A rat scurried over her feet and disappeared into the empty McDonald's bag, only its long naked tail sticking out. Gina shrieked and jumped, the pain exploding in her broken ankle and racing up her leg like a wildfire. She swung her stick at the McDonald's bag and the rat shrieked and jumped and ran backward out of the bag, then leapt onto the thick vine hanging down the wall and disappeared into the crevice where the concrete had broken away.

Gina cursed and screamed-at the rat, at her predicament. But she quickly realized the favor the rat had done her. Adrenaline was pumping through her veins now, bringing energy, dulling pain.

She looked to her right, to the iron rungs cemented into the wall. Her only way out of this hole. She looked up at the doors above her. It had to be twenty-five feet. That didn't sound like much if the distance was horizontal, but the distance was vertical and more than three times the height of the average household ladder.

Gina had the use of one arm and one leg. Her left arm hung useless at her side. Her right ankle was so badly broken the foot was turned perpendicular to the shinbone.

You have to do it, Gina.

I know.

You have to do it now.

I know. I know! I KNOW!!

Get mad!

I AM!!!.

To prove her point, Gina lunged to the right with her upper body, caught hold of one rung, and pulled as hard as she could, a roar of fury and pain and frustration tearing her throat raw.

Her body moved a matter of inches. Her consciousness dimmed. She pulled in a deep breath that burned in her left shoulder and ribs, and pulled again at the rung as hard as she could. She swung her left leg to the side and with the toe of her foot pushed off the wall, shoving herself another few inches closer to the ladder.

She had moved herself a total of two feet. Exhausted, she let go of the rusty iron rung and fell against the filthy wall, banging the side of her head on the next rung down.

She was sweating and weak. All over her body tiny erratic electrical impulses were causing individual muscles to twitch and tick.

And she had twenty-five feet to go ... straight up.

55.

Mendez stood in the middle of the road, hands on his hips as he stared at the skid marks. It was still raining enough to be miserable, though the storm system had blown out its worst effort during the night.

"Looks like just one car," Vince said. "That's a pretty good skid."

"She definitely had an accident," Mendez said. "n.o.body doubts that. The question is why."

"Where's the vehicle?"

Milo Bordain's car had been removed from the scene, but the marks where it had sunk into the shoulder of the road remained.

Mendez gave him a sly look. "I'm sure Mrs. Bordain had it moved so some Mexican wouldn't come along and steal it."

"Present company excluded," Vince joked, "who would want to do her harm?"

"That's the thing. She may be irritating, but that's not a motive for murder-or for sending mutilated body parts to her in the mail.

"She had dinner with her husband and her son at Barron's last night. She had a couple of gla.s.ses of wine with the meal-"

"How'd she do on the Breathalyzer?"

"She didn't. She refused the deputy that was first on the scene."

"Did they take blood at the hospital?"

"We don't have it yet that I know of," Mendez said. "She only wants to deal directly with Cal. He can have her. He didn't say anything last night about a blood-alcohol level."

"Anyways, we know she had some alcohol in her system," Vince said.

"Some. She appeared sober-for what that's worth. Her speech wasn't slurred. Her eyes weren't gla.s.sy. She was pretty upset, and very adamant about what happened."

"And the son?" Vince asked.

"Showed up at the ER like a good son. He didn't act like he'd just tried to run his mother off the road," Mendez said. "He's coming in today for an interview regarding Marissa and Gina."

"I'll want to watch that."

Vince looked up and down the tree-lined stretch of road. No homes were visible. On one side of the road was a grove of lemon trees. On the other side of the road s.h.a.ggy-haired red cattle with big horns grazed along the bank of a large man-made pond.

"That's Bordain property," Mendez said. "She told us she raises exotic cattle."

"This property has to be worth a fortune," Vince commented. "The way Oak Knoll is growing, there'll be developments out here within the next ten years."

"Bruce Bordain made his money in parking lots and strip malls, but the guy is a real estate mogul," Mendez said. "If there's money to be made out here, he'll be first in line."

"And if the missus doesn't want to give up the Barbie Dream Ranch ... ?"

"n.o.body brutally murders a woman just to be able to cut her b.r.e.a.s.t.s off and send them to someone as a scare tactic," Mendez said.

"No," Vince agreed. "There would be a lot more to the story. Whoever killed Marissa had it in for Marissa. Period. That murder was all about her. This other business ... I don't know."

He checked his watch. "Let's go. I want to make sure Zahn is okay."

He hunched his shoulders inside his trench coat as they walked back to the car. Rain ran off the brim of his hat. Who ever said it never rains in Southern California lied. It rained, it poured, and it was d.a.m.n cold when these storms came in off the Pacific.

"I spent half the night reading up on dissociative disorders," he said as they got back in the car. "Not surprisingly, there's overlap with post-traumatic stress disorder. I want to make sure that in bringing back the memories of his mother's murder I didn't push Zahn into any kind of long-lasting break with reality."

"You couldn't have known that would happen, Vince," Mendez said. "You said yourself: True dissociation is rare."

"I know, but still, I feel responsible," he admitted. "I certainly knew going in he's a fragile individual."

"Na.s.ser was with him when you left yesterday."

"Yeah, I know."

I know, but ..., Vince thought. He hadn't been able to shake the lingering sense of guilt. He had broken the lock on that small dark box in Zander Zahn's mind that contained the memories of what had happened to his mother-what he had done to his mother. What if Zahn couldn't get that box to close again? ..., Vince thought. He hadn't been able to shake the lingering sense of guilt. He had broken the lock on that small dark box in Zander Zahn's mind that contained the memories of what had happened to his mother-what he had done to his mother. What if Zahn couldn't get that box to close again?

On the other hand, perhaps it had been Marissa who had unwittingly opened that box and had paid a terrible price for doing it.

"Besides, Zahn brought up the subject of his mother's murder in the first place," Mendez said as he started the car. "He can't be that sensitive about it."

"It's one thing to use the words 'I killed my mother' and something else to pull up those memories in Technicolor," Vince said.

Rudy Na.s.ser met them at Zahn's gate. He was dressed for a hurricane in a black storm jacket with the hood pulled up over his head.

"How was he after I left yesterday?" Vince asked as they walked up the narrow gravel path toward the house.

"He seemed fine."

"He wasn't agitated?"

"No, why?" Na.s.ser asked with a suspicious look. "What did you do to him?"

"I talked to him about his mother."

"He didn't really kill her, did he?"

"He doesn't have a record for it," Vince hedged. It wasn't his place to tell Zander Zahn's story. If Zahn wanted Na.s.ser to know, he would tell the story himself.

"The conversation stirred up some bad memories for him," he said. "I feel bad that he was upset."

Na.s.ser pressed the buzzer at Zahn's door. "You're not used to dealing with him. It's difficult for most people to have any kind of a conversation with him. His mind plays by a different set of rules."

He rang the buzzer again, frowned and pushed back the sleeve of his raincoat to check his watch.

"Maybe he's sleeping in," Vince suggested.

Na.s.ser shook his head. "He's an extreme creature of habit. He gets up at three A.M. every day to meditate."

And then he would take his hike over the hills to Marissa Fordham's house, Vince remembered. Every day.

"He meditates, then he takes his walk," Na.s.ser said. "He should have been back by now."

"He walks around in the rain?" Mendez asked.

"The walk is ritual," Na.s.ser explained. "Rain, shine, whatever."

"You have a key," Vince said, his nerves itching. "Use it."

Na.s.ser let them in and called out for Zander Zahn. The house was silent.

Na.s.ser called again.

The silence seemed to press in on Vince's eardrums.

"Where's his bedroom?" he asked.

"Upstairs on the left."

They went up the staircase, made narrow by foot-high stacks of National Geographic National Geographic magazines. Na.s.ser knocked on Zahn's closed bedroom door. magazines. Na.s.ser knocked on Zahn's closed bedroom door.

"Zander? It's Rudy."

Not even the air stirred.

Vince turned the k.n.o.b and opened the door.

In contrast to the rest of the house, Zahn's bedroom was nearly empty. He seemed to have chosen the smallest bedroom for himself. The only furniture was the bed-neatly made-a dresser with nothing sitting on it, a nightstand with a lamp, and a chair. Three of the walls were bare. On the fourth was a huge collage of photographs of Marissa and Haley Fordham.

The photos dated back to when Haley was just an infant with impossibly huge brown eyes and a mouth like a tiny rosebud. Casual snapshots of Marissa and Haley were mixed with faded pictures cut from newspapers and magazines featuring Marissa and her art. Marissa and Gina at a picnic. Haley on the beach. Toddler Haley offering Zahn a flower. Zahn looking uncertain how to respond to such a spontaneous gesture.

Vince had seen a few shrines in his day-shrines built by s.e.xually obsessed stalkers. Zahn's collection of photos was not that. Marissa and Haley had been his adopted family. There was nothing s.e.xual or sinister about it.

He went into the small spotless bathroom but did not find Zander Zahn hanging from the shower curtain rod.

The three men split up then, each going through a different part of the house searching for its owner.

"He's not here," Mendez said as they met up in the foyer. "But you need to see something."

He led the way down a hall crowded with coatracks to a room at the back of the house. The room was lined with shelves and crowded with tables, and every available inch of s.p.a.ce on those shelves and tables, and every bit of wall s.p.a.ce, was occupied by prosthetic human body parts.

There were arms with hooks for hands, arms with plastic hands; whole legs, lower legs; hands, feet, and women's b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

One entire bookcase was filled with prosthetic female b.r.e.a.s.t.s of every size and description.

"Try to tell me this isn't creepy," Mendez said.

Vince looked around the room at all the spare body parts, wondering where Zahn had come by them and why he had felt compelled to bring them home.

"Look on the bright side, kid," he said. "At least they're not real."

56.

"He owns a car, which Na.s.ser says he rarely drives," Mendez said. "The car is sitting in the garage. There was no sign of Zahn in the house."

They sat in the break room where a television monitor was showing Detective Trammell interviewing Bob Copetti, a local architect who had gone out with Marissa Fordham from time to time. The sound was turned down to a mumble. Copetti's alibi for the night of Marissa's murder had checked out.