Even though if I'd gone home, I'd probably be sound asleep instead of wondering if that scratching at the window was from a branch or an intruder trying to jimmy it open. Or if that creak on the first floor was from an old house settling or someone making their slow, deliberate way toward the stairs.

  I rolled onto my side and forced myself to close my eyes. Which didn't stop me from hearing the house carrying on its internal monologue around me or thinking some more about the reason for the break-in. Had anything been taken? It was frustrating to not know, and I almost wished that something had. I'd never miss what I didn't know I had. Plus then there'd be no reason for another try, and I could fall asleep in peace, just me and my raging paranoia. As it stood, it seemed like only a matter of time before whoever came back whenever looking for whatever.

  Finally, around three thirty, I dropped off the fuzzy edge of consciousness into a fitful sleep in which shadowy figures peered at me around corners and capered past my peripheral vision.

  I came awake again about three hours later, suddenly, as if something had jolted me from sleep. I sat bolt upright, certain that I'd heard footsteps on the stairs, and I clutched the blanket to my chest, listening hard.

  I heard it again a moment later. Knocking on the front door.

  Knocking on the front door? I looked at the clock. At six thirty in the morning?

  A flash of irritation sizzled through me. It seemed that in Kate's house, sound sleep was the impossible dream. What was it with the early morning visits anyway?

  Maybe it was Watson again.

  I pushed aside the blanket, ran my hands through my hair, did a quick check that the black outfit I'd slept in had made it through my self-indulgent three hours of sleep without too much damage, grabbed the ginger lily incense stick, and went downstairs to let him in.

  It wasn't Watson. It was Louis Chu, smiling and pink cheeked, his eyes bright and curious when I opened the door.

  Very casually, I put my hands on my lower back to stretch and slipped the stick of incense into my back pocket.

  His smile faltered a little. "I'm sorry. Did I wake you?"

  "Of course not," I said. "See, I'm dressed and everything."

  He didn't seem impressed, probably because I was untucked and semi-wrinkled, while he looked as tidy as a Christmas gift.

  "I wake up at five a.m., on the dot, every day," he told me. "Force of habit, I suppose. Coffee at five thirty, shower at six, out the door for a walk at six fifteen."

  I fought the urge to yawn despite my fascination with Louis Chu's morning rituals.

  "Which brings me to your door bright and early," he went on.

  So early it could still be perceived as late.

  "I understand you're still looking for the lost dog," he said.

  That shook off my cobwebs. "How did you know that?"

  "Jackie told me," he said.

  I frowned.

  He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. "From the park. I hope you don't mind. She was only trying to help. She didn't know you'd already asked me about it."

  "Have you seen him?" I asked.

  He didn't answer. "He belonged to the lady of the house. Kate, wasn't it? Such a shame what happened to her."

  A curious little chill glimmered up my spine. "What do you mean?"

  His expression was guileless. "My wife told me she had passed away. She wasn't really clear about how."

  That wasn't a conversation I wanted to have. I drew the door closed an inch or two. "Is that important?"

  He seemed surprised by the question. "You must understand we've lived next door to Kate for many years. It's only natural for neighbors to be curious."

  Not the same thing as concerned.

  "I was under the impression you weren't very close with her," I said. "In fact, your wife implied she was something of a recluse."

  He brushed some nonexistent lint off of his immaculate slacks. "I don't know why she would say that."

  I suddenly wondered if Louis and Lucy Chu had been the subject of some of Kate's complaint letters. Kate had shown an impressive level of commitment when she'd had an axe to grind. That would be a good why, especially if that particular axe had cost the Chus money, or reputation, or worse.

  It might be a good idea to look through the letters again.

  I took a hard look at Louis. He was short and a bit overweight but stocky, which might have made him stronger than he looked. But was he more malicious than his jolly Uncle Louie looks made him seem? That was the question.

  Then it occurred to me. "You never told me if you've seen Toby."

  He looked at me blankly.

  That was what I'd thought.

  "The basset hound," I said. "You came over about the dog, right? Have you heard something about him?"

  "I'm afraid not," he said. "But I've put out some feelers. I know quite a few people in the neighborhood, and they promised me they'll all be on the lookout." He hesitated. "By the way, if you need a recommendation for a real estate agent, don't hesitate to ask. I'd be happy to help."

  "Why would I need a real estate agent?"

  His eyebrows lifted. "I just assumed you'd be putting this place on the market. After you've sorted through it, of course. Am I mistaken?"

  On many levels. The first being that he'd knocked on my door at six thirty in the morning, under the guise of asking about Toby, when he'd asked about everything but. From what I'd been able to glean, the Chus and Kate hadn't exactly been fast friends. So why all this neighborly concern?

  The answer came to me in a rush, and it was so obvious that I was almost ashamed that I hadn't realized it sooner. Louis Chu didn't want the information. Albert Fong did. Albert had recruited his chess buddy to do his dirty work. He probably thought Louis's cheerfulness would disarm me. And maybe if he'd shown up three hours later, it might have. I wondered if he even realized he was being used as a pawn.

  Well, I wasn't going to indulge his phony curiosity or Albert Fong's clumsy inquisition.

  "I haven't decided yet," I told him. "Be sure to let me know if you find Toby." I shut the door and turned the lock.

  Still angry, I stomped upstairs and threw myself back into bed. The quiet darkness of the room did nothing to relax me. In fact, it provided a backdrop in which I could too easily picture Albert Fong's sullen face and imagine him issuing orders to Heckle and Jeckle and recruiting Louis Chu to intimidate or interrogate me, respectively.

  And another thing. Had Albert also directed the break-in?

  The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. Fong had a lot of nerve, playing puppet master from a distance while his minions did the dirty work. Had he really expected me to play along? I'd sooner go out on a date with 2B or eat Mr. Bitterman's cooking. And that wasn't going to happen anytime soon either.

  I huffed out a breath and settled back into drowsiness.

  The phone rang.

  My eyes flew open. Honestly, what did this place have against sleeping? I grabbed it before the end of the first ring. "What?"

  There was a moment of silence. Then, "Miss Hudson?"

  "Dr. Watson." Was the man ever going to catch me in a positive moment? I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. "Sorry," I said. "I didn't mean to sound so…" I trailed off, pretty sure I didn't want to admit just how I'd sounded.

  "Did I wake you?"

  I glanced at the clock. Six forty-five. "No, I've been awake for…" I swallowed. "…minutes."

  He chuckled. "I wanted to catch you before I went to the office. I saw something on the news this morning about a prowler in your neighborhood, and I wanted to make sure you were okay."

  My mouth went dry. "Prowler?" Maybe the person who'd broken into the house, back to try again? Maybe those noises I'd heard hadn't been settling floorboards and groaning old pipes at all.

  Good thing I was sitting down, because that thought would have knocked me off my feet. Had someone been roaming around the house while I'd been upstairs asleep? Had they stood in the doorway, watching me? Had they already been there, hiding, when Irene had dropped me off?

  Suddenly I felt like the woman in jeopardy from a Lifetime movie. Next came the part where my flashlight batteries went dead as I was heading to the basement to investigate some strange sound.

  "Something happened at a yoga studio," Watson said. "Last night. Two blocks from your house, in fact."

  Wait. Yoga studio? Last night?

  That prowler had been me.

  "You did get your locks changed, didn't you?" he asked.

  Right. New locks. They'd sort of fallen off of my to-do list and landed on my can't-afford-a-locksmith list. I couldn't admit to Watson that I'd been the prowler. There was no way to pull the private detective curtain around breaking and entering. Especially when he'd been concerned enough for my safety to call. I was touched by his level of concern. And absurdly pleased. And petrified that Irene and I could have been caught on some security camera we hadn't noticed. You saw that all the time on the news—a camera from an adjacent business capturing grainy images of criminals on the street with the chyron Do you recognize this person? I didn't want to be that image. We'd gotten lucky this time.

  "Miss Hudson?"

  "No," I said. I'd almost been splashed all over the early news. What had I been thinking? And what exactly had I gotten for all the trouble of being a Crimestoppers highlight reel?

  A stick of ginger lily incense.

  I pulled it out of my pocket and stared at it. This was the thing that Watson had found underneath Kate's fingernails, the reason I'd played cat burglar at the yoga studio, and I couldn't say a word about it to him now. It'd be as good as a confession.

  "I guess I forgot to have the locks changed," I told him, almost cheerfully.

  "You should really take care of that," he said. "Especially if you're going to stay at the house by yourself."

  "I'll call someone today," I promised. "Thanks for letting me know about the prowler."

  "This world," he said in that weary way that people do after watching the nightly news.

  "And all the people in it," I agreed.

  After we'd hung up, I had no hope of getting back to sleep and no desire to try. I also didn't want to stay in the house alone, assuming I was alone, which I chose to assume. I stepped into my shoes and went downstairs to Kate's rolltop desk, where I stuffed every one of the complaint letters I could find into my bag. I'd go through them later, at my apartment, or at Irene's. Anywhere but here, where every gust of wind seized the windows and rattled them as if demanding to come inside. Now that daylight had broken, I could see it wasn't going to break very far. There was a thick cloud cover, and the fog hung low and dense. It was the sort of atmosphere that made the house seem like a living entity, contracting under the harsh hand of the wind and complaining in sporadic creaks and groans. Not that I was letting my imagination run wild or anything. Still, one more reason to leave as quickly as possible.

  Admittedly I might have been getting a little paranoid, but my skin was crawling at the thought that Albert Fong might be sitting down the street in the park, watching and waiting for me to leave. Or worse, that he'd dispatched Heckle and Jeckle to do it. My shift wasn't scheduled to begin for hours, and I wasn't about to go back to the park to talk to Rabid or Jackie and the moms or anyone else on my own. The intrepid detective in me was shaking like a little girl at the prospect of going it alone.

  There was only one cure I could think of for the way I felt.

  Forty minutes later, I was sitting in a cubicle in the Stanford library. Albert Fong wasn't the only one who could collect information. I had a stack of books beside me, borrowed from the true-crime section. If I could learn a bit about the Asian mafia's presence in the Bay Area, maybe I could start to figure out the Rubik's cube that was Albert Fong. And what my aunt might have had on him.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I didn't learn as much as I'd hoped, mostly because I'd fallen asleep halfway through a book on the details of importing illegal goods and the tax evasion issues it created. Yes, money laundering profits from illegal smuggling was just that fascinating. That was the last time I'd spend the night at the Victorian. I woke up to find myself drooling on a picture of Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, one of the Bay Area's most notorious gangsters.

  On the plus side, it was a very refreshing nap. Unfortunately, nothing I'd read had immediately pointed me to an aha! moment about how and why Albert might have killed my aunt.

  I still had half an hour before my shift started, which left me plenty of time to run back to my apartment for a change of clothes. Something nice and bright that didn't scream prowler like the current black outfit did. Or maybe that was just my guilty conscience talking.

  I was climbing the stairs when 2B stuck his head out the door. He looked a little green. "I've been waiting for you, Marty. Come on in for a second."

  I froze on the top step, horrified at the idea. "I can't…I mean, I'm kind of in a…no."

  "Can't you just come in for a second?" he asked. "I need a favor."

  "I can hear you just fine from here," I said. And what would make him think I would do him any favors?

  He rolled his eyes. "What, you think I want to jump your bones or something? I just wanted to ask you if you've got any Pepto-Bismol. I taste tested some of Mr. Bitterman's food a little while ago, and I'm not feeling so good."

  "The soup?" I asked.

  He shook his head.

  "The cabbage surprise?" I asked.

  He clutched at his stomach. "It was some kind of meat. I think it was rat. Or squirrel."

  Any more talking, and I was going to need the Pepto-Bismol.

  "I don't have any Pepto-Bismol," I told him. "Sorry."

  "Can you go buy me some?" His face twisted. "I'm in bad shape here, Marty."

  "Why don't you ask Mr. Bitterman?" I said. "He's the one who made you sick."

  "I don't want him to know."

  I looked at him, surprised.

  2B shrugged. "He reminds me of my grandpa. I don't want to hurt his feelings."

  That was kind of sweet, even coming from 2B. I'd had no idea he felt that way about Mr. Bitterman. It might have been my first actual glimpse of the real 2B behind the raggedy Deep Purple T-shirt and devil goatee. Maybe he had a soul after all.

  "I'll check with Mrs. Strum for you," I told him. "I have a feeling she might have been to the pharmacy recently herself."

  "Thanks, Marty." He backed into his apartment. "I'll leave the door unlocked. Just come on in. I'll be in the bedroom." He closed the door, and I heard hurried footsteps on the other side and the squeaking of bedsprings as he threw himself onto his mattress.

  He was going to have a long day.

  * * *

  After leaving a bottle of the promised medicine outside 2B's door, I raced back to campus and spent the next four hours slinging coffee, wiping tables, and looking over my shoulder every three seconds for menacing thugs or shady burglars.

  By dinnertime, Irene and I were huddled in front of the computer in her home office, where she was showing off the newly polished Sherlock Holmes website. Her office was nestled in the back corner of the house, with glass walls overlooking the pool on one side and gorgeous landscaped gardens on the other. The colors were light. The furniture was plush. It was a vacation suite with a work space.

  "I don't know." I studied the screen. "This still feels wrong."

  "Is it the colors?" Irene looked at it. "I thought darker would be good. You know, for a mysterious globe-hopping detective involved in matters of murder and intrigue."

  I glanced at her. "Or a figment of your imagination."

  She grinned. "Whatever."

  "I don't know," I said again. "I don't like that red. Can you make it look less like blood?"

  "It was subliminal messaging," she said. "But have it your way." She went to work, and moments later, the red dripping letters morphed into black block letters on the forest green background. "How's that?"

  I nodded. "Masculine without being psychotic."

  "If you say so. Let's take it live." A few mouse clicks later, she sat back and checked her watch. "It's almost time. This is going to be fun."

  I didn't know about that. Despite Irene's enthusiasm, Sherlock Holmes wasn't getting any easier to live with. It was one thing to toss out a bogus name when we were talking to potential suspects. It was another to keep growing the charade at Watson's expense.

  "I've got him!" Irene announced. "The man is punctual. I've got to give him that. Punctuality is good." Her fingers scrabbled across the keyboard. I leaned over her shoulder to read the screen. "Don't worry," she told me. "I'm just telling him how nice it is to finally meet him."

  I rolled my eyes.

  "And now…" She kept typing. I hope you've found my assistant, Martha, helpful.

  "Hey, be careful," I said.

  "Lighten up, Marty. He doesn't have a clue."

  I wasn't sure about that. Watson definitely seemed to have a clue. Sometimes I got the impression he was just paying out some line while we doubled down on Sherlock Holmes. If so, it was only a matter of time before he yanked us back down to reality and maybe onto the radar of Detective Lestrade. Who also, oddly, seemed to believe that I worked for a private investigator. For the moment. Until he got hold of the phony license. Was there any way he could get hold of the phony license? No, of course not.

  On the other hand…

  She's a very bright young woman.

  "What high praise." Irene's tone was droll.

  "What else is he going to say to my boss?" I asked. Still, very bright young woman stung a little bit. As much as nice had. He could have at least said She's a very bright and devastatingly sexy young woman. Or something.

  Talk about being yanked back to reality.

  "Huh." Irene leaned closer to the screen. "Are you seeing this?"