“Are you really going to try opening GHOST on your computer?” Ali asked B. as they headed down the hallway for the elevator.

  “Hardly,” B. said. “Do I look stupid? Trust but verify. I’ll have somebody in the High Noon world send a new computer to our hotel room first thing in the morning. I’ll use the thumb drive on that.”

  “What do you mean, first thing in the morning?” Ali asked wearily. “It’s already morning here and sometime in the afternoon where we were yesterday. I don’t know about you, but I’m done for.”

  “I take that to mean that checking in with no visible luggage is no longer a problem for you?”

  “Don’t be cute,” Ali grumbled. “I’m too damned tired for cute.”

  In their room, Ali fell into bed stark naked and slept without moving or dreaming. When she awakened hours later, B., backlit by sun shining in through the windows, was standing beside the bed, holding out his phone.

  “It’s your mother,” he said. “Apparently, she’s on the warpath. I’m on my way to the shower.”

  Ali tried to clear the sleep out of her throat before she answered. “Hi, Mom.”

  “Where in the world are you?” Edie Larson demanded. “I called off and on all day yesterday. You never answered and you never called me back.”

  Ali’s phone, still turned off and most likely totally discharged, lay in the bottom of her purse. She hadn’t remembered to turn it back on. “Someone hacked in to it,” Ali said. “I don’t feel comfortable talking on it when someone else might be listening in on the conversation.”

  “Someone hacked your phone?” Edie repeated. “Can’t B. do something about that? Isn’t that what he does for a living, for Pete’s sake?”

  “He’s been quite busy,” Ali said.

  “I’m calling about tomorrow,” Edie said. “You probably booked a shuttle to get back home to Sedona after your flight from London, but if you want, Dad and I will be glad to drive down to Phoenix to pick you up. Those shuttle rides aren’t very comfortable, especially if you’re already tired.”

  “Thank you, Mom,” Ali said. “That’s kind of you, but we won’t be on that flight. We’re in Austin right now.”

  “Austin?” Edie exclaimed. “As in Texas? How did you get there? What’s going on?”

  Call waiting buzzed. “Mom,” Ali said, “it’s a long story. I’ll tell you about it later. There was a sudden change in plans, and I didn’t have time to let you know. Right now, I’m on B.’s phone and he’s got another call coming in. I’ll have to get back to you.”

  She caught a glimpse of the time as she switched over to the other call. It was after nine in the morning. She had slept for more than six hours.

  “I’m looking for Mr. Simpson.”

  The voice was familiar, but Ali couldn’t immediately identify it. “He’s in the shower,” she said. “This is Ali Reynolds. Who’s this?”

  “Detective Hernandez, San Leandro PD.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Marvin Cotton is dead.”

  “The arson suspect?” Ali asked. “How did that happen? I thought he was in police custody.”

  “He was,” Detective Hernandez said. “He was in an interrogation room out at the jail. The detectives had been talking to him, but then he lawyered up. A guard was taking him back to a holding cell when some kind of altercation broke out. When the scuffle was over, Cotton was unconscious. He was taken by ambulance from the jail to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The guard is currently out on administrative leave. The sheriff’s department says the investigation is ongoing. I got a sneak preview of the tapes. No doubt the guard will claim self-defense, but if it were my call, I wouldn’t be buying it. The guard used lethal force when he punched Cotton in the throat. I think it was deliberate.”

  “Are you sure you should be telling us this?” Ali put in.

  “I’m sure I shouldn’t, but from where I’m standing, I know there’s a puppet master out there somewhere, pulling strings, and those strings may reach deep inside the law enforcement community. So far it seems to be confined to lower-level folks—guards and the surveillance technician, for instance—but what if it’s more widespread than that? What if it goes higher? I’m not a crooked cop, and I sure as hell don’t want to work with crooked cops. Cotton’s death means that all the urgency to investigate Lowell Dunn’s homicide just went out the window. Why clear a case that’s already closed? Ditto for the attack on Lance. Cotton is responsible, one and done. In the long run, the only people still asking questions about those incidents will be you.”

  “What about the attack on Phyllis Rogers?” Ali asked.

  “Traces of scopolamine were found in LeAnne’s front entry. That’s been declared a kidnapping and the investigation is in the hands of the FBI. If somebody local has been pushing things under the rug, it won’t go away quite as easily with the feds involved, and that’s a good thing.”

  The bathroom door opened. B. emerged through a cloud of steam wearing the previous day’s rumpled shirt. That was when Ali remembered that their clean clothes and luggage were still in San Leandro. So was Leland Brooks.

  Ali shoved B.’s phone in his direction and dug in her purse for her own phone.

  “Who is it?” B. asked.

  “Detective Hernandez,” she said.

  While B. took over his phone, Ali located her own along with the charger. Once she had it plugged in, she dialed the San Leandro Inn.

  “Good morning,” Leland said cordially. “I came down to breakfast without you. I hope you don’t mind. I thought you needed your beauty sleep.”

  Ali flushed with embarrassment. “Leland, I’m sorry. We’re not there. We’re in Austin. Right after you went upstairs with the luggage last night, everything went nuts. We never went to our room. We came to the hospital to talk to Lance Tucker. By the time we were finished, we were too tired to drive all the way back to San Leandro. Once I get dressed, I’ll come back for you.”

  “That’s all right,” Leland said reassuringly. “Please don’t stress yourself. Come when it’s convenient. The hotel here is comfortable enough. After the day we had yesterday, I’m finding it rather pleasant to be in a room that isn’t moving.”

  Ali hung up. With B. still on the phone in the living room of the three-room suite, Ali took her turn in the shower. She came out a few minutes later, grateful for the terry-cloth robe she had found in the closet. B. was on the sofa with a computer on his lap. On the floor was a scatter of used packaging materials. The low coffee table held a carafe of coffee and two cups. Ali stopped long enough to pour one for herself before sitting down on the couch beside him. By then the Transformer-shaped thumb drive was already plugged in and lit up. “Find anything?” she asked.

  “GHOST is here,” B. said. “I’m assuming it’s the completed version, since it’s one of the last files Everett Jackson added to the cloud. I haven’t tried opening it yet. But there were a couple of much smaller files added after that. Take a look at this.” He moved the computer screen in Ali’s direction.

  “ ‘Sorry’?” she read. “A one-word message? What does that mean?”

  “I think it means that Everett Jackson was being blackmailed.” With a click, B. switched to a video entitled “Teacher’s Pet.” It was poorly lit and grainy but clear enough. The only prop in the picture was an old-fashioned teacher’s desk with a green blackboard in the background. What was happening on the desk may have been educational, but it was also X-rated. A naked young woman lay on her back with her legs clamped around the bare rump of the man moving on top of her. He was much older and almost entirely bald. Looking directly into the camera, she was smiling as though she knew the lens was there while he had no idea.

  “Mr. Bare Butt is Everett Jackson?” Ali asked.

  “It’s got to be. Why else would he have it? The porn video was posted one day prior to the day of Mr. Jackson’s overdose.”

  “Is there a way to tell where the file came from?”

  “It was probably e-mailed to him. With his livelihood at stake, he wouldn’t have left it on his computer any longer than it took to copy it and post it here. He probably erased the original in a hell of a hurry. I know I would have.”

  “It might still be on the server,” Ali suggested.

  “You’re getting good at this stuff,” B. said, “and you’re right. It might be, but someone would need to know to go looking. Luckily I happen to know just such a guy.”

  “Was a suicide note found at the time?” Ali asked.

  “No,” B. said. “I checked. So maybe that’s what ‘sorry’ means. The message on the cloud may be a suicide note intended specifically for Lance. Unfortunately, there’s also another possibility.”

  “Which is?”

  “That the blackmail demand to Everett Jackson was the same as the ransom demand sent to Lance in exchange for his grandmother’s safe return.”

  “GHOST?”

  “Maybe he gave it up, and that’s what he’s saying sorry about.”

  “If he did knuckle under to a blackmailer’s demands, which copy would he hand over?” Ali asked. “The one with the working passwords or the one with the exploding cigar?”

  “Maybe neither,” B. muttered. “What if Jackson decided to end it all instead of giving up the program? With him gone, the blackmailer might have decided there was no point in releasing the video. Had it been made public, that video would have gone viral in minutes.”

  “I’m assuming our next step is to try to identify the girl and figure out if she played a part in what happened to Phyllis Rogers yesterday.”

  “I’m calling Stuart,” B. said, picking up his phone. “If the video was sent to Jackson’s school address, a file with the words ‘Teacher’s Pet’ shouldn’t be at all difficult to find, especially since the San Leandro school district was and is one of our clients. If it’s on Jackson’s personal e-mail account, that’ll be a little more difficult.”

  “What if it isn’t there at all?”

  “We’ll figure out something else.”

  As B. went to dial Stu’s number, Ali stood up. “You do that,” she said, kissing him goodbye. “I’m going to get dressed and drive to San Leandro. I’ll pick up Leland and our luggage and be back in time for lunch.”

  “I’ll be at the hospital,” B. told her. “Detective Hernandez says the FBI will be paying Lance a call. I told Sister Anselm to let me know when they get there.”

  It was ten past ten when Ali collected the car from the parking valet and headed north on I-35 with her half-charged phone on the car seat next to her. As she drove the long straight stretch of highway through the wide expanse of Texas landscape, she couldn’t get the images from the video out of her mind. There was no question that it had been consensual sex. Rather than looking as though she had been forced into the act, the girl had looked downright gleeful. Triumphant.

  “She targeted him,” Ali said aloud, “nailed him, and now he’s dead. Now we need to nail her.” She picked up the phone, dialed Stu, and punched speaker. “Did B. send the video?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Stu said. “Hot stuff.”

  “Was it on the server?”

  “Nope. Not on the school’s, but from correspondence there, I was able to locate Jackson’s personal account. It’ll take me a while to get into that server, but I’m sure I’ll manage.”

  “What if you don’t find it there?”

  “I’m already putting it out in the world of FR,” Stu said.

  “FR?” Ali repeated. “What’s that?”

  “My favorite new science: facial recognition. A search like that takes time, and I have to go through certain channels, but if our hot little number happens to have a Facebook page, we’ll be able to find her.”

  When Ali arrived at the hotel in San Leandro, Leland Brooks was waiting for her in the lobby, suitcase at the ready. Seeing the car, he came outside to greet her. “I thought about prevailing on the doorman to let me check you out of your room,” he said, “but then it occurred to me that you might want to change into fresh clothing.”

  “To say nothing of having a chance to put on some makeup,” she said. “I promise I won’t take long.”

  “No rush,” Leland said. “No rush at all.”

  Grateful for his understanding, Ali went up to their otherwise unused room, where she showered for a second time and changed into the last of her clean clothes. She was putting the finishing touches on her face when B. called. “How are things?” he asked.

  “After the past several days, nothing can top the pleasure of showering and putting on clean underwear,” she said. “How are things with you?”

  “Lance evidently had a bad night after we left. They took him somewhere for PT as soon as he woke up.”

  “Does he know about the video?”

  “Not yet. I didn’t want to drop that on him until after the FBI finishes up with him. Everett Jackson’s widow still lives in this town. If we can prevent that video from becoming a public circus, we will. I was afraid if Lance knew about it before the interview, he might be tempted to lie about it. Lying to the feds is always a bad idea.”

  “Are they there now?”

  “They stopped by just after the therapist wheeled Lance downstairs. Sister Anselm told them to take a number and wait. Instead of sitting here in the waiting room, they went downstairs for coffee. Sister Anselm and I were a little surprised that Lance’s mother hasn’t shown up and that we haven’t heard from her. We’ve tried calling LeAnne’s numbers, both her cell and her landline, as well as her mother’s cell phone. The calls go straight to voice mail.”

  “That seems odd,” Ali said. “Leland and I will be leaving the hotel in a few minutes. We’ll stop by the house on our way out of town. It’ll only take a few extra minutes.”

  “Good thinking,” B. said.

  Twenty minutes later, driving B.’s rented Cadillac, Ali turned onto Twin Oaks Drive. Nearby yards were dotted with Christmas decorations—plastic manger scenes and some deflated blow-up snowmen—that looked forlorn rather than cheerful on the winter-dry grass. An older-model Honda with Oregon plates was parked in the driveway. Ali stopped the Escalade next to it. “I’ll be right back,” she told Leland.

  She got out. The door to the garage had a row of small windows along the top. Peeking through, she saw the silhouette of a parked car. When she punched the doorbell, the sound was greeted by a chorus of barking and the scrabbling of paws on tile as two dogs, no doubt Phyllis Rogers’s pugs, raced to the door. The dogs came, but no one else did. Ali rang the bell again, and the dogs went nuts. Giving up, she was walking back to the car when she heard a cell phone ring.

  The sound seemed to be coming from inside the garage; after several rings, it stopped. She looked at the garage door. It was closed and locked. She was almost back to the Escalade when she glanced at the Honda. The passenger door was unlocked. On a whim and remembering Phyllis’s cigarette break from the night before, Ali leaned over and looked inside. Sure enough, there were two garage door openers perched on the driver’s visor. When she opened the car door, the air inside the vehicle was thick with cigarette smoke. Reaching across the seat, Ali punched the button on the first opener. Nothing happened, but when she punched the button on the second one, the door clattered, shivered slightly, and then rose.

  Ali was just closing the door on the Honda when two dogs, no longer barking, came racing through the garage. They dashed past Ali without a glance, making a purposeful beeline for the dead grass in the front yard.

  “Mom?” It was a child’s voice, wary and uncertain. “Are you home? Where were you?”

  “It’s not your mother,” Ali said. “My name is Ali Reynolds. You must be Connor, Lance’s younger brother. I’m a friend of your mother’s.”

  The wooden door slammed shut in Ali’s face. “I’m not supposed to let anyone into the house when I’m home alone,” the boy said from the other side. “Where’s my mom?”

  “I don’t know,” Ali said, turning back to the parked Taurus. “I heard a phone ringing in here a moment ago. Let me see if I can find it.”

  She opened the car door and looked inside for the phone. That was when she saw what was in the backseat. Who was in the backseat. The girl from the video lay faceup on the cloth bench seat. With her eyes wide open and a bullet hole in the middle of her forehead, there was no doubt she was dead.

  The phone rang again. This time Ali was able to follow the sound. On the far side of the car, lined up on a workbench, were three cell phones and two purses. The caller ID readout on the ringing phone said, “Oakwood Lutheran Church.” Leaving that phone and the others where they were, Ali backed away from the car, reaching for her own phone and dialing as she went.

  “Nine-one-one. What are you reporting?”

  “A homicide,” Ali said. “At 4034 Twin Oaks Drive.”

  “Who’s calling?” the operator wanted to know. “Do you know the victim? Are you sure the victim is deceased?”

  They went through the standard list of questions. By then, Ali had reversed course and was back at the kitchen door. So were the dogs. “Connor,” she said. “Please. You need to let me in. What happened here?”

  Slowly, the door inched open. A child wearing a pair of faded Spider-Man pajamas peered out at her through teary eyes. He had a mop of long blond hair. Several missing baby teeth gave him a wry look. He was probably six years old. Maybe seven.

  “I don’t know what happened,” he said in a rush. “When I woke up and climbed down from the top bunk, everybody was gone—Mommy, Grandma, and Thad. I thought they’d be right back, because Grandma hardly goes anywhere without her dogs. I thought maybe they took Thad to a basketball game or something. So I had breakfast and watched cartoons. I even put the milk away. When one of the dogs made a mess in the house, I tried to clean it up. I hope I’m not in trouble. But then I started to get worried. I was going to call Mom’s cell phone and ask her when she’d be home, but the phone in the house isn’t working. I don’t know what’s wrong with it.”

  The words spilled out of him in a torrent. When he finally paused for breath, Ali heard the sounds of approaching sirens. Connor must have heard them, too. “Are they coming here?” he demanded, his eyes wild. “Did something happen to my mom?”