It was Friday morning without much westbound traffic on I-10. She spent most of the drive mentally reprocessing the crime scene until an overhead sign—one announcing the upcoming exit for El Centro—jolted her out of one reverie and into another. El Centro was where Juanita Moreno Ochoa had been born and where she had lived until she was twelve.

  Her mom, Andrea, had gotten pregnant while still in high school and had raised her daughter as an unwed mother. Without so much as a high school diploma and with limited job skills, Andrea had supported her daughter by waitressing.

  By the time Juanita was nine, she was accustomed to being left alone at night while her mother worked as a cocktail waitress in one of the rougher joints in town. Three years later, just after her twelfth birthday, she was awakened out of a sound sleep by someone pounding on the door. The two men she found standing there claimed they were police, but Juanita’s mother had warned her daughter about not letting strangers into their apartment. Finally, one of them, Detective Philip Reyes, held his badge up to the peephole.

  That’s when Juanita finally opened the door, only to be given the awful news: Her mother was dead, shot in the course of an attempted armed robbery at the bar where she worked. Detective Reyes was the one who told her what had happened, and he was the one who held her while she sobbed her heart out. Later that night, once it was apparent that there was no one left to care for her, he was also the one who handed her off to a social worker.

  Juanita often wondered what would have become of her that fateful night if someone other than Detective Reyes had come to the door. She doubted she’d be living the life she was today.

  As the Indio exit appeared, Detective Ochoa switched on her turn signal.

  No, she thought, I would be someone else entirely, and I most likely wouldn’t be spending my days chasing killers and witnessing autopsies.

  That was exactly how she spent the next several hours—standing in the Riverside County Morgue, observing the autopsies for the two victims whose fingerprints identified them as Dante Cox and Tyrone Jackson. The results were pretty well-foregone conclusions. For both young men the cause of death was listed as a gunshot wound. The manner of death was homicide. As for timing? Sometime within the last twenty-four to thirty-six hours.

  Once the autopsies were over, it was time for Detective Ochoa to move on to the next part of her job—the worst part—delivering death notices.

  CHAPTER 29

  THE VILLAGE OF OAK CREEK, ARIZONA

  Friday, January 3, 2020, 10:00 a.m. (MST)

  Stu Ramey couldn’t remember the last time he had crashed and burned like this. Thursday had been nothing short of brutal. Faced with multiple cyberattacks from around the world and missing several of their key players, High Noon’s home team had managed to hold the line, but it hadn’t been easy. All day long, he’d received updates from Frigg, letting him know that she was still on the job and accumulating information, but there hadn’t been a spare minute for him to go through any of it, and now he was too tired.

  As he was crawling into bed in the early hours of the morning, he summoned the AI. “I’m finally off duty,” he told her. “I’ll let you know when I’m available.”

  “I hope you have a restful sleep,” she said.

  He did, but the moment he stirred and sat up in bed at ten the next morning, a howler alarm sounded from the other room. Obviously Frigg had been monitoring his respiration and knew he was awake. Stu plugged in his earbuds.

  “Okay, Frigg,” he said. “You’ve got my attention. What’s going on?”

  “A bombing occurred at a private residence in Beaverton, Oregon, earlier this morning.”

  “What?” Stu said.

  She repeated the same words but they made no sense to him. “Please explain. Who was bombed, and why would it be of any interest to us?”

  “The situation would be more understandable if you had read the material I’ve been sending to you,” Frigg said reprovingly.

  What wasn’t understandable to Stu Ramey was why he was being bawled out by a computer program first thing in the morning before he’d had a single sip of coffee. He glanced at his watch. He’d told Lance he’d be back at the office by noon, so there wasn’t much time.

  “All right,” he consented, “go ahead and start sending. I’ll read what I can before I go to work, but I’m going to need some coffee first.”

  The first document Frigg sent was a single sheet with a dozen names listed on it. Of those, Stu recognized two—Hal Holden and Jack Littleton.

  “What’s this?” Stu asked.

  “It’s the federal prosecutor’s list of proposed witnesses for the 2003 trial of a former Pasadena PD officer, Frank Muñoz. Mr. Muñoz was arrested and sent to prison on a number of federal charges including police corruption, money laundering, and obstruction of justice.”

  Stu didn’t want to inquire as to how Frigg had obtained the witness list in the first place. There was no point.

  “You already told me Jack Littleton was dead,” he said, “but how did two local homicide cops get mixed up in a federal police corruption case?”

  “They were called to investigate the 1997 homicide of Alysha Morgan, an exotic dancer at a Pasadena nightclub called BJ’s, which, at the time, was the subject of an ongoing organized-crime investigation being conducted by the FBI. Another name on the witness list against Mr. Muñoz is that of Danielle Lomax, one of Alysha Morgan’s fellow dancers and the only eyewitness to her murder. Ms. Lomax is also deceased. She was gunned down outside her workplace in St. Paul, Minnesota, on October 31, 2017. Her case, like Mr. Littleton’s, remains unsolved.”

  Stu was beginning to get the picture. “Okay,” he said, “of the twelve names on this list, two are dead and one nearly so, but why is this just a proposed witness list? Did any of these people actually testify?”

  “They did not. Mr. Muñoz pled guilty and went to prison. He was released on parole on November 1, 2019, and currently resides in Las Vegas, Nevada.”

  Stu was starting to lose patience. Frigg seemed to be bouncing all over the map—Beaverton, Pasadena, St. Paul, Las Vegas.

  “But about this bombing?” he asked. “I thought you said it was in Oregon.”

  “Yes,” Frigg agreed, “in Beaverton. The bombing occurred at approximately 5:45 a.m. today at a private home located at 2514 NW Telshire Drive, which was completely destroyed in the ensuing fire. The residence belongs to Mr. and Mrs. Larry Rogers. Mrs. Rogers was formerly married to Frank Muñoz.”

  Wham! Just like that the light came on in Stu’s head. Obviously Frank Muñoz was at the center of all this! Frigg was unrelenting. Once his name had surfaced, the AI had tracked down the names and current addresses of everyone connected to the man and placed them on one of her watch lists.

  “You knew about the bombing the moment it happened?” Stu asked.

  “I did,” Frigg replied, “and I believe I have identified the perpetrator.”

  “How?”

  “It seemed likely that whoever was responsible for the bombing would exhibit an undue interest in the case. I hacked into several newsfeeds in the Portland area. Sites carrying advertising generally collect IP addresses on all visitors. One IP address located in Las Vegas, Nevada, has shown up ten—make that eleven—times so far this morning. I’ve identified the individual email address as FGMuñoz@LVNV.com.”

  “Frank Muñoz,” Stu breathed. “He has to be our guy, but what do we do about it?”

  “I would like to install a keylogger on Mr. Muñoz’s computer,” Frigg advised him. “I could set a trap so that the next time he searches for information on the bombing, the keylogger will download automatically.”

  Stu had to think about that. If Frank Muñoz was responsible for this whole series of violent events, shouldn’t they do everything in their power to bring him down? The information Frigg had already gathered was damning, and a keylogger would no doubt reveal far more, but installing those was illegal. If Stu said yes, he would be encouraging Frigg to return to her old habits of coloring outside the lines. But what if he said no, and Frank got away?

  “All right,” Stu told Frigg finally. “Go ahead and do it, but don’t get caught.”

  CHAPTER 30

  PRESCOTT, ARIZONA

  Friday, January 3, 2020, 9 a.m. (MST)

  On Friday morning Chief Detective Biba went straight to the bull pen to check on his people. “What’s going on with the vehicle abandoned in Quartzsite?” he asked Detective Morris.

  “Our CSIs located several prints. They’ll be running them through AFIS,” she told him.

  Biba nodded. If the two young thugs seen on the truck stop video had any previous criminal histories, the national Automated Fingerprint Identification System would be the logical place to find them.

  “How long will that take?” Biba asked.

  “Hopefully it’ll get done today,” Julie told him. “I asked them to put a rush on it.”

  “Any word on Ali Reynolds?” he asked.

  “B. Simpson is having additional surgery today. Shirley Malone, the woman I spoke to in Cottonwood, said Ms. Reynolds is due to arrive sometime today and is expected to go straight to the hospital. I told them we’ll be in touch tomorrow.”

  Biba sighed. He didn’t like having to wait yet another day to interview the woman he considered his main person of interest in what had happened to B. Simpson, but wait he would. Eventually she would have to talk to him, and one way or another, he’d get to the bottom of this. In the meantime, he had other things to deal with, like the mound of paperwork covering his desk.

  Sometime after two, with Biba still whaling away at his paperwork jungle, an excited Detective Flack dashed into his office. “Hey, boss,” Steven crowed. “We’ve got something!”

  “What?”

  “AFIS just got hits on two of the prints from that stolen Subaru.”

  “That was quick,” Biba said. “It has to be one of the fastest hits on record.”

  “Do you want the good news or the bad news?”

  “Let’s have the good news first. Who are they?”

  “A pair of LA-based gangbangers—Tyrone Jackson and Dante Cox.”

  “And the bad?”

  “They’re both dead—shot to death in a dry wash somewhere near Blythe, California. A maintenance worker from a solar farm found the bodies in a culvert early this morning. Sounds like they’ve been dead for a day or so. No IDs were found at the scene, but the coroner was able to raise prints from both bodies. That’s how we got the matches. Both victims were in the system.”

  “You’ve spoken to the detectives involved?” Biba asked.

  “Not yet,” Flack said. “But I’ve got a number.”

  “Hand it over,” Biba said. “If we’re dealing with another state, I should probably make the call.”

  He did. The phone rang several times before switching over to voice mail. “This is Detective Juanita Ochoa of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office. I’m currently out of the office. Please leave a message. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

  Biba left a message, then he sat at his desk for several long minutes wondering exactly how two dead gangbangers from LA could have gotten hooked up with a spoiled rich bitch from Sedona, Arizona.

  Finally he stood up and reluctantly headed for Captain Dunn’s office. He didn’t relish having to tell his supervisor that their high-profile vehicular assault case had now turned into a multistate homicide investigation.

  Captain Dunn wasn’t going to regard this as good news, and neither did Chief Detective Biba.

  CHAPTER 31

  BEAVERTON, OREGON

  Friday, January 3, 2020, 10:00 a.m. (PST)

  With his parents headed for separate operating rooms in the same hospital, Ramon did what he could. He needed to let his sisters know what was going on, but before he called either of them, he looked online to see if any additional information had been posted since AJ had driven him away from the house.

  There wasn’t much. Unfortunately, he found himself fact-checking almost everything he read:

  Authorities have confirmed that the early-morning incident on Beaverton’s NW Tilshire Drive was indeed a bombing. Two individuals, residents of the home, have been taken to the hospital. No word on their condition is available at this time.

  No one has taken credit for the bombing, but it is not considered to be an act of domestic terrorism. The investigation is ongoing.

  What the hell do the words “domestic terrorism” mean, then? Ramon wondered. Having someone plant a bomb meant to burn down a house with people sleeping inside sure as hell seems terrifying enough, and since it’s unlikely any foreign power was involved, didn’t that make it domestic?

  A nearby neighbor who witnessed the bombing claims he observed an unidentified male toss a flaming device of some kind in the direction of the residence shortly before the fire broke out.

  That unidentified male is AJ Wilson, Ramon thought, and there was no “flaming device” involved. He was throwing newspapers, for Pete’s sake.

  That’s when he saw the photo. His cottage still stood, barely visible in the distance. The hazy foreground was punctuated by a single charred but upright stud, the only remaining remnant of the main house. Everything else was a pile of rubble, including the garage where his parents’ two vehicles had been parked. The garage and the cars were gone, but the two plastic trash cans Larry kept on the far side of the garage appeared to be undamaged. He wondered why they hadn’t melted. Had someone moved them?

  At that point Ramon was too sick at heart to call his sisters. Feeling a sudden urge to see the damage for himself, he reached for his car keys before remembering that AJ had given him a ride. He was searching for a number to call a cab when the next sickening realization hit him—he didn’t have his wallet with him, either.

  For a moment, he panicked, then he remembered AJ’s offer. He located AJ’s number and dialed but after four rings, the call went to voice mail. With no other options in mind, Ramon dialed AJ’s grandfather.

  “Mr. Jones?” he asked tentatively.

  “Yes,” the man said warily. “Who’s this?”

  “My name’s Ramon Muñoz. There was a fire at my parents’ house this morning, and AJ gave me a ride to the hospital. He said I could call him if I needed a ride back home. I just tried, but he didn’t answer.”

  “That’s because the cops have taken him into custody,” Hiram said grimly. “A witness said he saw AJ firebomb the house.”

  White neighborhood, Black kid, Ramon thought. Naturally it’s AJ’s fault.

  Hiram sighed. “I’ll be glad to come get you,” he said. “Where are you?”

  “Portland General,” Ramon answered.

  “How are your folks?” Hiram asked. “Are they going to be all right?”

  “They’re both in surgery, but I want to go check on the house.”

  “Hang in there, son,” Hiram advised. “I know where Portland General is. I’m in Aloha, so it’ll take some time for me to get there. I drive a white Prius.”

  “Good, I’ll be outside the main entrance.”

  As Ramon headed for the door, his phone rang with Norm Williams’s name showing on caller ID. Larry Rogers and Norm were old high school buddies, and Norm had long been Larry’s insurance agent. He was also Ramon’s.

  “I just heard,” Norm said grimly. “I’m here at the house, and one of the officers told me someone had been taken to the hospital. Are your folks all right?”

  “My mom seems to have suffered a heart attack,” Ramon told him. “She’s in surgery, and so’s Dad. He was scheduled to have knee replacement surgery today. Once we got to the hospital, he decided to go through with it anyway.”

  “Not surprised,” Norm said. “Sounds like the Larry Rogers I know.”

  “What about the house?” Ramon asked, even though he already knew the answer.

  “The adjustor isn’t here yet, but clearly it’s a total loss.”

  “Where are they supposed to go once they’re released from the hospital?” Ramon asked.

  “That’s why I’m calling,” Norm said. “One of my clients has a unit in one of the upscale assisted-living places here in town, but they also have a place down in Mesa where they stay during the winter. They’re scheduled to be there until the middle of March. Ralph’s a good friend of mine. I just talked to him and told him about what’s happened. He’s willing to let your folks stay in his place here on a temporary basis. They’ll need to pay rent, of course. Meals are provided. They’re not gourmet by any means, but served in a dining room. They’ll have to pay for those, too.”

  “Sounds expensive,” Ramon observed.

  “Not compared to putting them up in a hotel,” Norm said, “and the displacement clause in their homeowners policy will cover most of it.”

  “Fully furnished?” Ramon asked.

  “Fully,” Norm replied. “Not only that, it’s all handicapped accessible, which sounds like something both your folks need right now. The thing is, Ralph would like to know yea or nay today if at all possible. What do you think?”

  Ramon hadn’t had time to consider where his parents would go after leaving the hospital, and he was grateful Norm was working on the problem. And although he wasn’t comfortable making that kind of decision on his parents’ behalf, someone needed to do it. His handling it would mean one less worry for Larry. The fact that meals were included was a biggie. Ramon’s mother was the cook in the family. Larry was utterly hopeless in the kitchen. That’s what tipped the scales.

  “Tell Ralph yes,” Ramon said, “and if there’s any fallout from that decision with my folks, I’ll take the heat.”

  The call ended as Hiram Jones’s Prius pulled up out front. “Where to?” he asked, once Ramon was inside. “The house?”

  That’s where Ramon had intended to go originally, but right now looking at the wreckage wasn’t the point.