Downing the last of his coffee, he watched the particles of wet fog dancing in the beam of a streetlight as he slipped out of his button-down shirt. He applied a quick wipe of deodorant before pulling on a T-shirt with the slogan Ride a Surfer, topped by a thick sweatshirt. Winter nights were cold and damp along the coast.

  A salty breeze of rotting seaweed rolled up from Black’s Beach, a hard-to-access surfing spot that doubled as a nude beach, popular with gay men. Whenever he surfed there, he always looked up at the cliffs, wondering how many centuries had passed to create the staggeringly tall, jagged accordion of stone. It made him feel like Charlton Heston at the end of Planet of the Apes, when he rides his horse up the beach to find the Statue of Liberty’s head and arm jutting out of the sand.

  As Goode approached the Fontaines’ motorized gate, he measured with his feet the distance and privacy from the closest neighbor. Because the backside of the properties on that side of the street ended with a sheer three-hundred-foot drop into a canyon that led down to Black’s, the sound of gunfire would have carried far and away, blending into the sound of the waves breaking on the shore.

  Those shots could have come from anywhere.

  Goode wondered how long the doctor had lived in the Farms and the nature of his relationship with the young chiquita found dead in his house. It wasn’t unusual for second and third wives in La Jolla to be half, or even one-third, the age of their husbands.

  Pressing the white intercom button, he heard the buzz of a camera motor as it turned to watch him.

  Excellent. There should be security video.

  “Yes?” a young man said.

  “Homicide,” he replied. “Detective Goode.”

  Heading down the steep, sloped sandstone driveway, he passed a silver Mercedes and a red Miata parked at the bottom. The double-doored entrance pictured two stained-glass mermaids reaching out to each other. The siren’s call.

  An antique clock chimed at eleven thirty as he pushed one of the doors open, noting it was spring weighted to close on its own, with no signs of forced entry. Before going any further, he slipped on booties and latex gloves from his go bag, which contained everything he needed at a crime scene—flashlight, notebook, protein bars, Faraday bags, and a few bottles of water, all replenished after each call.

  This place has more square footage than a Nordstrom.

  “Out here!” the same voice called out as Goode entered a kitchen big enough to serve an entire restaurant. Beyond two sliding glass doors that opened onto the back patio, a security guard was chatting animatedly with a newbie patrol officer. Both were in their mid-twenties.

  “Did you open these doors, or were they like that when you got here?” Goode asked the officer, who should know better than to touch anything. But he remembered being their age, brimming with young, hot enthusiasm and endless curiosity.

  “They were open,” the two lads said in unison.

  “You guys are supposed to be waiting out front, not walking all over my crime scene. We treat all suspicious deaths like homicides. So, you didn’t move anything, right?” Goode asked this facetiously because he’d already eyed a wallet on the ground next to the male victim’s body, with a driver’s license on top of it.

  “No, sir,” the officer said.

  “Except for this man’s driver’s license and wallet,” Goode said. “And what else?”

  “Nothing,” the officer said quietly. “We thought we should see if the victim lived here or if he was an intruder who killed the woman upstairs. His license shows this address.”

  “Yeah, well, that doesn’t mean he didn’t kill her, though, does it?” Goode asked rhetorically. “Or vice versa.”

  “Um, yeah, I guess not.”

  “Never move a victim,” Goode said. “Don’t even touch him unless you think he might need medical aid.”

  Crouching down, Goode shined his flashlight across the victim’s face and head until he found the bullet wound Stone had mentioned.

  There it is, a perfectly round hole in his right temple. But gunshot wounds to the head are usually big bleeders. This one didn’t bleed much at all, and even that little bit is gelatinous. By the looks of the driver’s license photo, this is Dr. Simon Fontaine.

  A 9mm pistol—standard issue by most law enforcement agencies—lay inches from the man’s right hand. The skin on his neck felt surprisingly cold, so even the newbies knew he’d been down too long to call for paramedics. Since this guy was a plastic surgeon, Goode wondered if he could have partially embalmed himself premortem with Botox, creating clots or slowing his bleeding somehow. Either way, he looked remarkably well preserved for sixty-five, with tight skin and a full head of white hair.

  The body lay about ten feet from the edge of the terra-cotta-tiled patio that flowed down a flight of stairs to a lapis-colored lap pool and a pool house. Up above was a second-floor exterior balcony, where a bystander would have had a direct view over the body.

  “So, I hear you guys did a sweep and there’s no armed nutjob hiding in a closet somewhere?”

  “Yes, sir,” the officer said more brightly now, as if he’d finally done something right. “My sergeant and I searched top to bottom before he alerted Homicide.”

  “Did you try the pool house too?” Goode asked, prompting the newbies to look at each other, then take off down the stairs.

  “Guess not,” he muttered.

  Fontaine’s body was in an unnatural position. Not the way someone would land after shooting themselves. Goode glanced up at the balcony again, then reexamined the doctor’s face, noticing some red abrasions on his forehead.

  Did he fall or jump from the balcony? Or was he dumped?

  The officer and security guard returned a minute later, grinning sheepishly.

  “All clear, sir,” the officer said. “Other than my sergeant catching a nap. He’s on back-to-back shifts and figured it would be a while before the briefing.”

  “Okay, thanks. I’m heading upstairs,” Goode said.

  The Berber-carpeted stairway ascended in dogleg fashion to the second and third floors. One flight up in the bedroom closest to the stairs, a pretty, dark-haired woman lay on her back on the carpet next to a queen-sized bed. No wedding ring. Dressed in panties and an oversized T-shirt over her well-toned, tanned body.

  Must be the lap pool. If she lives here, that is. So, is she a girlfriend, his daughter, or a roommate?

  If Goode had a few moments alone with her before the rest of his team showed up, he might be able to figure that out. He’d work solo if he could, but homicide investigations were, by definition, a team effort.

  He knelt to check her neck for a pulse. Nothing. The soft skin along her jawbone was about the same temperature as the doctor’s.

  Two pill vials were open on the bedside table: Xanax, a sedative for anxiety, and oxycodone, a narcotic painkiller. Both prescriptions had been filled earlier that day by Dr. Simon Fontaine for Victoria Fontaine, but the vials seemed pretty full, so it didn’t look like she’d swallowed a handful of pills.

  He’d heard the name Victoria Fontaine before, but he couldn’t remember where or when. Only that it was long before he worked undercover in Ocean Beach, a neighborhood known as OB, where gentrification still hadn’t managed to wipe out all the old hippie drug culture.

  Also on the table were a clock, a cell phone, some saltine cracker wrappers, and an empty bowl with a yellow residue that smelled like chicken soup. Goode put the phone into a Faraday bag, which would prevent it from receiving a signal, thereby blocking new texts, emails, or calls from coming in until he could get the device to the Regional Computer Forensics Lab (RCFL).

  Password protections could be challenging, but the protocol was to copy all the data, then search the duplicate to avoid disturbing or accidentally deleting anything on the original device. He was antsy to go through the emails, texts, and voicemails so he could start building a timeline for when she died, and if he was lucky, find some clues as to motive.

  The bathroom had a double sink carved out of gray marble, a glass-walled shower with two heads facing each other, and a whirlpool tub with multiple jets. However, he saw only one set of seafoam-green towels and one electric toothbrush. The proliferation of perfume bottles, but no cologne or aftershave, also indicated it was hers alone.

  Peering into the trash bin tucked between the toilet and the vanity, Goode took a pen from his bag to move a couple wads of tissue to the side, revealing a white pregnancy stick with a purple plus sign.

  Bingo.

  “Now, that’s what we call a clue,” he whispered.

  Looks like she was living, or at least staying, here in this bedroom. The question is whether she took the pregnancy test before or after filling the prescriptions. Unless this isn’t Victoria Fontaine.

  Back in the bedroom, he searched for some form of identification and found a green crocodile bag on the floor next to the bed. He couldn’t tell if it was a genuine Hermès or a knockoff like his sister carried around.

  “I like to mess with people, because the real thing costs $85,000,” Maureen had told him, laughing.

  He found his answer in a wallet stuffed with hundred-dollar bills, a stack of credit cards, and a driver’s license with a photo that resembled the victim, listing her age as thirty-five and an address on La Jolla Farms Road.

  No, it’s her. But this address says she lives down the street. Odd.

  Seeing her age triggered his memory: Victoria Fontaine had been two years behind him at La Jolla High, so he’d already graduated when she was high on oxy and crashed her father’s vintage Corvette into an oncoming car, severely injuring a seven-year-old girl. He’d heard about it through the grapevine, because Victoria came from a wealthy family. They’d never met because they ran in very different circles. Being around uber-rich people like the Fontaines made him uncomfortable.

  So, does she live here or not? Seems kind of weird for a thirty-five-year-old woman to be under the same roof as her father.

  Kneeling down again, he noticed three purplish spots in the inner fold of her left elbow. They looked like sloppy injection sites, but there were no syringes or paraphernalia in sight. He also saw several rows of white horizontal scars in the soft flesh of her inner thighs. Old scars. Which meant she’d been cutting herself for years. Looking closer, he found some pink, fresh marks on the inside of her upper left arm.

  Wow, that’s sad. Given the brand-new prescriptions and cutting marks, this one looks like it could be a suicide. Maybe the pregnancy created complications because the father is married or didn’t take the news well. But why would her own father prescribe oxy and Xanax for her now, when they are contraindicated, especially when she had a problem with oxy as a teenager, and even more so when she’s pregnant? Maybe she stole one of his prescription pads or had someone else call them in for her?

  Following a hunch, he went back downstairs to reexamine the doctor for injection marks. As he scanned the areas of exposed flesh, Goode located a purplish area on the side of the doctor’s neck.

  Looks like Victoria’s arm, only not as badly bruised.

  He couldn’t see very well with a flashlight in the dark, but if that was another injection site, he saw no syringe or empty drug vial there either. None of this added up. But maybe that was the point.

  It was never fun to request a search warrant from a judge after midnight. But that wasn’t his problem. That was a job for Ted Byron, his team’s warrant czar.

  In the meantime, Goode had the techs search the front yard and photograph along the driveway up to the gate, because, technically, they weren’t supposed to mess with anything inside until the warrant came through. Nor could he go through the victims’ phones. Some impatient detectives did this prematurely because they thought they knew better, only to screw up the evidence or render it inadmissible in court.

  “Where’s that warrant?” he yelled to no one in particular.

  “It’s coming, buddy,” Stone said as he walked through the sliding glass doors from the kitchen and handed Goode a more powerful flashlight.

  “Thanks. ’Bout time you showed up,” Goode said, taking the light and returning the smaller one to his bag.

  “Yeah, I got waylaid. Norman Klein called me after hearing the 911 call on the scanner in his car. He said it was past deadline, but he could call in a few details, so I gave him enough to hold him until we’ve officially identified the victims. Based on the money in this neighborhood, I’m betting the chief will want to do a news conference.”

  “Not too soon I hope, because I can’t tell what this is, a double suicide, a murder-suicide, or a double murder,” Goode said, filling Stone in on the doctor’s gooey gunshot wound, his daughter’s history with oxy, the bruising and cutting marks, and the red flag raised by her new prescriptions.

  Stone looked a little overwhelmed. “Well, the good news is that the lieutenant says we’ve got anything we need on this one. I mean, look at this place, it’s huge. Must be worth a frickin’ fortune. Hopefully the warrant comes through sooner than later. Judge Brockton, that longboarder from Bird Rock, is on call tonight. But if I know you, you’ll have this thing solved before it even gets here. No pressure.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that, but thanks. We need to make sure to get one for the security video too. I saw a camera out front.”

  “Yeah, I already told Byron. He’s on it.”

  “It’s too late to talk to neighbors,” Goode said. “Foster can do that first thing.”

  “Yep.”

  As they walked out to the driveway, Ted Byron was dutifully typing up the warrant affidavits on the hood of his car, and Bill Foster, their newest team member, was walking toward them with a roll of yellow crime-scene tape.

  “I had Patrol string this up to keep the lookie-loos out,” Foster said. “How was Maui, brotha? Gnarly?”

  “Totally,” Goode replied, but then turned away, all business. He was in no mood for small talk.

  Chapter 3

  Katrina

  Halloween Friday

  Katrina Chopin was on edge that night. She had no problem sitting by herself at the bar. She could talk to just about anyone. Or no one.

  But she’d come to Piatti for self-reflection, so she took the seat nearest the kitchen, which left one between her and a constipated-looking couple in their fifties. They were eating their meal in silence, barely acknowledging each other. Another reason not to get married.

  “Glenlivet with one big rock if you have it, please,” she told the bartender.

  This one is for you, Daddy. Your favorite.

  She was still feeling a bit disoriented after her reentry into San Diego a week ago. It had been a bit bumpy. Parachuting into her hometown after living five years on the East Coast, and five years in the Chicago area before that, had given her a jolt of culture shock. She’d visited only occasionally while attending undergrad, and later grad school, at Northwestern University, which was her mother’s alma mater as well. Her mom majored in theater; both of Katrina’s degrees were in journalism.

  But it went deeper than that. Katrina normally felt like the confident investigative reporter she was, but for the past week, the demons and memories of her younger self were creeping back up: The insecure tomboy who didn’t like men staring at her new breasts—high, firm, and slightly larger than one would expect for her petite frame. The teenager who was attracted to guys who weren’t good to her, and vice versa. And the young woman who took risks and bad turns, telling herself she could use the experience as a writer and musician, all of which ultimately landed her in therapy.

  “Sex is not love. Lust is not love,” her therapist told her. “Look somewhere else. Or better yet, stop looking.”

  The bartender set the tumbler of scotch in front of her with a quick grin before splashing vodka into a glass, pushing the tonic button on his soda gun, and muddling mint in the bottom of another glass.

  Having tended bar at a Chicago steak house for several years, Katrina grew a little nostalgic watching him create trendy infused cocktails. But that chapter was closed for her. Listening to customers’ stories was entertaining when the tips were flowing, but her attempt to weave them into a novel was a major fail. Once she realized that making stuff up was a better fit with her songwriting, she joined a band for the first time since she’d played dual guitars with her brother. She performed at night, mostly on weekends, and earned her master’s by day.

  Her parents were set to fly out to Evanston for her commencement ceremony one Saturday in June when her mom’s sister, Athena, called.

  “Katrina, honey, I don’t know how to tell you this, but your mom and dad won’t be coming,” she said, bursting into tears.

  From the mutterings between the sobs, Katrina gleaned that her parents, both federal judges, had been gunned down in their driveway in Point Loma. Katrina was on a plane to San Diego two hours later.

  In just six months, she’d lost her three closest family members, starting with the overdose by her brother, Francis, who was named after a distant ancestor, the composer Frédéric François Chopin, and went by the nickname Franny.

  Dazed and numb but efficient, she spent the next week in crisis mode—comforting Athena and speed-sorting through her parents’ affairs. After hiring movers to transfer the antique furniture and sentimental belongings into three storage units, she sold the remaining odds and ends at an estate sale on the lawn.

  The house had been in her mother Aphrodite’s family for many years. Being in one of San Diego’s older, wealthier neighborhoods, a nicely groomed yard wasn’t unusual, but Peter Chopin had taken great pride in such matters. Katrina made sure to pay their longtime gardener every month so the task wasn’t left to the new rental tenants.

  That done, she took off for a reporting job at a little paper in Northampton, Massachusetts. She was fine as long as she stayed active, but that meant she never really stopped to mourn. She simply pushed the emotions down, then down some more. At least that’s what her therapist told her.