty bucks a pop. So I got why a guy of even average means might find the experience a little rich for his wallet.

"Did he have a job?" I asked.

Jordana's brow furrowed. "I think he worked...was it in the Galleria?"

I couldn't help her, since of course I was the one who'd asked the question.

Jordana continued, "I think...yeah."

"So if Brian's such a good guy, how come Hayley never introduced him to her parents?"

Jordana looked pained. "I don't know. Maybe because she was afraid they wouldn't think he was good enough for her? He was older, he wasn't in college, didn't have any money...I don't really know. I'm just guessing."

"But there was nothing...skeevy about him? Or dangerous?"

Jordana leaned back as though I'd thrown something at her. "No. No way."

I knew we should wrap it up. Jordana didn't have anything more for us, and I didn't want to have to offer more reassurance than we could honestly give her at this point, so I decided to see if there was any meat on the bone of my elopement theory. "Did Hayley get along with her father?"

Jordana seemed surprised by the question. "I guess. I mean, we never talked about him like that."

"So she never talked about her father. Or her mother?"

She shrugged as though the question had never occurred to her before. Probably because it hadn't. "Stuff he was working on, but that's all."

I supposed it made sense. At her age, parents were wallets with legs. And these were big wallets. We thanked Jordana and headed back to Bailey's car to "reconnoiter" again.

Bailey cranked up the AC and picked up her cell. "I want to make sure the photo of Brian made it to the station and give the update on what Jordana told us. See what they've come up with so far." She tapped in the number, then swore softly. "For some reason, I'm suddenly not getting any signal. Let me try outside." She got out of the car and walked a few steps away, then began to speak. After a couple of minutes, I leaned forward to see what was going on, but her back was to me. It was another five minutes before she returned to the car. But when she got in, she stared out through the windshield for long minutes without speaking.

"What?" I finally asked.

Bailey continued to stare out the window as she spoke. "Brian Shandling does not exist. It's a fake name."

7.

The wheels in my brain skidded to a stop. The entire landscape had changed. If Mr. Nice Guy was a fraud, then my theory-or more accurately my hope-that Hayley might be shacked up with her boyfriend on an island in the Bahamas was a pipe dream.

"They ran the name, found an apartment address, a couple of credit cards, and a driver's license with a photo that matches our guy, but the DOB comes back to a dead two-year-old in Utah. I've put an alert out for him and for any activity on his credit cards," Bailey said.

"Did he have a car?"

"A white Toyota Corolla. I've got an alert out on that too."

Bailey started the car and pulled out of the parking lot.

"Did you have unis door-knock the neighborhood?" I asked. Any activity over the past few days at Russell's house in the Hollywood Hills could provide a crucial lead.

"Yeah. No one heard anything weird. The closest neighbor's assistant was home waiting for a FedEx package, and he remembered hearing car doors slam at the house on Monday morning, but no screams, no sounds of struggle. Nothing unusual."

Damn it. We needed to catch a break here. We didn't have time for these friggin' dead ends. I tried hard to keep myself from imagining what might be happening to Hayley at this very moment. "What's up with all these assistants?" I asked irritably. "Why couldn't this neighbor just sign the notice and leave it taped to the door like the rest of us?"

"Yes, let's blame the assistant for not breaking the case for us. That makes perfect sense."

I hate being busted for irrational crankiness. I was about to come up with a suitably cutting remark when I noticed that Bailey was driving like we were responding to a robbery in progress. "Why are we heading back to Hollywood? Shouldn't we at least stop by the Galleria while we're out here and see if we can figure out where Brian works-or, rather, worked?"

"Because I've already got someone tracking down his employment records, and it occurred to me that it might be more important to hit his apartment first."

She was right, so I shut up and tried to hang on to my stomach as Bailey flew down the winding Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Laurel Canyon climbs from Studio City in the San Fernando Valley up and over the ridge and snakes down the other side into West Hollywood. It's a storied canyon that was once home to a variety of megatalents, like Frank Zappa, Jim Morrison, Steven Tyler, and Joni Mitchell, and currently home to my bestie Toni LaCollier, who lived at the top of the hill off Kirkwood-though in all honesty she couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. Toni was already a Special Trials prosecutor when I got transferred into the unit. We'd bonded so fast we agreed that we had to have been sisters in a past life. Her tiny house in the canyon hadn't been much when she bought it-a lot of the houses in the area had gone to seed-but Toni had the gift of artistry and style. Within six months, she'd turned the run-down "fixer" into a unique little gem.

The canyon retains a lot of bohemian-type charm-the Country Store, where everyone shops for munchies, still sports a hippie-style psychedelic sign-but the main canyon road, originally designed to handle only Sunday cruising, has become a primary artery for the burgeoning Valley population that travels into Hollywood. As a result, the road turns into a parking lot at least three times a day.

Luckily, we'd missed the morning-drive slog and Bailey made it into West Hollywood in less than twenty minutes. Brian's apartment was in one of those typical nondescript buildings-a box with square windows in the heart of Hollywood on North Vista Street. The building across the road had tiny balconies where tenants grew plants and stored kids' toys and bicycles, evidence that humans lived there. Brian's building didn't have any of that. The only visible signs of individuality were the differing curtains, and one hanging crystal ornament. It probably made a nice rainbow when the sun hit it. I miss unicorns.

Brian's landlord was frowning suspiciously at the uniformed officers who'd shown up to secure the place. He was short, and his wifebeater T-shirt strained to cover a paunch that looked like a second-trimester pregnancy. The plaid Bermuda shorts and black socks with slippers completed the look nicely.

"If Drew knew about the hunks you ran into on the job, he'd go out of his mind," I said.

"Yeah, I'll bet Graden would lose a lot of sleep too."

Bailey introduced herself to the landlord and held out her badge. He took it and squinted for a moment, then pulled a pair of filthy glasses out of his shorts pocket, put them on, and scrutinized the identification before handing it back to her.

"And you? Who are you?" he asked me in a heavy Middle Eastern accent.

"Rachel Knight, deputy district attorney. I'm a prosecutor in the Special Trials Unit."

"Easy to say. Let's see some ID, Ms. Special Attorney."

"Look, Mr.-," Bailey began, her voice showing the strain of holding back words she'd regret.

"Gardanian. And I own the building, so I have the right-"

In no great mood to begin with, and out of patience, I brandished my badge and held it under his nose, just to shut him up. He took it and gave it the once-over, then handed it back to me.

"Okay." He waved us in, then shuffled back into his apartment.

A uni who was a classic mesomorph with bulging biceps-the type I used to think was dreamy back in high school-gestured for us to follow him down the hall to Brian's apartment. He flashed us an amused look as we fell in behind him.

"He give you guys trouble too?" I asked.

"He tried to shake us down," the uni said. "Claimed the tenant took the only key and he'd have to charge us for the time and trouble to get another one made."

"You're kidding."

"Nope. So I told him not to worry, we had a skeleton key that would work on all doors. Then we showed him our battering ram. All of a sudden he remembered he kept a key for emergencies."

We got to the end of the hall and he gestured to the open door on the left.

"You cleared it?" Bailey asked. "No one here?"

"Empty. From the looks of it, I'd say whoever lived here isn't coming back."

Bailey and I walked in. The apartment had that damp mildew smell that old, poorly maintained buildings get. The threadbare but richly stained sofa and badly nicked wooden coffee table in the living room told me this had probably been a furnished apartment. I realized that we shouldn't be tromping around in what might be another crime scene.

"Shouldn't we get everyone out of here and call Dorian?" I asked.

Bailey sighed. "Too late. I couldn't take the chance that Brian might be holding Hayley here, or that she might be..."

I nodded. If there's a victim who's potentially wounded or in danger, you don't call the criminalist and wait to process the scene. Bailey had rightly called in the cavalry. But that meant that by now at least a dozen officers had already barged in and checked every nook and cranny, so our being here wouldn't make a whole lot of difference. But that didn't mean I wanted to be in the zip code when Dorian arrived.

Bailey and I kept our hands to ourselves to at least avoid adding our prints to the hundreds left by all the unis as we made our way through the tiny one-bedroom. And I saw that the uni was right: the place was vacant. The closets and medicine cabinet were standing open and empty, and there was nothing on the pine nightstand or dresser. I noticed that the bed was made neatly, but the cover was mussed-as though someone had sat on it.

"Did any of you guys sit on the bed?" I asked the uni.

"Not that I saw. But I'll check and confirm."

"Has anyone door-knocked the tenants?" Bailey asked him.

"Jennings, Kowalski, and Lopez took the duty. I think there's only, like, twelve units, so they're probably about done now. I'll tell 'em you're here."

Bailey nodded and I watched him walk away. She caught me enjoying the view. "You still shopping?" she asked.

"No, Sister Mary Catherine. But there's no law against looking, is there?"

Bailey smiled. Her cell rang and she moved to a corner to take the call. I went to check out the kitchen. Using a dish towel, I opened the refrigerator. Not much there. Just a pint of milk, a half-eaten loaf of potato bread, and a near-empty jar of peanut butter. That told me Brian hadn't left in haste. He'd eaten down his food reserve, knowing he was going to leave. But he also might've been too poor to keep a lot around. Bailey was still on the phone when the uni came back. I thought it might be time to find out what they called him when he was at home. No harm in asking a guy's name, right?

"Hey, Ms. Knight-"

"Call me Rachel. And you are...?"

"Justin." He held out his hand. "Justin Wagner. Nice to meet you."

As we shook I noticed he had brown eyes and really long dark lashes. Memories of the cornerback I'd crushed on in high school came flooding back and I had to force myself to focus on the task at hand.

"Did we get any response from the tenants?" I asked.

"Yeah, Kowalski got something. He's out in the hall. You want me to bring him in?"

I glanced at Bailey, who was still on the phone. "No, that's cool. I'll talk to him."

Justin turned to lead me out and said over his shoulder, "Oh, and none of us ever sat on that bed."

Kowalski delivered on the cliche with a Marlon Brando, thick-shouldered build, though he looked a little too buttoned-down to do the whole "Stella!" routine. I introduced myself and asked what he had, and he hooked his thumbs under his Sam Browne and stood "at ease" with legs apart as he spoke. "The old lady on the next floor in 2A, Iris Stavros, said she saw Brian on Monday, around noon. He was with a short blonde girl."

We'd show her a photo to make sure, but it had to be Hayley. And noon. According to the time stamp on Russell's text, that would've been after the proof-of-life photo was sent but before the e-mailed ransom demand.

"How did she happen to see them?"

"They were coming in as she was going out. She said she was on her way to the store to get some milk." He glanced upward as if to make sure Iris wasn't listening, then lowered his voice. "You ask me, she was gonna buy something a little stronger."

Iris Stavros might turn out to be an important witness. If she also turned out to be a heavy drinker, it'd be a real problem when she hit the stand. I'd have to do a lot of checking before I put her on a witness list. "Did she notice any signs of struggle or force, anything unusual?"

"No. Matter of fact, she said she'd seen the girl around here many times in the past couple of months. Seemed to her that they were boyfriend and girlfriend."

But none of that meant Hayley hadn't been kidnapped. Brian could've been hiding a gun, in which case Hayley wouldn't have dared to struggle. Or maybe at that particular time, Hayley hadn't known she was being kidnapped. She didn't necessarily have to know that Brian took the photo of her at the Hollywood Hills house in order to use it later as proof of life. In fact, it would've been smart of him to keep everything looking normal for as long as possible. That way he wouldn't have to worry about controlling Hayley until it was absolutely necessary.

"Did you ask her how well she knew Brian?"

"Said she'd known him a little less than a year, but that he seemed okay. He'd help her with groceries, that kind of thing. She didn't say he was a 'nice young man,' but that was the gist of it."

"Thanks, Stanley."

He frowned. "Name's Evan."

"Right, I was just kid-"

Evan squinted at me. "Stan's my brother."

Of course he was.

8.

Bailey joined us in the hallway, a worried look on her face. Without preamble, she tersely ordered the unis to stand guard on Brian's apartment until our criminalist got there, then headed for the car. I trotted to catch up and jumped in as she gunned the engine.

I quickly brought her up to speed on what I'd learned, aware that whatever she'd just heard on her phone call wasn't good, because she was taking it out on the gas pedal. Bailey listened to my report without comment as she whipped down Hollywood Boulevard. I wrapped up my assessment of Iris Stavros and asked, "Want to tell me why we're traveling at warp speed, Captain Kirk?"

"The news release paid off, sort of. We got a tip from a guy at a cybercafe in Silver Lake. Claims he 'sniffed' someone sending a ransom note."

"Sniffing," the hacker's term for spying on someone's Internet mailings, is incredibly easy to do in a cybercafe. Don't ask me how they do it, I'm a computer Luddite. I only know about it because Graden is a computer whizbang, and he'd told me stories from some of the hacking cases he'd handled.

"That's all? I mean, that's great, but..." The call had taken a lot longer than it should have for just that.