I�d been off the force and out on my own for a year when I got a call from Peter Franchette.

We met in downtown Oakland, at the same sushi restaurant where I�d last left him on a rainy afternoon, sitting across from a sister he�d never met. I�d tracked her down for him � a bit of extracurricular activity that was part of why I was off the force and out on my own.

The summer sun was harsh as he stepped in from the street. �Sorry I�m late.�

�Not at all. You shaved your beard.�

�And you grew one.�

I�d grown my hair out, too. The extra length masked a scar running from temple to nape.

�My wife likes me better this way,� I said.

We took a booth, put in our order, made conversation. Peter told me he�d kept in touch with his sister, closely at first. Then less so.

�She has her life, I have mine.�

I nodded.

�And you?� he asked. �Charlotte must be � what. Four and a half?�

�Good memory. We have a son now, too. Myles.� I showed him my phone.

�What a bruiser. Am I wrong, or does he look like you?�

�Yeah, he�s a clone.�

�Cute. So how�s life as a private citizen treating you?�

�Can�t complain.�

�Thanks for meeting on short notice.�

�No problem,� I said. �What can I do for you?�

�This kid I mentor, Chris Villareal � super-bright guy. His company does interesting stuff with AI and traffic grids... Anyhow. He showed up to a recent meeting looking pretty distraught. His grandmother passed and named him executor of her estate. Without warning him.�

�Always a fun surprise.�

�From what I gather, there�s not much in terms of dollars. It�s just disorganized, and he�s run across some things that don�t feel right.�

�How so?�

�You�d be better off hearing it from him.�

�Has he spoken to an estate attorney?�

�I set him up with my person. She thinks it�s not worth the trouble, Chris should drop it.�

�Sounds like good advice.�

�I think it�s a matter of principle. He and his grandma were very close. The lawyer was the one who suggested a private investigator. She had a name but I thought of you.�

�Appreciate it.�

The server approached with our food.

I split a pair of chopsticks and sanded them together. �Have him call me.�

�Great.�

Toward the end of the meal, he said, �You know, you never cashed my check.�

The check in question was made out to my daughter for $250,000 � a reward for my efforts. At the time I was still a county employee, sticking to the rules. Most of them.

Crazy money for the job. Peter�s venture capital success had earned him more than I could imagine, but mega-rich isn�t necessarily mega-generous.

�I tried to,� I said. �The bank wouldn�t accept it. They said it was too old.�

�When?�

�Last year.�

�What�d you wait so long for?�

�I didn�t want to get fired.�

He shook his head. �What I get for using paper... Well, look,� he said, digging out his phone, �at some point I decided you weren�t going to deposit it. So I made an end run.�

He began tapping at the screen. For a moment I thought he might zap me the money electronically, a quarter of a million dollars in a quadrillionth of a second.

Instead he turned the screen around as if to show off pictures of his own kids.

I saw a banking app, with one account, labeled Charlotte Edison � 529 Plan.

�Technically it�s in my name. I didn�t know her Social. Happy to transfer it whenever you�d like. You can see for yourself, it�s done pretty well.�

The balance was $321,238.77.

�What do you think?� he said.

�I think I should remind you,� I said, �I have a son now, too.�

I met Chris Villareal at his grandmother�s house in Daly City, a suburb of San Francisco also known as Little Manila. Her neighborhood, scaled with postwar tract housing, was walking distance to the Asian bakeshops and markets along Mission Street.

He�d arrived early. Boyishly handsome, he leaned against the door of a silver BMW coupe with a laptop pinned under his arm, tapping a sneaker and straining to smile beneath a crest of black hair.

Branded start-up T-shirt: the Bay Area�s tribal signifier.

He removed his sunglasses and hung them on his neckline to shake hands.

�My condolences,� I said.

�Thank you. She lived a good life. But it�s still hard.�

I nodded.

�All right,� he said. �Let�s get it over with.�

The house was a stucco box, pastel pink, jammed between pastel neighbors. Concrete steps rose to a decorative security gate. Chris slipped off his shoes and left them on the doormat. I did the same.

He shut off the alarm system and led me past an entryway altar crowded with Catholic figurines. Everything was old but cared-for, living room furniture polished to a dull glow, sofa and chairs upholstered in a vivid floral pattern. The extended family was large and well represented on the walls, as were members of the Holy Family and various saints. A crucifix loomed.

�She�d be mad if I didn�t offer you something to eat or drink,� he said.

�I�m good, thanks.�

He�d commandeered the dining room for his workspace. Accordion file folders labeled in black marker covered the table: B of A, Chase, Citi, VA, Life Insur (Lolo John), Medicare, Soc Sec, 81-2 Taxes, 83 Camry, 09 Camry, Util, Receipts.

Wrinkled cardboard boxes brimming with loose paper lined the baseboards, awaiting their turn. More boxes and folders piled on the chairs. It looked like an all-you-can-eat buffet for goats.

�She kept everything.� He tapped his temple. �Immigrant mentality.�

We sat beneath a gicl�e print of The Last Supper, and he ran me through the basics.

Marisol Santos Salvador, born 1938 in Manila, arrived 1957 in the United States along with husband John (deceased 1995). Five children, of whom Chris�s mother, Asuncion, was the youngest. For most of her life Marisol had worked as a health aide.

�When did she pass?�

�April 6. She had a stroke so it was fast.�

�You didn�t know she�d named you executor.�

�No. Maybe she meant to tell me. She had another stroke, about fifteen years ago, and it affected her. I don�t get why her lawyer didn�t say something sooner, though.�

�Who�s he?�

�Mr. Pineda. He�s a family friend. At the wake he came up to me. �We need to talk.� I go to his office and he hands me lola�s will. Like: Tag, you�re it.�

�Is he helping you?�

�Not really. He�s almost as old as she was. I don�t think he�s completely with it, either. Basically I�m having to figure it out on my own.�

�Do you know why she chose you?�

Chris shrugged. �I�m the only one who�s not married with kids. She used to ride me about it. �You�re thirty, I had four kids by thirty.� I told her I�m building a business, that�s my baby.�

�I�m sure she found that very persuasive.�

He laughed. �She also thought I was the smart one. She called me Henyo. It means �genius.� �Look at Henyo, he can talk to computers but not to girls.� Or, I don�t know. Maybe she wanted to punish me. Whatever. Lucky me.�

�What does the will say?�

�Sixty percent to her kids, thirty percent to the grandkids, ten percent to the church.�

�Pretty straightforward.�

�Yeah, till you look a little closer. The house is the main asset. But she�s got money squirreled away all over the place. Not just multiple bank accounts. I found three thousand dollars in cash under the bathroom sink. I�m trying to be fair, and everyone�s calling me up all mad. �What�s taking so long? Why haven�t you finished?� Why? Because look at this mess.�

Bright young guy applying artificial intelligence to traffic grids but struggling to wring meaning from piles of paper.

�Peter said you noticed some irregularities,� I said.

He nodded. He opened the laptop. �I started itemizing her bank statements.�

�Is that necessary?�

�Peter�s lawyer said the same thing.�

�I admire your diligence. It just seems like you have enough on your plate as is.�

�I wanted to make sure there�s no huge discrepancies. It�s how I roll. For all I know she has a million bucks buried in the backyard. I�m seeing all these payments I can�t figure out. Look.�

He showed me a QuickBooks entry from March 17, a check for $135 to SFRA.

He scrolled back to February 17. Another $135 check to SFRA.

January. December of the previous year. November.

One hundred thirty-five dollars, SFRA.

Identical entries appeared monthly for the previous two years.

�That�s as far back as the online accounts go,� he said.

He drew over the B of A folder and began taking out sheaves of paper, secured by alligator clips and bristling with tape flags. �So then I started going through by hand. Same deal.�

Each flag indicated a $135 check to SFRA.

�Do you know what it stands for?� I asked. �San Francisco something?�

�I tried googling it. I get so many hits it�s useless.�

�How many payments are we talking about?�

�The earliest I could find is from 1996. All in all it works out to around forty-seven thousand dollars. It might not seem like much, in the grand scheme of things, but she wasn�t a rich woman. She wasn�t poor, either. I gotta say that or she�s going to descend from heaven and scream at me.�

I smiled. �Understood.�

�She was a kid during the war. She and her sisters were living on the streets, eating from the gutters. She knew what it meant to have nothing. She bought day-old bread until my mom made her stop. She kept the same car for twenty-five years. It died and she got another just like it. This,� he said, placing a hand on the bank statements, �isn�t like her.�

I said nothing.

�You don�t agree,� he said.

�I didn�t know your grandmother. I get that it seems inconsistent with her behavior.�

�But.�

�Inconsistency is human. And the payments could be innocuous.�

�Then what the hell is SFRA?�

�Maybe a membership fee? Or a subscription.�

�She didn�t belong to clubs. She bought the National Enquirer once a week.�

�Something to do with her church.�

�I asked the priest. He said no.�

�A mortgage or a loan.�

�The house was paid off in 2007. I�m not aware of other loans. It�s possible. I haven�t finished with everything yet. All I know is I�m seeing a pattern. It reminds me of when I get recurring charges on my credit card, stuff I signed up for without realizing.�

�Okay,� I said, �but this is analog. Your grandmother�s physically writing checks. She must�ve believed she was paying for something. What does the rest of your family think?�

�They�re clueless. My mom gets so emotional it�s hard to have a conversation. My uncles, too. They�re like, �It�s your job, you deal with it.� �

�Can you access her bank account? I�d like to see an image of the most recent check.�

He logged in and clicked open the March 17 payment, filled out in Marisol�s tidy handwriting. SFRA. One hundred thirty-five dollars and 00/100. The back bore an illegible scrawl but no account information, suggesting a mobile deposit. Likewise for the remaining online images.

�What about canceled checks? Do you have any of those lying around?�

From the B of A folder he removed a manila envelope stuffed to bursting.

�Immigrant mentality,� he said.

He hadn�t gotten the chance to sort them. We started in, one by one. Chris was sweating. I was, too. The house had no AC. He told me, laughing, how lola would sit on the living room couch, watching Days of Our Lives at maximum volume and fanning herself with a pamaypay, which she also used to whack anyone she felt deserved it.

�She sounds tough.�

�Oh yeah.�

�I guess you�d have to be, to survive what she survived.�

�Yeah. But whatever she did was out of love.�

�You miss her.�

He nodded.

We found a check, dated December 17, 1998, $135 to SFRA.

I turned it over. In addition to the same indecipherable signature was an account number, a routing number, and the time and date of deposit.

Chris leaned in. �Can you use that to tell who it is?�

�I can try. You mind if I hang on to this?�

�Take it all.� He sat back, rubbing absently at his chest. �The lawyer thinks I�m wasting my time. But I can�t get it out of my head. You know?�

�I do, yeah. In your position I might feel the same way. As to whether it�s a waste of time, that depends on what you expect to get out of the process. Can I be straight with you?�

�Please.�

�I�m happy to look into this for you. I think it�s important to acknowledge that you may have already found everything there is to find.�

�You�re preparing me for disappointment.�

�I�ll run with it as far as you want. But sometimes when people come to me with a request like this, what they�re really after is closure.�

He stared at the pile of canceled checks; fuzzy edges and yellowing paper.

�I don�t have any expectations,� he said. �I just feel like I owe it to her. What if she was stressed out over this, and it contributed to her stroke? It�s fifty grand. It�s not nothing.�

He turned to me. �It eats at me. What else am I missing?�

My office sits behind a Laundromat. What it lacks in ambience, it makes up for in convenience: half a mile from my house, half a mile from my parents, and catercorner to a killer ramen shop. I grew up in San Leandro, and since Amy and I moved back, I�d been getting reacquainted with the city. It fascinated me to see how it had changed and not changed. Prices climbing. More and better restaurants. But the meters still took quarters only.

I ran the canceled check through a specialist data broker. The most they could tell me was that it had been deposited at a Wells Fargo. But they couldn�t specify the branch, and the account was closed, no way to retrieve the owner�s name.

Per Google, SFRA was the Science Fiction Research Association.

Or it was the South Florida Radio Amateurs.

Store Front Reference Architecture. Student Financial Responsibility Agreement. Software Frequency Response Analyzer. School Funding Reform Act. Scottish Flood Risk Assessment.

It was a protein found in E. coli.

It stood for innumerable groups in San Francisco, city and county: Redevelopment Agency; Rugby Academy; Resonant Acoustics.

The California Secretary of State business entity registry returned eleven entries, all of which I ruled out based on filing date: They�d come into existence after Marisol Santos Salvador started making payments.

I checked UCC filings. DBAs. Civil courts. Bankruptcy courts. Liens. Credit records. Regulatory bodies. Telephone directories. Newspaper archives.

Nothing.

Marisol faced no outstanding judgments and was not party to any legal actions in San Mateo County or any of the surrounding counties. Her credit was good, her driving record was clean, and she had no criminal record. She possessed neither watercraft nor a pilot�s license. Her sons and daughters had chosen to settle within a few miles of her. A robust, close-knit clan.

As Chris had said, she owned outright the house in Daly City, having purchased it in 1963 for $14,200. Currently its estimated value stood at $799,000 to $1,000,000. The increase said everything you needed to know about Bay Area real estate.

In 1996 she�d spent $57,500 on another property, 8 Abalone Court, Swann�s Flat, CA. Currently its estimated value stood at six to ten thousand dollars.

Swann�s Flat.

The SF of SFRA?

The date of purchase aligned with the start of her monthly payments.

The decrease in value told a story of its own.

I�d never heard of Swann�s Flat. With good reason: It was scarcely there, a census-designated place, population thirteen, perched at the western edge of unincorporated Humboldt County. The Wikipedia article was brief and read like chamber of commerce copy. Amenities included hiking and horse trails, an inn, a boat launch. The nearest post office was in Millburg, twenty miles to the east, as was the nearest elementary school. The nearest high school was three hours away in Eureka. Notable local events included the annual Queen of the Salmon pageant.

Google Images showed dramatic cliffs, savage waves, black sand, gloomy forest, fog. Isolated houses dotted a tongue of land that poked out into the Pacific as if to taste its salt.

From Marisol�s house in Daly City, the drive was six hours, twelve minutes, the last leg along private and unpaved roads. Street View chickened out well shy of her address on Abalone Court.

I called Chris. �Did your grandmother own a second home? Like a vacation house?�

�What? No. Why?�

�I�m seeing another property in her name.�

�Where?�

�Swann�s Flat.�

�I don�t know where that is.�

�Up the coast. Humboldt.�

�What the hell,� he said.

�She never mentioned it to you.�

�No way.�

�Can you ask your mom or your uncles?�

�Let me call you back.�

I put my new search term to use.

The second hit after Wikipedia was the official Swann�s Flat website. I clicked the About tab.

We are a private residential community located on the Lost Coast of California, established in 1965 pursuant to the State Public Resources Code Section 13000-13233...

The rest of the text matched the Wikipedia page, word for word. Impossible to say which had been lifted from which.

The History, Board, and FAQ tabs all read Under Construction!

Returning to the search results, I clicked the third hit, SwannsFlatRealEstate.com.

The name and the feel suggested a real estate agency. But there were no agents, only a list of properties for sale. I scrolled down.

Golden opportunity to own an unspoiled piece of California coastline with fabulous vistas and fresh ocean breezes. Outstanding quarter acre lot a short distance from beach. Seller financing available for qualified buyers. Come join our friendly seaside community!

Photos showed a sunny verdant patch. Pine trees framed a peekaboo view of sparkling ocean. Asking price was $45,995. Contact Diamond Vacation Properties.

I scrolled on.

Hidden gem! Unique south-facing.19 acre lot on a quiet cul-de-sac. Greenbelt in the rear creates privacy and protects your view of the stunning King Range. Qualified buyers ask about seller financing. Find your heart on the Lost Coast!

The photo gallery was so similar to that of the first listing that I had to check to make sure they weren�t the same. Asking price was $21,700. Contact Omnivest Services.

There were about thirty listings in all, every one of them for undeveloped land.

I went back to Google.

Hit number four was SwannsFlatHomes.com.

The color scheme and font differed from SwannsFlatRealEstate.com. In every other respect the two sites were identical.

Same for SwannsFlatProperties, SwannsFlatLand, and SwannsFlatLostCoast.

Same for the next ten pages of search results.

Chris called. �They have no idea what I�m talking about. Could it be a mistake?�

�The databases aren�t perfect, but not likely. Have you run across any property tax stubs?�

�They�re probably mixed up with the other tax stuff.�

�Search for a check. Humboldt County Tax Collector. Something like that.�

I heard him typing and clicking.

�...Humboldt County Treasurer � Tax Collector,� he said. �Two hundred fifty-nine dollars.�

�Do you see a parcel on the memo line?�

The number he read matched the one on my screen.

I said, �Not a mistake.�

Chris said, �Shit. Why didn�t I see this?�

�You weren�t looking. You were focused on SFRA.�

�Do you know what it�s about?�

�I�m not sure yet. Let me poke around a little more. I�ll be in touch when I have something concrete. But Chris? Do me a favor. Resist the urge to stay up all night googling.�

He laughed. �Yeah, sure.�

I�d been squinting at the computer since noon. My eyes were sand, my neck felt permanently crooked forward, and I had to pick up the kids.

At my desk the next morning, I dove deep into Swann�s Flat.

Business registry records supported my initial impression: beyond sketchy.

For a tiny place, it was throbbing with commerce, home to a Finance Corporation, a Development Corporation, a Land Corporation, a Land Development Corporation, a plain old Corporation, a Company, LPs and LLPs and INCs, nonprofits and legacy corporations and stock corporations, and buried among them, the Swann�s Flat Resort Area, LLC.

SFRA?

Formed on January 22, 1991; inactive as of 2007.

The initial filing consisted of a single typewritten page. There were no officers listed. The business address was 134 Monkeyflower Drive, Swann�s Flat, CA 95536. The registered agent for service of process was ML Corporate Solutions, located next door at 136. The purpose of the limited liability company was to engage in any lawful act or activity for which a limited liability company may be organized under the California Revised Uniform Limited Liability Company Act.

Didn�t get much vaguer than that.

No website. To be expected, given that they�d gone out of business almost two decades ago.

Why was Marisol still paying them?

Who was she paying?

A disgruntled person is a private investigator�s best friend. If you want dirt on someone, talk to the folks they�ve pissed off.

I ran a docket search.

Since 1995, Swann�s Flat Resort Area had been sued twenty-four times. The specifics varied from case to case, but the themes were consistent.

Land and lies.

Petitioners David and Mary Walsh purchased a lot at 17 Wildrose Run, paying installation and connection fees for water, power, and sewer lines. The complaint noted that this had to be done for every new home; the existing grid did not cover the peninsula but went in piecemeal. Four years later, the Walshes put their lot back up for sale without having broken ground, receiving one offer, well below their original purchase price. They accepted. During the inspection period, however, it emerged that the local utilities body was refusing to honor the previous connection fees, requiring the prospective buyers to pay an additional $27,825. The buyer subsequently dropped out. No more offers had been forthcoming. The Walshes sought $87,341 in damages from the utilities body, the Swann�s Flat Board of Supervisors, Does I�XX, and Swann�s Flat Resort Area ($12,980 in resort fees). After much wrangling, they�d settled for an undisclosed amount.

Petitioner Joseph Hui Lee purchased a lot located at 21 Elkhorn Court. After two years he had yet to receive title. He was suing the title company, the broker, and � for $7,767 in resort fees � Swann�s Flat Resort Area. Years of motions and countermotions came to an abrupt halt with Lee�s death in 2001. His heirs had elected not to continue the fight.

Every case led to five more, the number of search terms growing exponentially.

I spent the next few weeks tracking down plaintiffs. Many were presently deceased. Those I managed to reach tended to fall into one of three categories: They were elderly, were military, or lived out of state � in some cases, overseas. All had bought their properties sight unseen, after reading an ad or receiving a cold call. They recounted a sales pitch that resembled uncannily the online listings.

An exclusive piece of the California coast at a bargain price, plus a low-cost, no-hassle loan.

Who could turn that down?

The nightmare began before the ink was dry.

Soaring HOA fees. Hidden resort fees. Assessments, twice a year or more.

Any attempt to begin construction ran into permit hiccups, materials holdups, labor shortages, problematic site conditions, inclement weather. Eventually the buyer would lose heart and try to sell, only to be informed by a real estate agent that they had little chance of recovering their full purchase price on the open market in any reasonable amount of time.

At that point, with the situation seemingly beyond salvage, they�d receive a call from a corporate buyer, offering to assume their debt in exchange for signing over the deed. Almost everyone agreed. A few refused, abandoning the property and ceasing to pay taxes. The county then repossessed the lot and auctioned it off to the very same corporations, who then relisted it for sale.

Same result either way. The buyer ended up with nothing and the cycle began anew.

The Law Offices of Rolando Pineda and Associates occupied a second-floor suite above a bakery on Mission Street � the same bakery, perhaps, where Marisol used to buy her day-old bread. I climbed the steps through a heady aroma of butter and toasted coconut.

The door displayed Pineda�s name in gilt. No word on who the associates were.

As I entered, the receptionist whirled around in her chair, as though I�d caught her napping. She was in her sixties, wearing a leopard-print blouse. Big-bodied, with a big blond bouffant.

�Can I help you?�

�My name is Clay Edison. I�m a private investigator. I�m here to speak with Mr. Pineda.�

�Do you have an appointment?�

�No.�

�What is this regarding?�

�Marisol Santos Salvador.�

�Have a seat, please.�

She went through an interior door, returned. �I�m sorry, Mr. Pineda isn�t available.�

�It�ll only take a second.�

�He�s out of the office.�

�Then who are you talking to back there?�

She tried to look authoritative but fell far short. �You�ll have to make an appointment.�

�How about tomorrow?�

�We don�t have any openings.�

�You�re not even going to check the calendar?�

�It�s a very busy day.�

�What�s the first available?�

�I�m afraid we�re not taking new clients.�

�I�m not a client.� I shouted over her head: �Mr. Pineda, I need to talk to you.�

�Please keep your voice down.�

�Tell him it�s about Swann�s Flat. Tell him William C. Arenhold sent me.�

She blanched and disappeared again. When she came back she didn�t say anything, just held the door.

I invited Chris in to discuss my findings, outlining some of the other cases and using them as a framework to understand Marisol�s.

�Your grandfather passed in 1995,� I said. �She bought the property the following year. My guess is Pineda approached her right after she�d collected the life insurance. He�s uniquely positioned to know who�s come into money, who�s emotionally vulnerable.�

�Piece of shit. What does he have to say for himself?�

�I think that�s about as much as I�m going to get. I went back and his receptionist threatened to call the cops on me.�

�Give me ten minutes alone with him. I�ll make him talk.�

�I�d like to state for the record that I don�t recommend that.�

He snorted a laugh. �All right. What do you recommend?�

�I�m not an attorney. Unlike Pineda, I�m going to stay in my lane.�

�I�m not asking for legal advice. I just want to know what you think.�

�I agree that he�s unethical. That doesn�t necessarily make him liable.�

�Who knows what guarantees he made to her?�

�She�s not around to testify. Neither is Arenhold. That gives Pineda the last word.�

�We have this other woman. Elvira.�

�Her case was dismissed with prejudice. A competent attorney would eat her for lunch.�

�Pineda�s not even supposed to be practicing.�

�We could try holding his feet to the fire,� I said. �But I don�t recommend that, either.�

�Why not?�

�The guy�s eighty-five, with a history of public service. I�d bet he golfs with half the judges in the county. Now picture him getting up on the stand and doing the feeble-old-guy act. What jury is going to bring down the ax?�

�Criminal charges?�

�The standard of proof is higher, and fraud is notoriously tough because there�s a fine line between that and salesmanship. That�s assuming you can get the cops to care, let alone the DA. For fifty grand? Nobody�s getting a headline out of that.�

�It�s more than fifty,� he said. �The principal�s sixty thousand alone. Plus property tax.�

�Property tax you�re never going to get back. Take my word for it: Anything less than millions and millions of dollars, they�re gonna feel the juice isn�t worth the squeeze.�

�But if what you�re telling me is true, it�s not one case, it�s dozens.�

�At least. Figure that for every person who wakes up and sues, there�s many more like your grandma, who keep writing checks, not realizing that the land is worthless. But in my opinion it�s unlikely that Pineda�s calling the shots. Aside from a few transactions, his name doesn�t come up. My gut is he�s a middleman. Arenhold, too.�

�For who?�

�That�s the question. I pulled the deed of conveyance for your grandmother�s property, trying to find out who she bought it from. It�s not a person. It�s an LLC called Pacific Partners. They�re a shell company in New Mexico, owned by something called Diversified Interests, in Nevada. Which is owned by Western Enterprises, in Wyoming. Confused yet?�

He said, �That�s the point.�

I took him on a tour of websites offering property for sale in Swann�s Flat.

�This is all autogenerated,� he said.

�For sure. Cut-and-paste copy, reused photos. The problem is it�s decentralized. There�s no contact person, just a bunch of corporations with bland names like Diamond Capital or Golden State Ventures. Trace the corporations, they end up in one of four places: Delaware, Nevada, Wyoming, and New Mexico. Those are the states that allow anonymous LLCs, and they�re using multiple layers. I submitted an inquiry, hoping I�d hear from someone, but all I got was a link to a form wanting my address, Social Security number, income, et cetera.�

He scrolled. Cursed quietly. �How is anyone falling for this?�

�I�m not and you�re not,� I said. �But we�re not who they�re targeting. The folks I spoke to had no investing experience. They lived far away and couldn�t easily make the trip. A lot of them don�t speak English very well. All they had to go on were pictures. You see the ocean and the price and imagine yourself in a beach house. Check this out.�

I opened up a popular real estate site and typed in Swann�s Flat.

A single result came back: 22 Black Sand Court.

Chris frowned. �Where�s the rest?�

�This is a private listing. Whoever is running the scam has opted out of MLS, so the properties don�t show up on the aggregators. For an ordinary seller, that�s a bad thing. You want to reach as many buyers as possible, to get a quick sale for the most money. That�s not the goal here. It�s about scale: Set out four thousand fishing poles. Use bait search terms: cheap California real estate or whatever. The form weeds out anyone savvy enough not to give out their personal information. Meanwhile they can wait for someone more na�ve to come along and bite.�

�Like lola.�

�I wouldn�t be too harsh on her, Chris. I�m sure they gave her the hard sell. They had to, in those days, because everyone had to be sought out and pitched individually. Now it�s streamlined. Sit back and let the suckers flock to you.�

He pounded the desk lightly. �Oh man. It�s so messed up.�

�Yup. They�re making money at every stage. On the sale, on the fees, assessments, loans, interest. Another advantage they have is time. If I�ve sunk my life savings into this place and debt is piling up, I can�t wait around for years and years. I need to get out now. That�s where the deed transfer comes in. They get the property back for next to nothing and sell it all over again.�

�I just don�t understand why she kept paying them.�

�She had a dream. It�s hard to let that go. Or she was hoping for the price to rebound. Or she realized she made a mistake and was too embarrassed to tell anyone. It might not have occurred to her that she had the option to not pay. When honest people get bills, they pay them.�

He exhaled. �Okay. So what do we do?�

�I�ll tell you what I told you before: It depends on what you expect to get out of it.�

�You want me to let go of my dream.�

�I want you to sleep easy.�

�A name,� he said. �Can you at least get me that?�

�There�s one thread I�d like to pull. I have to warn you, it could start to get expensive.�

�I�m warned. What is it?�

�ML Corporate Solutions. By law, anyone doing business in California has to be reachable. If you want to hide your address, you can hire a registered agent, and they become you, for the purpose of serving process. Every one of these corporations selling property lists ML, or something close. The name keeps changing. It�s M-hyphen-L, or M-slash-L, or M-ampersand-L. Corporate Services or Corporate Agents or Business Solutions. The address is always in Swann�s Flat, but there�s a ton of them. I tried to figure out who owns them, and it�s another giant maze of bullshit. Which is strange: They�ve obviously gone to the trouble of covering their tracks. But they use the same signature. It�s almost like they�re bragging.�

�What�s your next step?�

�Head up there in person. Check out the addresses. See if I can get someone to talk to me. Like I said, it could get expensive. And I can�t promise anything.�

�You found Peter�s sister.�

�Every case is different.�

�You don�t want to do it?�

�I want to be up-front with you.�

�I wonder what it�s like,� he said. �Her land.�

�Like dirt, probably.�

He laughed despite himself. �Go for it. Pull the thread.�

On GPS the land around me was two pale green blocks, with Highway 101 wriggling between them like a poorly laid seam. I�d skipped the scenic coastal drive in favor of a more direct inland route through Sonoma and Mendocino.

Blackened trees haunted meadows vivid with post-wildfire regrowth; grassy fields gave way to tall coniferous forest; tourist traffic sloughed off till I was alone, tracing the bends of the Eel River, its banks high and dry in the stifling heat.

Most people � most Californians � forget about the top third of the state. In their minds the map stops at San Francisco. Tahoe, if you ski.

Dr. Dre said it best: It�s all good from Diego to the Bay.

Anywhere farther north might as well be Oregon. Naked hippies chanting Willie Nelson songs while tending fields of marijuana.

Entering Humboldt County I passed a string of borderless towns more name than place. Green light filtered through the redwoods, dappling the windshield as I weaved by derelict company housing and rusting mechanical hulls. Remnants of a timber industry come and gone.

Farmstands: raw milk, homemade cheese, organic CBD oil.

For over an hour I didn�t see another vehicle. Then a southbound oil truck blew past, rocking me in its wake.

The town of Millburg marked my turnoff, last call for fuel, food, and lodging. Retailers of all three occupied a single dusty block alongside other faded establishments. The elementary school, post office, fire station, and sheriff�s substation shared a parking lot. One-stop shopping.

Needing to stretch my legs, I gassed up and left the car parked at the Union 76 station, walking half a block to Fanny�s Market. A sign boasted Hot Coffee � Cold Beer � Ice Cream � Soda � Sandwiches. The air was woolen and smelled like a campfire.

An enormous bulletin board monopolized the market�s exterior wall.

Help Wanted. For Sale. Community Events.

The largest section was labeled Have You Seen Me?

Not cats and dogs and the odd escapee gerbil, but people, their pictures and vital information. The relevant authority; the number to call. Reward, if any.

The flyers were tacked up two and three deep, battered by heat and cold and sun, sagging inside protective plastic sleeves, the subjects� facial features dissolving, as though their souls were leaching out. Californians, but also travelers from Arizona and Colorado, from New Jersey, even one from Germany. Several of the cases appeared to belong to other jurisdictions, and I wondered why they�d been posted here.

I pushed through the screen door.

The market was stuffy and dim. A fan purred uselessly behind the register, overseen by a paunchy middle-aged man wearing a Phish concert tee and working a crossword.

I dispensed coffee from a self-serve urn and filled a basket with snacks, taking care to avoid the rack of cannabis-infused baked goods.

The clerk laid his puzzle aside to ring me up.

�That�s an interesting bulletin board you got,� I said.

He nodded.

�Maybe I should leave a note with you for my loved ones,� I said. �Just in case.�

�Where you headed.�

�Swann�s Flat.�

�That so. Thirty-eight-sixty.�

I handed him cash. �I need a receipt, please.�

�Yuh. Can I ask what you�re driving?�

�It�s a RAV4.�

�Four-wheel drive?�

�No.�

�Uh-huh. Well. Keep it in low and take your time. Once you start, you�re committed.�

�I have to get there, one way or the other.�

He slapped down my change. �Let�s hope it�s not the other.�

Downstairs, Jenelle Counts and I traded cash for a key.

I said, �Do you have a map I could look at?�

She pointed into the dining room, toward the gallery wall.

The photographs documented the evolution of the peninsula over the last hundred thirty years. Pure ranchland. A logging camp. The marina and cove during a more prosperous era, complete with an intact pier, ships bobbing as they waited to take on cargo.

A yellowing developer�s brochure, unfolded and staples removed, depicted the street plan.

The brochure�s styling placed it from the sixties. The street names were tiny and hard to read. I squinted at countless neighborhood blocks, as well as features that had never come to fruition: a golf course, an airstrip, playgrounds.

Behind me a voice said, �A stranger comes to town.�

Scruffy Guy One had sauntered over. Flannel shirt, Bass Pro Shops cap with a fringe of dirty-blond hair poking out. Nice-looking in a rough-hewn way.

He straightened a grainy photo of a horse: muscular and proud, mane whipped up by wind, so that it seemed to be flying.

�General Sherman. He was the mail horse for twenty-five years. They�d load him up and he�d run riderless to Millburg and back.�

He smiled. Strong white teeth. A small chip in his left lateral incisor gave him an aw-shucks quality � not Deliverance so much as Will Rogers.

I smiled back. �True story, huh.�

�I mean, who�s gonna argue?�

�Not the horse.�

He chuckled. �No, sir.�

I pointed to the photo of the marina. �What happened to the pier?�

�Washed away. We get some pretty hellacious storms come winter. Matter of fact, there�s more than a couple wrecks out there. They say if you listen late at night, you can hear the sailors crying out for help.�

He winked and extended a hand. �Beau Bergstrom.�

�Clay Gardner.�

�Pleased to meetcha, Mr. Gardner. What brings you to our neck of the woods?�

�Passing through.�

�Where from?�

�Bay Area.�

�Terrific. Where to?�

�Not sure. Just getting away from it all.�

�Well.� Beau grinned. �You�re away now.�

�No kidding. Nobody warned me about that road.�

Scruffy Guy Two piped up: �She�s a doozy.�

Roundish face, sloped shoulders, hairline in early retreat. He read as a little younger, a lot less poised, than his compatriot.

�I might be stuck here permanently,� I said.

Beau said, �I can think of worse places.� He waved at the brochure. �Looking for something in particular?�

�I was planning to explore a little.�

�I�d be happy to show you around, if you�re interested.�

�I wouldn�t want to inconvenience you.�

�No inconvenience.�

Scruffy Guy Two said, �Beau�s the head of the welcome committee.�

Beau jerked a thumb. �And DJ�s the village idiot.�

DJ said, �Can�t have a village without one.�

�All kidding aside, I do some guiding,� Beau said.

�Oh yeah?� I asked. �Like what?�

�Hunting, fishing, bird-watching, hiking.�

�He�s writing a book,� DJ said.

�Nice,� I said. �Like a guidebook?�

�More local history,� Beau said. �And I don�t know I�d call it a book. Right now it�s just a big mess of notes. Don�t ask when it�ll be done.�

�When�ll it be done, Beau?� DJ hollered.

The solitary older man at the bar cleared his throat, the first sign that he was fully conscious.

Beau said, �And what is it you do, Mr. Gardner, down in the great Bay Area, that you need to get away from?�

�I�m in finance.�

�Hence the need to get away.�

�You guys grew up around here,� I said.

�Born and raised,� DJ said.

�They�ll have to take me out feetfirst,� Beau said.

The older man set down his glass with a clack. �Let�s go.�

I thought he was talking to himself. But DJ shotgunned his beer and followed the older man toward the exit. I noticed then the family resemblance.

�See ya, Beau,� DJ said.

�Take it easy, gents.�

They left, jangling the bell.

�Anyway,� Beau said to me, �I should get a move on, myself. I�ll leave you my number.�

He motioned to Jenelle. There was something patronizing about the gesture � as if she were a hired hand. She looked none too pleased, but she complied, setting out a napkin and giving him the pencil.

�You need anything,� Beau said, scribbling, �don�t hesitate.�

�Appreciate it.�

�You have yourself a delightful day. Jenelle.�

She nodded, and he went out.

I pocketed the napkin and started for the stairs.

She said, �Hungry?�

�Maybe later, thanks.�

�Kitchen closes at seven.�

�Okay. Can I ask you something? How�s Beau, as a tour guide?�

She dumped ice into the sink. �He�s the only show in town.�

I put a healthy distance between him and me and pulled over to assess the damage.

The mirror dangled on wires, its plastic neck shattered. Examining the side of the car, I couldn�t find the scrape left by a passing bullet, which meant that he�d been shooting straight-on, from somewhere in the trees to the left of the front gate.

If he�d hit what he was aiming for, it was a hell of a shot.

What do you do if you no longer feel safe?

I leave.

The sun was dropping fast. I doubted I could make it to the main highway before nightfall, and driving that dirt road in the dark was suicidal.

I rationalized.

He could�ve fired at me as I was getting away. He hadn�t.

He wanted me off his property. That was all.

But what if?

My note told him where to find me.

Visions of a lunatic, kicking open the hotel door and blasting away like some deranged parody of a Western movie.

My gut tightened.

I disconnected the wires, stashed the mirror in the footwell, and drove to the marina, parking at the hotel and crossing the plaza toward the boat lot.

I�d give it some time, see if he showed up.

The wind had slackened as evening came on. I jogged down the ramp to the cove. The concrete was steep and slick with sand. Low tide revealed remnants of the pier, rotted pilings that gasped to the surface between waves.

A woman stood on the beach. She was heavyset, with a blunt gray bob, clad in a matronly skirt and a fisherman�s sweater. She smiled at me and went back to watching the sunset.

I gave her a respectful margin.

The sky had separated into layers, a band of molten brass at the horizon and above it steel wool shot through with iridescent fuchsia. Blood-red water lapped at the rocks. Into this luminous scrim were cut the silhouettes of landforms, cliffs and trees, coal-black lumps of coastline.

The world as negative space.

The woman humped over to join me, natural as can be.

�Never gets old,� she said.

�How could it?�

�Most folks take things for granted.�

�That�s why most folks are unhappy,� I said.

She nodded. Pointed west. �See that?�

�What am I seeing?�

She cackled. �Japan.�

I laughed.

�Maggie Penrose,� she said.

�Clay Gardner.�

�Where from?�

�Bay Area.�

�How long are you in for?�

Seeing me hesitate, she tilted her head. �Everything all right?�

�Sort of. I was out for a drive and someone shot at me.�

�Oh jeez. Are you okay?�

�I�m fine. But he knocked the mirror off my car.�

�How awful,� she said. �Did you see who it was?�

�I was looking at a house on Black Sand Court.�

�Ah. That�d be Al.�

�You know him.�

�I know everyone and they know me. Nature of the beast.�

�I�m trying to decide whether to call the police.�

The idea appeared to amuse her. �Feel free. Don�t expect them anytime soon, though.�

�That�s unnerving.�

She shrugged. �We don�t need them. We look out for each other. It wouldn�t work any other way.�

�Sounds nice.�

�It is. I grew up looking over my shoulder. Now I keep my door unlocked and my keys in the ignition. It�s that kind of town.�

�Al�s door is most definitely locked,� I said.

�I�ll have a word with him.�

�You don�t have to do that.�

�Well and good, but we can�t have him going around scaring the pants off the tourists.�

�Really,� I said. �I don�t want to upset him worse.�

�Al? He�s harmless.�

I looked at her.

�In a manner of speaking,� she said. �He just likes his privacy. But as you wish.�

The sun had sunk into the water. From her skirt pocket she withdrew an LED headlamp.

She tightened it on her forehead phylacteryishly and switched it on. �Good night.�

�Good night.�

She humped up the ramp, headlamp bobbing.

Despite my exhaustion, I slept poorly, waking often to imaginary gunfire. Each time, I stumbled to the bay window, parted the curtain a few inches, and peered out at the deserted, moonlit plaza. By five a.m. sleep was a lost cause.

It was too early to call Amy. I put on sweats.

The hallway smelled of coffee, and when I went downstairs, I heard Jenelle puttering around the kitchen, country music playing softly.

�Hello?� she called.

�Morning.�

She emerged. �You�re up early. Did you sleep all right?�

�Fine, thanks.�

�Coffee?�

�Please.�

�Milk and sugar?�

�Please.�

She brought a mug. �Breakfast won�t be ready for a little while. If I�da known I would�ve had it waiting for you.�

�It�s not a problem. Do you have any duct tape? I need to fix something.�

�If it�s the towel rod, just shove it into the socket.�

�Not that.�

She looked at me curiously. �Gimme a minute.�

She disappeared through the saloon doors, returning with a roll of tape. �Here you go.�

�Thanks.�

�Will you need the room again tonight?�

�I�m not sure.�

�Checkout is noon. After that I�ll have to charge you for another day.�

�I�m meeting Beau. I think we�ll be back by about one. Can I let you know then?�

She nodded, and I thanked her and took the tape outside.

Fog smothered the plaza. Cormorants wheeled against a leaden sky.

I retrieved the mirror unit from the footwell and set to reattaching it.

The bell jangled. Jenelle Counts appeared on the porch. �You hit a deer or something?�

�Something like that.�

She watched me for a minute, arms crossed, then went inside.

Nearing the trailhead, he said, �There�s a few lots left.�

He held back a blackberry vine. �Also grandfathered.�

I knew what he was doing.

Private tour of his wilderness Eden. Tales of the Old West.

Instant bromance, just add ammo.

Fire away, city boy.

Friendly questions about my lifestyle, calibrated to gauge disposable income. He already knew I could blow six hundred bucks on a crappy hotel room. That had to be promising.

The halo of scarcity. The allure of exclusivity.

Takes a special kind of person.

Tell me, soldier: Are you that guy?

If I didn�t know any better I�d guess he�d hired the bear, too.

Altogether it made for a damn fine sales pitch. On some level I admired it.

I said, �Are they on the market?�

�Not officially.�

I nodded but didn�t say more, and he didn�t raise the topic again, not for the rest of the hike or on the drive into town.

At the hotel I dug out my wallet, peeling off three hundreds.

He grimaced. �Clay.�

�Token of gratitude. I insist.�

�Really. It�s my pleasure.�

�And this is mine.�

A beat. He tucked the money in his breast pocket. �Good man.�

�I�m gonna get cleaned up,� I said. �Maybe afterward you can take me around, show me what�s available.�

For a moment he seemed not to understand. Then he mugged pleasant surprise. �Yeah, we could do that. Sure thing.�

�Great. Thanks.�

�I�ll need to make a couple calls first, run it by the owners.�

�Will that be a problem?�

�No, no. Just a formality,� he said. �Pick you up in � an hour?�

�Better make it an hour and a half.�

�You got it, brother.�

I paced, occasionally stopping to part the curtains.

A creak in the hall, a knock at the door.

Drawing the P320, I called, �Yes?�

�Kitchen�s closing,� Jenelle Counts said.

�Okay.�

�Do you want dinner?�

�All set, thanks.�

She left.

At seven forty-nine, I saw Maggie Penrose, the woman from the beach, disappear down the boat ramp to the cove, awash in pinks and golds.

At eight eleven, I saw her return, headlight bobbing.

Eight thirty came and I still hadn�t heard from Beau. He wasn�t answering my calls, either. The silence felt calculated, and I was debating whether to try him again when the Range Rover pulled up. I watched him hop out and hurry around to open the door for the passenger, reduced by the dim to a squat shape wearing a cowboy hat.

They disappeared beneath the porch overhang.

I checked my watch: eight fifty-three p.m.

The room phone rang.

Jenelle said, �You have visitors.�

�Thanks. I�ll be down in a sec.�

I swapped the P320 for the P365 and put on my second magnet-front shirt. I didn�t have a third.

It felt prudent to keep them waiting, just as they�d done to me. Right up to the edge of discomfort, but not beyond.

At nine oh seven I came downstairs.

The bar was unattended, the kitchen lights off.

�Mr. Gardner.�

In the dining room, Beau Bergstrom stood at a table, smiling. The other man was smiling, too, behind a bristling white goatee. His upper and lower halves were comically mismatched: scrawny legs in tight Levi�s, black western shirt straining at the gut and spilling over an ornate brass belt buckle. He resembled nothing so much as a golf ball on a tee.

�Clay, I�d like to introduce you to my dad,� Beau said.

The hat was a camel Stetson with a beaded hatband in a Navajo pattern. The man tipped it to me. �Emil Bergstrom.�

A pronounced twang shortened the vowels of his first name.

ML.

I shook their hands. �Great to meet you.�

�Better to meet you.� Emil fired finger guns at me. �Bourbon man?�

�Scotch. Neat.�

�Shoot. I was close. Coming right up.�

Beau fetched a bottle of Glenfiddich from the bar, placing it in front of his father along with two tumblers.

Emil uncorked and poured. �How�d you like that hike?�

�Great, thanks to Beau.�

�Been too long since I made it out to the Cathedral. Something else, huh?�

�Spectacular.�

He slid me a tumbler. � �Tween you and me, I�m not sure I�ll ever see it again. I got this arthritis in one hip and both knees.�

�Sorry to hear it.�

�Aw, never mind. It�s a good excuse not to go frolicking in the woods. Nature�s always been more the boy�s thing than mine. He takes after his mama. She was a child of the land, and a child of the land she begat.�

He pinched Beau�s cheek. Hoisted his glass. �Slainte.�

We clinked and drank.

�So,� Emil said. �My son tells me you�re smitten with our tiny slice of paradise.�

�Guilty as charged.�

�How�d you find us?�

�Google.�

�I think I�ve heard of that.� He winked. �Can�t say I blame you. Stressful job, finance.�

�It can be.�

�What sort of finance?�

�Private equity.�

�Buy low, sell high, so forth.�

�That�s it in a nutshell.�

�Your interest is in an investment property.�

�Primarily.�

�Gotcha,� he said. �Hate to pry, but we�ve had some unfortunate instances where people fall behind on payments, or they can�t afford the upkeep. It can turn into a real hassle.�

�It won�t be an issue.�

�I didn�t mean to suggest it would. We do the same for everyone. Only fair. It�s a tight-knit community, y�know. We depend on each other.�

�Maggie Penrose said something along those lines.�

Emil smiled. �You met Maggie.�

�Yesterday evening, down by the beach.�

�You can set your watch by her,� Beau said.

�She�s a pearl,� Emil said. �We�re lucky to have her. Anyhoo. Ours is a delicate ecosystem. You understand.�

�I do.�

�Glad we�re on the same page. From our end, there�s a brief application process. We ask to see three years� worth of tax returns. Would you be comfortable with that?�

�Can I ask who�s �we�?�

�The Board of Supervisors,� Beau said.

�I can get that for you,� I said. �I�d rather not go to the trouble before I know what it is I�m applying for.�

�Of course,� Emil said. �I�ll have Beau draft a proposal for you.�

�I�m here now.�

�Well, I admire the pep in your step, but you�re gonna have to get used to waiting.� Emil smiled. �We don�t move at city speed.�

Push?

Or dance?

ML.

There must be a piece of paper somewhere with his signature on it.

Dance.

I smiled. �You know what, Mr. Bergstrom? You�re right. And this is a pretty clear demonstration of why I really need to get away.�

He chuckled. �We�ll fix you yet.�

I�d wrenched the wheel to my left, away from the cliffside and toward the forest, and when I came to rest and kicked open the door I saw that her reflex had been the same.

A single skinny tire track mirrored the fat pair left by me.

The lines almost kissed.

Then hers broke off.

I swooned, scanned the trees. Flies muddied the air. �Hello?�

Silence.

My head was pulsing. More pressure than pain. A punishing rhythmic whoosh.

I started forward unsteadily. �Hello? Are you there?�

A moan.

I stumbled toward it.

She lay fetal in a patch of ferns, about twelve feet from the road. Her eyes were clenched, her face streaked with grime. The cushioned landing had helped, but not enough: Scratches marred the surface of her helmet, abraded flesh wept, and she rocked, clutching her shin, blood oozing through her fingers.

I knelt. I didn�t want to touch her. �Hey. I�m here... Hi. Can you hear me?�

She opened her eyes. Dirt speckled her eyelashes. She looked twentyish. Her unisuit was color-blocked, teal and black. Not the same suit she�d been wearing thirty-six hours prior, when she�d zoomed by me on Beachcomber. But the same person.

�Can you hear what I�m saying?� I asked. �Do you understand me?�

She nodded groggily.

�Okay. What�s your name?�

She rose to her elbows.

�Hold on � whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa.�

She was trying to stand up. Blood coursed down her shin.

�Hold still a second, please, okay? I�ll be right back. Stay here.�

I ran tripping to the car and pulled a T-shirt from my bag.

She was sitting up when I got back. I used the shirt to bind the gash on her shin.

She sucked air through her teeth.

�Too tight?�

She shook her head.

�Where�s the nearest hospital?� I asked.

She unclipped the helmet, leaving a red line under her chin. �I don�t need to go to the hospital.�

�I really think��

She looked around. �Where�s my bike.�

�Miss. Wait, please. Wait. Don�t get up. I�ll look for it. You sit.�

I found it in a bramble. The frame was warped, rear wheel bent into a taco shell. I brought it to her and her face fell.

�Shit,� she said.

She rolled onto her hands and knees.

�Stay there, miss. Please.�

But she was determined to stand, with or without me, so I helped her up, and we shuffled to the car. She had an athlete�s build, wide shoulders and wide back. One cycling cleat clicked on the dirt.

�I�m gonna mess up your seats,� she said.

�Don�t worry about it.�

I tossed the snack bag into the rear and settled her.

�My bike,� she said.

�I�ll get it.�

I dragged it back through the brush, loaded it into the cargo space, and got behind the wheel. She had taken off her helmet and was raking at a mass of curly auburn hair, shedding leaves and sticks. She was younger than I�d originally thought � more like sixteen or eighteen, with the straight nose and rosebud mouth of a classical carving.

I started the engine. �We need to get you looked at.�

�Just � take me home.�

We were roughly two hours from Millburg. The pounding in my head was worsening, and my memory of the crash felt disjointed, like a film missing frames. I couldn�t accurately gauge how hard I�d hit her but the distance she�d traveled and the damage to the bicycle suggested a gruesome degree of force.

She might be concussed. She might be bleeding internally. If she were to go into shock, I would be stranded, with no service and no help.

A two-hour drive over tortuous road...

�Can we please go,� she said.

�Where�s home?�

�In town.�

�Swann�s Flat.�

�Yes.� She rested her head. �I�ll tell you where to go.�

I began turning the car around. With so little room to maneuver, I could only move a few inches at a time, dancing between the ditch in front of me and the nothingness at my back.

I tapped the gas. Too hard. She winced.

�Sorry,� I said.

�Maybe I should drive.�

�I�m not sure that�s a good idea.�

�I�m kidding.�

�Right. Okay.�

�You�re hurt,� she said.

�What?�

�Your forehead.�

I didn�t remember the impact but she was right: Looking in the rearview, I saw minor cuts and a goose egg at my hairline. �I�m fine.�

�You�re sure? �Cause it would really suck if after this you drove me off a cliff.�

I laughed.

She smiled. �I�m Shasta, by the way.�

�Clay.�

�Nice to meet you, I guess.�

I was relieved to see her perking up but also wary.

My training had drilled it in. Assess the injury; stabilize the victim.

Now the adrenaline had begun to dissipate, and I could see her and myself more plainly. I was no longer a first responder. I was the one who�d made her a victim.

I finally managed to get the car facing Swann�s Flat and started downhill. Shasta arched uncomfortably against her seatbelt, tugging on the unisuit zipper to expose the hollow of her throat. A second red line dented the flesh, like a ligature mark.

�You okay?� I asked.

�Yeah, I just feel hot.�

�Do you want the air on?�

�Window�s fine,� she said, groping for the switch.

She looked flushed. Temperature dysregulation. Not a good sign.

�How�s your leg?� I said.

�Hurts.�

�I�m sorry.�

�It�s not your fault,� Shasta said. She rubbed at her neck. �I get in the zone, and...�

Her eyes widened. �Stop the car.�

�I��

�Stop.�

I braked. �What�s wrong.�

She unbuckled her seatbelt.

�Wait wait wait,� I said.

She got out.

�Shasta.� I cut the engine and went after her. �Hold on. Shasta.�

She was limping uphill toward the crash site.

�Where are you going?�

�My necklace.�

�We can get it later.�

She ignored me. I wasn�t about to restrain her. I trailed her dizzily, ready to catch her if she fell.

She limped off the road and into the brush.

�Let me do this,� I said.

�You don�t know what it looks like.�

�Describe it to me.�

She didn�t answer.

�Can you tell me what it looks like?� I said.

�White shells with a silver pendant.�

We tramped around in overlapping circles, stooped over, combing through foliage.

My father, a retired science teacher, used to drag my brother and me on endless nature walks while quizzing us on species. The most common plant in the vicinity was redwood sorrel, a low-growing creeper with tiny white flowers. It hid perfectly the remains of the necklace: puka shells, scattered far and wide.

I held one up. �Is this it?�

Shasta came over. �Oh fuck.�

She dropped to her knees and began clawing at the earth. �Fuck.�

�Please sit. Please.�

She gave in, sinking down gingerly and rubbing her eyes while I crawled around, collecting shells and putting them in my pocket. My head was going whomp-whomp-whomp.

�Is this yours?� I asked, holding up a wireless earbud.

�Shit. Yeah. Do you see the pendant?�

�Not yet. What does it look like?�

�It�s a rooster.�

�How big?�

She spaced her thumb and forefinger an inch and a half apart.

The broken necklace cord dangled in a patch of salal. It must have caught when she went tumbling.

I parted branches, swept my phone flashlight.

A glint.

The rooster strutted in profile, tall wavy comb and grooves for feathers. It looked like something you�d buy on a whim at a crafts fair, its charm a function of its imperfection.

I brought it to her. �The shells are all over the place. And I don�t see the other earbud.�

�Forget it, this is the main thing.� She clasped her treasure to her chest. �Thank God.�

�Stay here, I�ll get the car.�

�I can walk.�

By then I knew better than to argue.

Back in Swann�s Flat, Shasta navigated me westward.

�Where were you riding from?� I asked.

�Blackberry Junction.�

�Wow. That�s no joke.�

�The hills are murder. But it�s great for conditioning.�

�Are you training for something?�

�I race triathlon.�

�Cool. Well. I hope you can get back to it soon.�

�Thanks. I don�t know.� She rubbed the rooster pendant between her fingers. �Maybe this is the universe telling me I need a break. Next left.�

With a jolt I grasped our destination.

Beachcomber Boulevard, and its mansions.

I glanced at her.

Who was this person?

More to the point, who were her parents?

Even more to the point, who was their lawyer?

We passed the first mansion and kept going.

At the second mansion, the biggest, she said, �This is me.�

I pulled into the driveway and helped her out, and we headed up the walk between beds of salt-loving plants. The wind thumped at our backs. Her cycling cleat knocked on the porch steps, setting off a torrent of barks inside. Normal barks, not the bloodlust of Al Bock�s monster.

The doormat read Clancy.

�Do you have a key?� I asked.

�It�s open.�

Before I could try the door it swung inward. A woman swept over the threshold.

�Thought you went for a ri � oh my God.�

Her face recapitulated Shasta�s in the instant prior to the crash: the same almond-shaped eyes rounding into terror, skin stretched taut over high cheekbones. Her hair had been dyed a deeper red. A long blue caftan dress trailed behind her like fire as she rushed forward.

�Oh my God.�

�I�m fine,� Shasta said.

�You�re not fine, look at you, you�re bleeding.�

A huge hairy sheepdog burst through the doorway and ran berserk circles around us, jumping and pawing at my back.

Shasta said, �Down, Bowie.�

�Get inside, now,� the redheaded woman said to either Shasta or the dog.

�Bowie. Down.�

�Jason,� the woman shouted into the house. �I need you.�

�Mom, please,� Shasta said. �Can you just... Bowie.�

Her mother dragged the dog by its collar while it leapt and yelped and strained. Shasta and I came through the foyer into a generous living room, done in mid-nineties green and apricot. To the east, sliding glass doors gave onto a patio with outdoor furniture. Perforated sunshades muted the ocean-facing windows. One doorway led to the kitchen, another to the dining room, a third to a back corridor. A glass-sided staircase corkscrewed up and out of sight.

�Jason. I need you now.�

While her mother hauled the dog down the hall and out of sight, Shasta and I straggled into the kitchen. Generous, well-appointed, dated.

I eased her onto a banquette and brought a chair to prop her leg.

�Can you get me some ice, please? There�s bags in that drawer.�

I filled a baggie from the refrigerator ice maker, wrapped it in a dish towel. �What else?�

�Thank you,� she said. �Maybe some��

Shasta�s mother entered. I could hear the dog�s muffled howls.

�Let me see.�

Reluctantly Shasta removed the ice pack.

Her mother untied the T-shirt binding and recoiled. The blood had slowed to a trickle.

�Uch.�

�It looks worse than it is,� Shasta said.

�How do you know that? Are you a doctor?�

�Leonie?� A man ambled in. Rangy and tan, with a close-cropped beard and a crew cut, wearing flip-flops, jeans, a rumpled navy polo shirt. �Were you ca � oh shit.�

�Call Maggie,� Leonie said.

�What happened?�

�Jason. Did you hear me?�

�Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah.� He took a cordless phone from the counter and dialed.

Shasta said, �It was an accident.�

�Hi, Maggie. It�s Jason.�

Leonie waved him into the living room. He went, saying Sorry to disturb you so early...

�Start again,� Leonie said. �From the beginning.�

�I went for a ride,� Shasta said.

�Where.�

�How I always go. I was on my way home. I had my music on and wasn�t paying attention.�

�I was coming around a bend, in the opposite direction,� I said. �I didn�t see her till it was too late.�

Leonie blinked, bewildered, as if registering my existence for the first time. Oblique light etched the lines on her face. There weren�t many; she didn�t look much older than Shasta. You could take them for siblings, though Leonie was shorter, and slight, as if she might shatter upon impact.

�You hit her?�

�It wasn�t his fault,� Shasta said.

�I�m not asking you, I�m asking him.�

�We both swerved,� I said. �I clipped her rear wheel.�

�It wasn�t his fault,� Shasta said again.

�Can you be quiet,� Leonie said.

�I�m very sorry, ma�am,� I said.

�You should be.�

�Mom,� Shasta said.

�The bike is in my car,� I said.

�I don�t care about that,� Leonie said.

�Mom. You�re not listening.�

�What, what is it, what?�

�I need some Advil.�

Leonie strode over to a cabinet by the microwave and grabbed a bottle.

�Ma�am,� I said. �You shouldn�t give her that.�

Leonie stared at me. Her chin was trembling. �Why not.�

�It can cause bleeding. Tylenol�s okay.�

She swapped bottles and filled a glass of water, twisting her fingers as Shasta swallowed the pills. �Does it hurt?�

�Not that bad,� Shasta said.

�It�s going to scar.�

Shasta rolled her eyes.

Jason reappeared and set the phone in its cradle. �She�s on her way.�

�Thank God,� Leonie said.

He crouched by Shasta. He, too, was on the young side. �How you feeling, kitten?�

�Fine. It�s a scratch.�

Leonie snorted.

Jason stood up and faced me uncertainly. �Hi.�

I raised a hand.

�This is Clay,� Shasta said. �He brought me home.�

�After hitting her,� Leonie said.

�It was an accident,� Shasta said.

Leonie walked stiffly to a window and watched the street. Jason looked back and forth between the women, trying to decide whom to believe and how to regard me.

He settled on a tepid smile. �Thanks for bringing her.�

�Did she say how long she�d be?� Leonie said.

Shasta said, �Mom. Relax. She�s literally two minutes away.�

Two long minutes.

A car pulled up outside.

�That�s her,� Leonie said and ran out.

I could hear her voice (Take her to Eureka...) as she reentered with Maggie Penrose, dressed in skirt and sweater and carrying an old-school black leather doctor�s bag. No headlamp.

Seeing me, Maggie paused.

�You,� she said, not unpleasantly.

�Me,� I said.

�Go get the car ready,� Leonie said to Jason.

�Hold your horses, please,� Maggie said.

She pulled over another chair, smiling warmly at Shasta. �Hello, my lovely.�

�Hey, Mags.�

�Let�s have a peek... Oh my. That�s a good one.�

Leonie chewed her thumbnail. �Is it bad?�

�I�m afraid we�re going to have to amputate.� Maggie opened her bag. �Shoo, all of you.�

Jason turned to go. Leonie remained rooted in place.

�Lee,� he said. �C�mon.�

Leonie stormed out, brushing by him.

He and I followed her into the living room, and the three of us stood in awkward silence, Jason nodding indecipherably and Leonie refusing to make eye contact while I peered around, a dumb smile plastered to my face, feeling time slip away.

If not for the crash I�d be halfway to Millburg by now. Amy was expecting a call from me as soon as I regained service. Through the perforated shades, the sky glowed pewter. Fog drifted over high, violent surf. I felt desperate to escape, gripping at the carpet with my toes, through my shoes, to prevent myself from running.

In the kitchen, Maggie Penrose was performing a mini mental status exam. Shasta answered in an undertone.

The dog had quieted. Mournful yips emanated from down the hall.

Jason started toward it. �I�m gonna let him out.�

�Leave it, please,� Leonie said.

�I don�t want him to have an accident.�

�I said leave it.�

He relented.

One two three bright light Dr. Penrose said.

�So...,� Jason said.

�Clay,� I said.

�Clay. What brings you to our neck of the woods?�

�Just visiting.�

�Where from?�

�Bay Area.�

�Right on. Welcome to Swann�s Flat.�

�Thanks,� I said.

Leonie stared resolutely at the carpet.

�How long you here for?� Jason asked.

�I came in Monday. I was actually on my way out of town.�

�You were at the hotel?�

�Yeah.�

�Enjoy your stay?�

I nodded.

�Awesome,� he said.

Maggie Penrose said Wiggle your toes.

�Must be nice to have a doctor for a town this size,� I said.

�One of everything you need,� Jason said, smiling. �None of what you don�t. Drink?�

�I, uh� I�m good. Thanks.�

He crossed to a corner bar with a mini fridge. Popping open a bottle of Sierra Nevada, he flopped on the couch, patting the cushion for Leonie. She didn�t move.

Wind roared, waves crashed, the dog continued to keen.

That�s good Dr. Penrose was saying. Deep breaths.

Whomp-whomp went my head.

�You have a beautiful home,� I said.

Leonie rotated toward me like a tank turret.

Maggie Penrose emerged from the kitchen, drying her hands on a paper towel.

�How is she?� Jason said.

�Good, all things considered. She�s a toughie. How�d she seem, right after it happened?�

�Dazed,� I said. �But not for long. She did complain of feeling hot.�

�Mm.� Maggie turned to Leonie. �I�d like to bring her to my place and take an X-ray.�

�Is it broken?� Leonie said.

�Doesn�t look that way, but I�d like to be sure. You, too,� Maggie said to me. �I need to look at your head.�

�Where am I going?� I asked.

�Oh no you don�t,� Leonie said. �You�re not jumping in your car and running off.�

�Honey,� Jason said.

�It�s okay,� I said. �I can go with Dr. Penrose.�

�I want a copy of your driver�s license,� Leonie said. �I want your phone number and your insurance and the name of your attorney.�

I couldn�t give her those without blowing my cover. I also didn�t see how I could lie without committing a crime.

I was ready to reach for my wallet when Shasta hobbled into the doorway, her shin mummified in gauze and tape.

�Can we please go?� she said.

Jason got up from the couch. �You two go on ahead. Come on, kitten.�

He accompanied Shasta through the kitchen toward the garage.

Maggie said, �We�ll be back soon.�

�Yes,� Leonie said. She was speaking to me. �You will.�

I got into Maggie Penrose�s green Subaru Outback and she started down Beachcomber.

�Quite the exciting vacation you�re having,� she said.

�That wasn�t the goal.�

�Do you have medical training?�

I�d tipped her off by mentioning Shasta�s temperature.

�I took a first-aid class last year,� I said. �We had a unit on concussion.�

�Mm.�

�I did offer to bring her to the hospital. She wouldn�t let me.�

�Well, that�s Shasta for you.�

�I would�ve just taken her but I don�t know where it is.�

�There�s a clinic in Benbow, and a small site in Fortuna. Anything major, we go to Eureka.�

�That must take � what? Three hours?�

�By car. Faster by boat, depending on the tide.�

�Do you think Shasta will need that?�

The doctor eyed me.

Was I expressing sincere concern? Or fishing for an out?

�I�m going to reserve judgment,� she said.

Short drive: Hers was the mansion closest to the marina, which explained how and why she walked to the cove every evening. The layout was identical to the Clancys� � central living room, patio, spiral staircase � but slightly smaller and with a dead-gray decorating scheme even more tired, as if both houses had been built from the same basic plan.

�I�ll want to see her first before I get started on you,� Maggie said.

On cue, Jason Clancy called out: �We�re here.�

He entered with Shasta leaning on his shoulder.

�Would it be possible for me to make a phone call?� I asked.

�In my office,� Maggie said, pointing to the back hall. �Third door on the left.�

�Thank you.�

I found the right room and shut the door quietly. It was about seven forty-five a.m. With luck I could catch Amy before she left to drop off the kids and head to work.

I dialed from the desk phone. It rang once and went to voicemail.

�Hi. Everything�s fine. Call me on this number. I don�t know if you can see it. It�s...�

I checked the desktop for personalized stationery or a prescription pad, moving tchotchkes and photos but finding nothing. I balked at rifling drawers; that felt invasive.

�I�ll call you again soon,� I said and hung up.

I slumped in the desk chair. The goose egg was throbbing now, too, in addition to the whomp-whomp. Competing drummers playing out of sync. The furniture and walls seemed to be � not where they should be.

How hard had I hit my head?

I leapt up and took a lap around the room, flapping my limbs to restore a feeling of immediacy. Diplomas on the wall from Williams and Case Western Reserve School of Medicine. Shelving units with well-thumbed clinical texts on a wide range of topics, back issues of JAMA, smattering of psychology books. A small-town GP wore many hats.

The phone rang.

I lifted the receiver. Cartoons blared in the background. �Amy?�

�Where are you? I thought you left already.�

�I tried to.� I told her what had happened.

�Oh my God,� Amy said. �Are you okay?�

�I have a pretty big bump on my forehead.�

�You hit your head?�

�I�m at the local clinic. The doctor�s going to look at me when she�s done with her.�

�Is she okay?�

�Banged up, for sure. Hopefully nothing serious. We should call our insurance.�

�Do you need me to do that?�

�I�ll see if I can get to it.�

�What about a lawyer?� she asked.

�Probably, yeah.�

�Let me ask my parents who they use.�

�Okay. I�m still going to try and get out of here today, if possible.�

�Do you think you can? Are you safe to drive?�

�I don�t know. I�m pretty tired. I think that�s why I didn�t react faster. I was up most of the night, waiting for the gun guy. I should be fine once I get some more caffeine into me.�

�At least he didn�t show up.�

�He did, actually.�

�What?�

�No, it was okay. He left me money and an apology note.�

�Saying what?�

� �Sorry.� �

�That�s it? �Sorry�?�

�I mean, it�s not a love poem. But I think we can assume he doesn�t intend to shoot me.�

�Can we?�

�I�m saying if I end up getting stuck here again for another night it�ll be okay.�

�Please, no.�

�The minute I can leave, I will. I don�t want to flee the scene and have them call the cops on me.�

�I thought the cops didn�t come.�

�Maybe not here. But it�s two hours to reach the highway. If someone calls ahead they could pick me off.�

�I don�t know what to say. This place is a curse.�

�I�m sorry, Amy.�

�I�m not mad at you,� she said. �It�s not your fault.�

�Let�s hope they see it the same way.�

�Are you sure you�re okay to drive?�

Whomp-whomp.

�Let me talk to the doctor,� I said. �I�ll check in when I have a plan.�

�I have patients all day. Leave a message.�

�Okay. Love you.�

�You too.�

I hung up and drew over one of the desk photos. It depicted Maggie Penrose in a moment of exultation: rising onto her toes, fists aloft, cheering at the finish line of a race. A girl of twelve or thirteen heaved through the tape.

Shasta.

The door opened. Jason Clancy leaned in. �Doc�s ready for you.�

She dropped me at the Clancy residence, waiting for Jason to admit me before driving away.

�My wife�s getting Shasta set up,� he said. �Come in.�

In the kitchen he placed a mug by the burbling coffeepot. �Help yourself. Milk�s in the fridge.�

�Thank you.�

The sheepdog bounded in and headed right to me, licking my hands.

�You making friends, Bowie?� Jason said.

The dog sprawled to show me his belly.

�He must like you,� Jason said.

�I like him, too.�

�I mean it, he�s not like that with everyone.�

�I�m flattered.� I rubbed the dog�s stomach. �Bowie as in the frontiersman or as in the singer?�

�Singer. His full name�s Bowie Stardust.�

�You�re a fan.�

�I didn�t pick it.�

Footsteps approached. I gave the dog a final pat and straightened up as Leonie entered.

She said, �How are you feeling?�

The shift in her demeanor was so drastic that at first I didn�t think she was talking to me, assuming the question was meant for Jason. But she was studying me with a pinched expression. Not so much concern; there was some of that, although it was overlaid with anxiety.

As if I was the one who�d threatened her with a lawsuit instead of vice versa.

�All right. Thanks for asking,� I said. �How�s Shasta?�

�She�s resting.� A beat. �Thank you for taking care of her.�

�I�m glad I could help. I just hope she�s okay.�

Leonie nodded.

I waited for her to once more demand my contact information. Lying outright opened me to criminal charges and jeopardized my license. I didn�t think I had to volunteer anything, though.

�You got coffee,� she said.

�I... Yeah. Yes. Thank you.�

�Hungry?�

What was this? Some sort of psychological trap? Lure me in, get me talking, pull the rug?

�I�m good, thanks,� I said. �I�m happy to stick around as long as you�d like. Otherwise I was planning to head out. My wife�s expecting me.�

Leonie looked at Jason, who shrugged.

�You can go,� she said.

�Okay.� I was mystified but grateful. �I�ll just grab the bike from my car.�

She nodded. To Jason: �Make her some eggs?�

He opened a drawer and took out a skillet.

The trail left by ML was jumbled and difficult to trace.

The trail left by its namesake was anything but.

Emil Richard Bergstrom, born October 13, 1962, Xenia, Ohio. The databases were silent on his childhood, but I surmised it had been less than idyllic: Shortly after his seventeenth birthday, he�d gone into the army.

It must have felt like a safe bet. Vietnam was over; enlistments were down, bonuses up.

Not a good fit. Five months through his term of service, he was discharged.

I couldn�t view the complete record to know why he�d been let go. Entry-level separation was at the discretion of the military. The cause could be anything from lack of effort to disciplinary infractions.

By the mid-eighties, he�d made his way to California. And found romance. On December 3, 1984, Emil Bergstrom and Kathleen Adele Jessup wed before the Los Angeles County Clerk.

Alas, fate hadn�t smiled upon the union. Though Emil had done better at matrimony than soldiering, toughing it out with Kathleen for three and a half years.

More accurately, she�d toughed it out with him. In 1987 Emil pled no contest to one count of misdemeanor domestic battery. Ninety-day suspended sentence.

Their son, Richard Beaumont Bergstrom, was born the following March. Kathleen had already filed for divorce. Los Angeles Superior Court rendered final judgment two months later, awarding her full custody.

The late eighties and early nineties came across as a tumultuous time for Emil. In addition to the implosion of his personal life, he was paddling against a deluge of lawsuits: His name cropped up on the docket in Los Angeles, Riverside, Orange County, San Diego, and Kern.

He�d sold a lot but never transferred title (allegedly).

He�d misappropriated funds (allegedly).

These early schemes were comparatively crude, less con artistry than blatant fraud. Not all involved land. Bergstrom had dabbled in cars, electronics, scrap metal. Nor had he yet perfected how to erase his tracks. To the contrary: He displayed a flair for public relations, issuing press releases at a blistering pace. Luckily for him, small local papers had column inches to fill.

The similarities between these rackets and Swann�s Flat lay in the revolving door of partnerships, the ever-changing names and addresses.

The typical con man�s approach to skirting consequences.

Aside from the DV rap, Emil Bergstrom had never been charged with a crime or seen the interior of a jail. He often managed to get civil suits against him dismissed, and any judgments he faced were negligible. At worst he simply closed up shop and reopened elsewhere, sometimes down the hall in the same building. I doubted he�d ever paid out a cent.

In 1993, reality finally caught up to him. He defaulted on a multimillion-dollar loan. The resulting judgment forced Bergstrom to file for bankruptcy.

The plaintiff?

William Arenhold.

The lawsuit constituted my first evidence of the two men interacting. That they then went on to form a fruitful, decades-long collaboration seemed bizarre on the face of it � former adversaries teaming up, like some ill-conceived superhero franchise crossover.

But I could think of an explanation.

Bergstrom�s painted himself into a corner. Low on cash. Investors wary. Creditors with pitchforks and torches, bearing down on the gates.

So he and Arenhold strike a deal. Arenhold �loans� him a huge sum of money, backdated. Emil �defaults� and files Chapter�7. Arenhold then lays claim to the liquidated assets � enabling Emil to plead insolvency to everyone else in line to collect.

I pictured him fretting beneath his Stetson, intoning in that folksy twang of his.

Apologies, muchachos. Well�s gone dry.

In the meantime, Arenhold funnels the money back to Bergstrom. Minus a service fee.

What read like financial ruin was the opposite: a sweetheart lawsuit, ensuring freedom.

With that done, Bergstrom effectively dropped from the public record. He�d learned his lesson about seeking the limelight. Or perhaps that had been the plan all along.

The land acquisition and sales firm has operations in Southern California and intends to open an office in Northern California later this year.

He�d never opened any such office that I could find.

As with the father, so with the son: I found sketchy information about Beau�s early life � his birthday, a defunct Myspace page � but his recent history was blank.

Neither man appeared to own anything of significant value.

A disgruntled person is a private investigator�s best friend.

A disgruntled spouse is a private investigator�s BFF.

Kathleen Bergstrom had reverted to her maiden name of Jessup. During the eighties and nineties, while Emil was honing his craft, she�d made a go of it in Hollywood. IMDB listed nineteen credits. A few basic cable leading roles. The majority low-grade fare such as Screaming Blonde #2 in Attack of the Face-Eating Pandas and Confused Beach Girl in Kamikaze Shark 3: Blood Fin Soup.

Her last gig was 2007�s Right of First Revenge.Old Woman.

By my math she was then forty-three years old.

Time to hang it up.

I called her, introduced myself, told her what I was after.

She laughed and sighed, in that order. �Come on by, we�ll talk.�

Like her ex-husband, Kathleen had migrated north. Presently she was living her best life at the Rossmoor Retirement Community, a two-thousand-acre independent living development on the other side of the Caldecott Tunnel, where the offbeat urban landscape of Berkeley and Oakland dissolved into open space, tract homes, and big-box stores.

The booth guard examined my driver�s license and raised the barrier arm, and I drove to the Creekside Grill. Kathleen was seated on the patio, lipstick on the rim of her Bloody Mary. Despite the ferocious heat � ninety degrees at ten a.m.�� she was impeccably put together: coral twinset, honey hair feathered � la Farrah Fawcett. Discreet makeup emphasized superb bone structure.

She squeezed my fingers and smiled. �What are you drinking?�

�Water�s good.�

She waved to a white-haired waiter. �Water for my friend, please, Jack.�

He brought the carafe. �Will you want another, ma�am?�

�I�m sure I�ll need it,� she said. �Check back in a few.�

He left with a bow.

Golf carts buzzed, sprinklers chuffed, the pock-pock of pickleball rang out.

�Emil Bergstrom,� she said. �Blast from the not-so-good past.�

�Sorry to bring it up.�

�Oh, I�m a big girl.�

�How�d you meet?�

�He picked me up at a party,� she said. �You�ll have to take my word that he was good-looking back then. And I was young and na�ve. I�m not ashamed to say so. I�d only been in LA a couple of months. He drove a Porsche, too. That impressed me.�

�What was he up to?�

�He called himself a businessman. He always had twenty-five deals going at once.�

�Do you remember names or details?�

�I didn�t understand it and I didn�t want to. It was exciting enough for me to go racing from one party to the next. He knew all these wannabe producer types. Guys who had money to spend, or they needed to look like they did. There was a lot of booze and drugs floating around. And Emil can talk the stripes off a zebra. He�d cook up some cockamamie scheme. Thirty seconds later they�re climbing over each other with their checkbooks out.�

�When did things start to go bad?�

�For us or for him?�

�Either. Both.�

�He couldn�t keep it in his pants. We fight, I cry, he swears up and down it�ll never happen again. You won�t find a single gal in Hollywood who can�t tell the same story.�

�I read that he was arrested for domestic violence.�

She started. �That was an isolated incident. I tried to leave the room and he grabbed my arm. Nothing worse than that.�

�You reported it.�

�Well, I was pregnant at the time. Things were very tense.�

�Were you worried about the baby?�

�No. It was... I was... It was an isolated incident.�

�We don�t have to talk about it,� I said.

She stirred her drink with the celery stalk. �It feels like another woman�s life.�

I nodded.

�It�s not in Emil�s nature to be physical,� she said. �He doesn�t have to be. If he wants something, he gets you to do it.�

�Did you maintain a relationship after the divorce?�

�We saw each other every so often. I wanted him to know his son. Not that Emil cared. He�d send Beau a birthday card with five dollars. Drop in without warning and take him for ice cream. That sort of thing.�

�Child support?�

�Off and on. I never felt he was deliberately making my life hard. More that he forgot about us once we were out of sight.�

�Are you familiar with a man by the name of Rolando Pineda? He�s a lawyer.�

�Doesn�t ring a bell.�

�What about William Arenhold?�

�Him, yes.�

�Did you ever meet him?�

�Once. We went to San Francisco for a weekend. It was a nice time, we drove up PCH, had dinner by the wharf. When we got to our hotel, there was this man waiting in the lobby. Emil introduced him as Billy. I remember he was a real charmer. He kissed my hand, and Emil sent me up to the room so they could stay at the bar and talk. I was so mad. Here we are, we�ve come all this way, it�s supposed to be a romantic getaway, and this is what you�re doing?�

She drained her drink, flagged Jack for another.

I said, �Any idea what Emil and Arenhold talked about?�

�None. But they were down there for hours. Emil woke me up when he came in, and we had a fight about it. In the morning he apologized. He bought me flowers and we went to tour Alcatraz.�

�Approximately when was this?�

�Beau was born in �88. So before then.�

And at least five years before the �lawsuit� that had driven Emil out of LA.

I asked Kathleen about that.

�He said he had to leave town. He made it sound like it was temporary. Little did I know.�

�Did you ever get up to Swann�s Flat?� I asked.

�God, no. Good riddance, as far as I�m concerned.�

�What about Beau? How�d he end up there?�

�That came later. I remarried in 2002. Beau wasn�t happy about it, and it got worse once I had Ashley. He was so jealous of that child. I thought it was nuts. What�s there to be jealous of? She�s a baby, you�re a teenager. It got to be unbearable. He and Colin were at each other�s throats, day and night. I was worried they�d kill each other. After high school he announced he was going to live with his father. I begged him not to. He was so smart, he had good grades. He could have gone to college. But Colin convinced me not to fight it. He said it was healthy to give Beau some space. I should�ve trusted my instincts.�

I remembered Beau�s story � horseshit, I now realized � about shooting a mountain lion.

How old were you?

Ten or eleven... I basically lived out here as a kid.

�Are you in touch with him?� I asked.

�Not really. Colin died three years ago, and I moved here to be near my daughter. She goes to Mills. Some part of me thought, Oh, you�ll be closer to Beau, too. It hasn�t worked out, though. He calls on my birthday. But we don�t see each other.�

Jack brought her drink, hesitating when he saw her remote expression.

She smiled and said, �Thanks, as always.�

�Ma�am.�

He left the glass and took the empty.

Kathleen picked up the celery, stirred. �I�ve tried to make my peace with it. But it�s hard.�

I nodded.

�He was a beautiful boy. For the longest time, we were on our own together, me and him, two of us against the world. We didn�t have any money but we had fun. We liked to go camping on the beach. We did that all the time.�

�A child of the land.�

�Come again?�

�That�s how Emil described you. �She was a child of the land, and a child of the land she begat.� �

�Somebody shoulda glued his lips shut years ago.�

I laughed.

�He�s not wrong, though,� she said. �That�s one thing about Emil. There�s enough truth in what he says that it makes you question yourself.� She sipped. �At any rate. I�d like to think Beau knows that he can come to me if he needs. I�ll always be his mother.�

A tear escaped. She grabbed at her napkin to dab it away.

�When I do speak to him,� she said, �it�s Emil I hear.�

�Did you get the check?� he asked.

�I did, thanks.�

�Don�t know if that�ll cover it. You can also send me the bill once it�s fixed.�

�I appreciate it. How�d you email me, if you don�t have a computer?�

�Library in Millburg has �em.�

�You drove all the way there to get in touch with me.�

�I was going anyway. But you deserve the courtesy, after the scare I gave you.�

�What�s life without a little excitement?�

�Nice and quiet, is what. Let me save you some time, son: I�m not selling. To you or anyone else.�

�The property�s listed.�

�As a public service,� he said. �I want folks to understand what they�re getting into.�

�What are they getting into?�

�A mess. Take it from me: You don�t want none of it.�

I said, �Mr. Bock, since you�re being frank with me, I�m going to do the same. I�m not interested in buying your house. I�m trying to understand how things work in Swann�s Flat. I think you�re the person I�ve been waiting for. And if I�m reading you right, I�m the person you�ve been waiting for.�

He said, �About damn time.�

The database results on Leonie Swann were strange, and strangely thin.

She didn�t just look young to be Shasta�s mother. She was young � thirty-seven � with no criminal record, no professional licenses, and no addresses prior to 2009, when the mansion at 21�Beachcomber showed up. She paid the utilities but didn�t appear on the tax roll.

In a way that made sense. Al Bock�s intel suggested a kind of ownership/management structure, with the Swanns retaining title while Emil and Beau ran the show. And if the Bergstroms could teach Leonie anything, it was how to hide assets. She could have placed the house in trust, buried it behind LLCs, transferred it to a third party.

Any such collaboration could not have begun with her. The earliest lawsuits dated to the mid-nineties, when she was in grade school.

Kurt, on the other hand, had been almost twenty years Leonie�s senior. The right age for a budding entrepreneur.

I found his obituary in the North Counties Register.

I googled the quote. Attributed to David Bowie.

Erroneous. The real quote ended I promise it won�t bore you.

I�d asked Jason Clancy: Bowie as in the frontiersman or as in the singer?

Singer. His full name�s Bowie Stardust.

You�re a fan.

I didn�t pick it.

Leonie had. Or Shasta, in memory of her father.

A fatal accident likely meant an autopsy.

I called the Humboldt County Coroner � Public Administrator and spoke to a deputy named Zucchero. He directed me to their public records portal. Four-to-six-week turnaround.

I told him I was a former Alameda County coroner. Any way he could speed things up?

�Former,� he said.

�Yes.�

�What do you do now?�

�PI.�

�How�s that working out for you?�

�Pros and cons.�

�Let me ask you something...�

For the next half hour I answered questions about licensing, overhead, health insurance.

�I�ll get back to you soon,� he said.

I went to the databases on Jason Clancy.

Age thirty-four. His credit was fair. One DUI, in 2008. He didn�t have a pilot�s license, but he did own a boat, registered to the address on Beachcomber. Previous addresses were in Sacramento; he turned up in Swann�s Flat around 2017.

I was wondering if Leonie had put the house in his name. But he didn�t appear on the tax roll, either, and when I ran a title search for 21�Beachcomber Boulevard, the actual name on the deed leaped off the screen.

Shasta Swann Irrevocable Trust

An itch in my brain.

I searched again, this time for all titles held by the Shasta Swann Irrevocable Trust.

The results filled fifty pages.

She, a teenage girl, owned the bait shop.

The boat lot.

The boat launch. The marina itself.

Jenelle Counts�s name appeared on the hotel�s liquor and business licenses. The structure and the land beneath, however, belonged to the Shasta Swann Irrevocable Trust.

In addition to owning her mother and stepfather�s residence, Shasta owned the doctor�s home at 3 Beachcomber Boulevard as well as the Bergstroms� at number 55.

She owned Beachcomber Boulevard, all four miles of it, including the lot at number 185, the prospectus for which I had open on my computer screen in another window.

This beautiful and historically significant piece of land has never been offered for sale.

Currently it is held in trust, with any sale or development subject to approval by the Swann�s Flat Board of Supervisors.

If Clay Gardner bought it, he�d be buying it from Shasta.

The Shasta Swann Irrevocable Trust owned Pelman Auto Service at 27 Gray Fox Run along with Dave Pelman�s residence at number 29. It owned the lots with the mailboxes and the empty lots next door. It owned the unoccupied homes and the homes on Airbnb, and I was willing to bet that if I dug deep enough into all those corporations and shells offering properties for sale, that if I traveled to all the courthouses in all the counties in all the states and pulled every file and read through every page, somewhere in the tangle of red tape, I would find Shasta, her trust, lurking behind all of them.

His truck went off the road.

Now she owns the town.

I�d thought Bock was referring to Leonie.

Wrong.

I hadn�t hit a Swann.

I�d hit the Swann.

The half hour spent chatting with Deputy Zucchero paid dividends the following day, when a PDF of Kurt Swann�s case file showed up in my inbox.

Cause of death was cerebral edema/subdural hemorrhage, secondary to blunt force trauma.

Manner of death was accidental.

I read the narrative, written by lead investigator Owen Ryall.

Having been in Ryall�s shoes, I could imagine his exasperation upon arriving at the scene only to be informed that there was no body yet. It wasn�t even clear whether this was a coroner�s case.

Kurt Swann was lying somewhere at the bottom of a rocky escarpment, dead or alive, but heavy rain and strong winds had prevented search-and-rescue from making a direct descent. The alternative � hiking up from below in the pitch black, over miles of steep, sludgy, unfamiliar terrain � was worse. They had decided to wait it out.

Al Bock had misremembered one detail. It wasn�t Kurt�s truck that had gone over the cliff. It was Kurt himself. The truck was still by the side of the road.

By 0315 on December 6, conditions had improved enough to make a second retrieval attempt. SAR threw down ropes. At 0548 they spotted the body of a male meeting Swann�s description.

He had fallen approximately three hundred feet along a sixty-five-degree incline studded with boulders and logs, the force of which had thrown him another fifty feet laterally. His clothing was torn, his skin lacerated, his skull bashed in. A branch had impaled him in the groin. He�d lost both shoes and one sock. His hunting vest had stayed on; in an interior zipper pocket was a wallet. Positive identification was made from a California driver�s license.

At 0611, Kurt Swann was pronounced dead.

I scrolled through photos.

Broken limbs in a cradle of broken, bloody vegetation.

Right eye popped out onto his cheek.

One small mercy: Rain had deterred animals from picking at him.

Additional photos, taken topside, showed the wicked hairpin turn. A dark-colored Dodge Ram sat close to the edge, jacked up, rear left tire missing. The cliffside had partially given way, as if he�d been in the process of changing the tire and lost his footing.

While Ryall�s secondary, Chris King, coordinated with detectives, Ryall proceeded to the address on the driver�s license, 21�Beachcomber Boulevard, Swann�s Flat. The road was slippery and treacherous, and he didn�t arrive until 0900.

He was met at the door by the decedent�s next of kin, Leonie Swann, and their two-year-old daughter, unnamed. Ryall asked to speak with Mrs. Swann in private and suggested she call a relative or friend to help with the child. She declined. Ryall then informed her of her husband�s passing.

She already knew.

On the previous evening, she had received a visit from an individual named David Pelman, who told her that Kurt had slipped while changing a blown tire and fallen to his death.

Good old Dave, purveyor of four-hundred-dollar coolant.

Ryall again suggested that Leonie call someone for support. This time she agreed. She phoned a neighbor, who arrived within a few minutes. Ryall did not note the neighbor�s name but proceeded to David Pelman�s residence at 29 Gray Fox Run.

According to Pelman, he and Kurt Swann had left Swann�s Flat together before dawn on December 5 to hunt elk. They drove in Swann�s truck to their favorite area, Lishin Valley, about three miles northeast of Millburg. All day long they slogged through the cold and damp without so much as sniffing a bull. Pelman was philosophical.

It�s called hunting he said not shooting.

By midafternoon it was coming down pretty hard. They decided to pack it in.

Weeks of intermittent rain had reduced the road surface to slop. Approaching the hairpin,

Ryall asked Pelman if either man had been intoxicated. Pelman replied that they each had three or four beers over the course of the day. He further stated that Kurt regularly drank beer and that he, Pelman, did not perceive Swann as impaired.

Pelman considered trying to climb down but decided it was too dangerous. Nor could he find the spare, which must have gone over with Kurt.

Left without a choice, Dave Pelman trudged to town on foot, in the rain.

At 2214 he phoned 911 from his residence. Ryall asked why Pelman hadn�t stopped at any of the other houses along the way. Pelman replied that nobody else was home.

The 911 call lasted twenty-two minutes. Afterward Pelman changed into dry clothes and proceeded in his own vehicle to the Swann residence to inform Leonie that Kurt was dead.

Ryall asked what time that conversation had taken place.

Pelman guessed it was about eleven, eleven fifteen.

Ryall noted that confirmation of death would not take place for another six-plus hours.

Autopsy revealed extensive injuries. Kurt Swann had suffered fractures to both femurs, both arms, most of his ribs, and six vertebrae. The blow to the skull was determined to be fatal, consistent with high-velocity impact from a blunt object.

Toxicology indicated a blood alcohol level of.022, below the threshold for legal intoxication.

I called the Humboldt County Coroner � Public Administrator and asked to speak with Deputy Owen Ryall. He was Lieutenant Ryall now.

�Former?� he said.

�That�s right. Alameda County.�

Ryall said, �Let me get back to you.�

I stepped out to pick up Amy�s dry cleaning and a bowl of ramen. At my desk I pried off the lid, releasing fragrant steam.

My phone rang. I replaced the lid.

�I called your people,� Ryall said.

�Who�d you speak to?�

�Brad Moffett.�

�What�d he say?�

�You�re a pain in the ass.�

�Checks out.�

�Also that you�re the best investigator he ever worked with,� Ryall said. �What�s your interest in Kurt Swann?�

�I�m trying to get a feel for the family and the place.�

�Not sure I�ll be much help. That night was the first and last time I was there. We got lost trying to find it.�

�A couple things stand out to me,� I said. �One is that Pelman goes home to call instead of trying to find a closer phone. Then he tells Leonie that Kurt�s dead before there�s a body.�

�Well, the phone, he had an explanation for that.�

�Nobody was home.�

�Yeah.�

�If he was desperate to get help, there�s other things he could�ve done.�

�You mean like break a window?�

�It�s a life-or-death situation.�

�That fall? Odds are it was instant death,� Ryall said. �Probably the same reason he told her Kurt was dead: It�s a reasonable assumption.�

�How did Leonie seem when you talked to her?�

�What I recall is tired. Like she�d been up all night.�

�It also struck me that she didn�t want to call anyone at first.�

�Could be she was overwhelmed or wanted to focus on the girl. We�re talking a toddler.�

�You didn�t sense she was hiding something from you.�

�Nope. People act weird, you know that.�

�Do you recall who it was she asked to come over?�

�I don�t, sorry.� Ryall paused. �You think something�s up here.�

�I�m asking if there was any doubt in your mind about whether it was an accident.�

�Your guy was right. You�re a royal pain in the ass.�

�I�ll take it as a compliment.�

Ryall sighed. �You know as well as I do, there�s always stuff you can�t corroborate a hundred percent. Pathologist said he hit a rock. Okay, but there�s ten billion rocks in the vicinity. You can�t tell if he slipped and hit his head on the way down, or if someone hit him and that�s why he fell. Or if he was pushed. Tire tracks melted in the rain, footprints got washed away, same for blood. Is it impossible Pelman did it? Or someone else? No. But what am I supposed to do? End of the day, we had one eyewitness. He was cooperative and the physical evidence fit.�

�Okay. Thanks for your time.�

�No prob. Hey, real quick: What made you leave the force?�

�I needed a change.�

�Yeah, huh. What do you do about health care?�

I let a day elapse before answering him.

With the clock ticking on that relationship, I called Chris Villareal.

We arranged to meet at the office of the estate lawyer helping him. Her name was Priscilla Acevedo. She listened well and asked tough questions. It was a role reversal from when Chris had been fired up and indignant, and I�d had to play wet blanket. Now I was the one advocating action, my frustration mounting as Acevedo calmly poked holes in my arguments.

Every buyer I�d spoken to, including Chris�s grandmother, had received disclosures.

Anyone had the right to make a crappy investment. People bought trendy stocks, crypto, NFTs. They played the lottery and the slots.

Whatever we stood to gain would be dwarfed by the cost and the hassle.

William Arenhold was dead. Rolando Pineda�s role was ancillary and limited to a few sales. The Bergstroms were worth nothing on paper, as were Leonie and Jason Clancy. Given Shasta�s youth, her direct involvement was improbable. Trust documents were not public; we�d need a subpoena to get them, and to get that we�d first need to file suit.

Bottom line, the connections were too flimsy, the stakes too small.

I said, �That�s what the scam relies on.�

Acevedo shrugged. �I admit, this isn�t my area of practice. I�ll consult with colleagues and get back to you.�

Chris and I rode the elevator to the parking garage.

�We tried,� he said. He shook his head. �It sucks. They�re going to keep on getting away with it. But I feel like I need to be done with this and move on.�

�I understand.�

�I�m sorry to quit on you.�

�Don�t be. You stuck with it longer than most people would.�

The doors opened. We stepped out, and he shook my hand.

�Thanks for your work, Clay. Invoice me and I�ll pay you ASAP.�

I wished him luck.

Five-five-nine was Fresno, three hours southeast of San Leandro. Tara Moore�s ground-floor apartment fronted to a noisy drag blighted by strip malls, gas stations, and bottom-feeder motels.

She�d left the door open but the security screen locked. I rang, heard plodding footsteps, saw her shape darken the grate. She cupped her eyes to it before turning the dead bolt.

Old forty or a young fifty, dishwater blond and haggard. A long-sleeved T-shirt declared that Life Is Good. Its wearer appeared unconvinced.

�Come in.�

The apartment reeked of stale tobacco. Tidy, though everything had been used well past replacement point, luster scrubbed down to raw flesh. In Berkeley, people called that living green. In Fresno, it was called being poor.

Younger versions of Nick Moore smiled behind scratched plastic. As a boy, he�d had teeth too big for his mouth � fodder for bullies. By his early teens, the rest of him had caught up, lending him a sinewy masculinity. No resemblance I could see to his mother. I didn�t see any photos of men, either. Just Nick and more Nick and, in one shot, Tara wearing a hospital gown, a florid infant in her arms. She�d been even thinner then, distressingly so.

The drive had left me stiff and thirsty. She didn�t offer water, just plopped down on a fraying armchair and pointed me to a fraying sofa.

She said, �What do you know about Nicholas?�

Try not to get her hopes up.

�Last month I was up in Humboldt,� I began.

�Why?�

�In connection with another case.�

�What case.�

�I�m sorry, but I can�t discuss that.�

She folded her stick arms. �What�d you come for if you�re not gonna talk.�

�I�m happy to talk, Ms. Moore. But I have to respect my client�s privacy. I�d do the same for you.�

�I�m not your client.�

�I know.�

�I�m not going to pay you.�

�I�m not asking you to.�

�Free trial, huh? Then how much? Five hundred an hour? You people are all the same.�

She heaved up from the chair and disappeared into the kitchen.

I gave her a few minutes, then followed.

A rear door stood ajar. I stepped through it and out into a poky communal courtyard strewn with castoffs: hamstrung bikes, unplanted pots, a charcoal grill bearing carbonized remains like a bier. Traffic rasped along the drag. Beneath the shadow of the neighboring Exxon sign, Tara sat in a lawn chair, smoking. A ceramic mug nestled in her lap.

�Ms. Moore, we don�t know each other. I don�t know what promises other people have made. I plan to look into Nick�s disappearance, with or without you. My chances aren�t great. But they�re better if I have your help.�

She ashed into the mug. �You were a cop.�

�I used to be.�

�You helped that boy.�

�Which boy.�

�The one who was in jail.�

She meant Julian Triplett. A Berkeley news site had run a series about the case, detailing my role in vacating his murder conviction. The articles came up when you googled me. The remaining hits were about basketball. As of last season, I no longer held the Cal record for assists.

�Why?� she said.

�He didn�t deserve what happened to him.�

�How come you quit being a cop?�

�I didn�t deserve what happened to me.�

Her laughter dissolved into a coughing fit.

�Not me,� she said. �I deserve every fucking thing.�

She dragged. �This paying client of yours. They got something to do with Nicholas?�

�Not that I�m aware of.�

�So what�s your angle.�

�No angle.�

�Pff.�

I said, �Can we try again?�

�Hell, it�s a free country.�

I pulled over a second chair and switched on my recorder. �Start with the last time you had contact with your son.�

�It was a year in June.�

�Is it Nick or Nicholas, by the way?�

�I put Nick on the poster �cause everyone else called him that. To me he was Nicholas.�

�Did you see him in person, did he call, text?�

�Text.� She scrolled on her phone and showed me the screen.

On Monday morning, June 10, 2024, Nicholas Moore asked if Tara had sent the cards yet.

No she wrote.

You said today

I�m at work

Go after

Busy

When he asked.

When I can

K

Your welcome she wrote, adding an eye roll emoji.

�What cards is he referring to?� I asked.

�Pok�mon. He used to collect �em when he was little.�

�What did he want them for?�

�Sell �em, prolly. I don�t know what he could get for it, it�s a kids� game.�

�Did he need money?�

�Everybody needs money.�

�I�m asking if he had a particular need. Was there something he wanted to buy? Was he in debt?�

�I don�t know. I don�t think so.�

�Did he gamble? Drink or use drugs?�

She stiffened. �No.�

�No to which?�

�None of �em.�

�Not even alcohol or pot?�

�God, you�re nosy,� she said. �No, period. Okay? He hated that stuff. Never touched it.�

�I�m sure you�re sick of answering these questions. I�m sorry to make you do it again. That�s part of the job.�

Her cigarette had burned down to the filter. She fished out a new one and lit it off the first, grinding the butt out into the mug. �Go ahead.�

�At the time of these texts, where was Nicholas living?�

�Santa Cruz.�

�Was he employed?�

�He worked for a guy who made surfboards.�

�Name?�

�Randy. Smythe. With a y. And a e. He�s got a shop in his garage. He let Nicholas sleep there, but he didn�t pay him. He called it an internship. Ask me, that�s bullshit someone lays on you to get you to work for free.�

And maybe the reason her son needed cash.

I returned to the text thread. On Tuesday afternoon, Tara wrote that she�d sent the cards. She included a photo of the receipt showing the tracking number. Shipping had cost $23.65.

CashApp me she wrote.

Friday rolled around and he had yet to reply. Tara tried again. Did u get it

Subsequent texts reflected her growing irritation. She took time out of her day to do him a favor. The least he could do was say thank you.

Another week went by with no response. On June 18, Tara fired off a series of lengthy, angry texts, excoriating him for his selfishness.

�I was mad,� she said. �I thought he didn�t want to pay me. Then I saw his TikTok.�

She took the phone and opened up Nicholas�s profile.

I�d missed it because his name didn�t feature: His handle was wat3rwh33l, the picture an image of The Great Wave off Kanagawa. He had 39 followers and followed 210 other accounts. The earliest posts revolved around skateboarding. On average they garnered a dozen likes. Never an especially active user, in spring 2023 he seemed to lose interest. He didn�t post again for over a year, resurfacing on June 19, 2024, with a video lasting twenty-six seconds.

It began with Nicholas standing in a dirt turnout along a two-lane highway dividing silver ocean from green-and-tan hills. Wind crackled. It could have been anywhere along the West Coast. He�d propped his phone on the ground and was shirtless in cutoff jeans and hiking boots. The puka shell necklace smiled against his chest, the pendant winked.

The caption read In the name of the father.

Raising his face and hands to the sky, he turned in a slow circle, his expression euphoric, sun shining on his shaven scalp. I glimpsed the anchor tattoo on his shoulder.

He completed a rotation and strode forward. The pendant swung away from his body as he leaned in to grab the camera. He straightened up, holding the camera at arm�s length and grinning broadly. I realized I was looking at the source for the flyer photo.

He displayed his left fist. The letters f a s t were tattooed across his knuckles in serifed font, oriented backward and upside down.

He extended his middle finger. Held the gesture for a three-count before poking at the screen.

The clip ended.

Tara Moore said, �That�s the last I seen of him. No texts, no calls, no nothing.�

�Do you understand what this is about?�

�He was mad at me.�

�What for?�

� �Cause he didn�t want to pay me what he owed.�

�The cost of shipping the cards.�

She nodded.

�What about the rest of it?� I said. �The movements. Is he acting something out?�

�I thought it�s just him being a dumbass.�

� �In the name of the father.� Does that mean anything to you?�

�Not really.�

�Was Nicholas religious?�

�We did Christmas but that�s about it.�

�Can I ask what the situation is with his dad?�

�He�s dead. He died when Nicholas was a baby. We were never together.�

�What�s his name?�

�Warren. Pezanko.�

I scrolled through the profile�s Following and Followers. Shasta Swann was not on either list. �What can you tell me about this necklace he�s wearing?�

�I never seen it before. He musta got it after he moved out.�

�Do you have a sense of where the video was taken?�

�Mendocino. Above Fort Bragg.�

�How can you tell?�

�There�s a mile marker,� she said. �You can see it when he bends over.�

I hadn�t noticed, too busy focusing on the pendant.

I replayed the clip.

The postmile flashed between Nicholas�s legs as he reached for the phone. Glare wiped out the lettering. I fiddled with the slider, bringing it into view one character at a time.

�Great catch,� I said.

Tara Moore waved that away. �Not me. It was this lady Regina Klein. You know her?�

I shook my head. �She�s a PI?�

�I figured you guys all hang out together.�

�You were working with her.�

�For a little bit. Haven�t spoken to her since prolly the beginning of the year.�

�What made you stop?�

�I couldn�t afford to pay her no more. I spent everything I had on the first two guys. Who were assholes.�

Tara scratched her nose with her cigarette hand, spilling ash on her T-shirt. She brushed at it apathetically. �I don�t blame her. She�s got a business to run. But it�s my son, you know?�

I nodded.

�I�m just so tired of chasing my tail,� she said. �I put twenty thousand miles on my car in the last year. Everything I make goes to gas and copies.�

�What brought you to Millburg?�

�I wasn�t looking there in the beginning, I thought he was still in Santa Cruz. Once Regina showed me the mile marker, I started driving out every weekend, going around and putting up his poster. I went into this shop to ask the lady if I could put one in her front window. She told me about this big bulletin board. �You should go there, everyone knows about it.� �

�I also saw his profile on NamUs.�

�I�m on all the sites. There�s about a million of them. I can�t keep track. It�s all just a bunch of useless fools crying to each other about how nobody�ll help them.�

�Let�s back up a sec,� I said. �You saw the video. Is that when you started to feel that something was wrong?�

�He missed my birthday.�

�When�s that?�

�August 18. I don�t care how mad we were, he wouldn�t do that.�

�At that point you haven�t had any communication from him in about two months.�

�Yeah.�

�Was it normal for you to go that long without speaking to each other?�

�Once he left, he didn�t want nothing to do with me. And, and� � her voice escalated � �why should I have to beg him? He�s the one owed me money. He�s the one flipping me off. He should be apologizing to me.�

�I�m not putting anything on you, Tara.�

She sucked on her cigarette. A vein ticked in her neck.

�He missed your birthday,� I prompted gently.

�Yeah. I started to get scared. Like, what if he got into an accident? He didn�t answer my texts and every time I called it went to voicemail. I didn�t know what else to do. I called the surfboard guy.�

�Smythe.�

�He said he hadn�t seen him, either.�

�Since when?�

�Around the same time.�

�June.�

She nodded. �He said he went out one morning and Nicholas is gone, his stuff�s gone, his car�s not in the driveway.�

�Did Nicholas tell him where he was headed? Did he leave a note?�

�The guy didn�t know a damn thing. He just kept saying, �Buuuh, duuuh, I dunno, he�s not here, he left.� I got in my car and drove straight over there. I didn�t even stop to pee. I�m banging on his door, and he comes out with his hair sticking up, like I woke him up at two in the afternoon. I made him show me where Nicholas was sleeping.�

She scowled. �Internship my ass. Smythe had him cooped up in the garage like a friggin� prisoner, machines everywhere, fiberglass dust. �No wonder he left, look at this shithole.� He starts acting all huffy, saying calm down or he�ll call the cops. �Fuck you, I�ll call them myself.�

�I went to the station. Waited three hours for someone to talk to me. They told me Nicholas is an adult, he can do what he wants. I said, �What about this guy, Smythe, maybe he did something to Nicholas.� They had me fill out a report and sent me home. Next day I called. They didn�t have a clue what I was talking about. They said I had to come back in and file a new report. I was ready to lose my mind.�

�I�m sorry you had to go through this, Tara.�

�You got no idea. I�m calling them every day and getting the runaround. Finally this one detective goes, �Ma�am, I was you, I wouldn�t sit on my hands.� I started with the posters. Every wacko in town�s calling me up, saying they know Nicholas or they seen him. Then this guy calls and says he�s a private investigator. Portis?�

�Don�t know him.�

�Asshole... All he did was ask for money. The next guy was the same.�

She ashed into the mug. Her foot twitched anxiously.

�Kills me, you know?� she said. �Not just the money, how much time I wasted.�

She yanked out the pack and lit another cigarette. I let her smoke in peace for a bit, then said, �I�m curious what took Nicholas to Santa Cruz to begin with. Was that his thing? Surfing? I know he was a skateboarder.�

�Please. He never got wet.�

�So why do you think?�

�Beats the hell out of me. Senior year he dropped out. Said school�s for sheep. �Yeah, sheep who like to eat.� I made him get a job, you�re not gonna hang around all goddamn day in your underwear playing video games. He started over at the Dick�s on Blackstone. Every day he came home whining. �They don�t respect me.� No shit. Why should they? You don�t have a high school diploma. He quit and went to Chipotle. What do you know, it�s the same thing. Always been this way. His brain shuts off. He doesn�t think, he just does things. One day he comes home with this dumbass anchor tattoo, talking about his heart belongs to the sea. I said, �You dipshit, you can�t hardly swim.� He got all offended. �Shows what you know, real sailors don�t know how to swim.� Fine, Popeye. Go wherever the fuck you want. Just don�t come crying to me.�

She wiped her eyes roughly. �Shit.�

I offered her a tissue from a small pack I carry. A habit from my coroner days.

�Thanks,� she said.

�Do you need a break?�

She blew her nose. �Do your thing.�

I said, �In the last fifteen months, has Nicholas been in touch with anyone else?�

�Everybody says they haven�t heard from him.�

�His friends?�

�I don�t know who he hung out with over there. He didn�t tell me.�

�What about friends from Fresno?�

�They�re a bunch of idiots.�

�Be that as it may, they may know something.�

�They don�t. Call them yourself, you don�t believe me.�

�I believe you,� I said. �Who else is in his life? Siblings?�

�Just him.�

Her answers about extended family were similarly curt. No uncles and aunts locally, no grandparents to speak of.

A lonely, claustrophobic self-portrait.

�Could he have reached out to one of these people without telling you?�

�I asked my sister. She said no. She said anything happens, it�s on me, for fucking him up while I was pregnant.�

�I�m sorry, Tara.�

�She�s right.�

Smoke twined lazily toward a baked beige sky. Hard to believe that one of the most beautiful places on earth, Yosemite National Park, was less than seventy miles away.

I asked if Nicholas had any medical conditions or took medication.

�Adderall for his ADHD.�

�Anything else?�

�Like what.�

�Diabetes. Migraines. Seizures. Other mental health issues. Anything at all.�

�No.�

�Any history of self-harm or suicide attempts?�

�No.�

�What about the rest of the family? Illness or mental health issues?�

�Warren�s a fuckin asshole. Does that count?�

I smiled. �We�ll stick to official diagnoses.�

�No.�

�Does Nicholas have a criminal history?�

�Not really.�

I waited.

�When he was fourteen he and some friends got caught climbing the school fence. One kid had a can of spray paint in his backpack. Idiots,� she said. �They were going to charge them with breaking and entering till the principal got them to drop it.�

�What about as an adult?�

�No.�

�Hobbies, other than skateboarding?�

�Video games.�

�Did he have friends through either of those activities?�

�I told you, he didn�t talk to me about it.�

She looked uncomfortable. Bumping up against the limits of her knowledge.

�What kind of vehicle did Nicholas drive?� I asked.

�A Civic.�

�Do you have the license plate?�

�I got it written down. Regina had me get all that stuff together. She sent it back when she was done. It�s in a box, in his room. You can have all of it.�

�Great. Anything else you want me to know? What should I be asking, that I�m not?�

�I�m sure I�ll think of something as soon as you leave.�

�Call me, or email me. No matter how insignificant it seems. I�d also like to speak with Regina. I�ll need your permission.�

�You have it.�

�It�ll be faster if you call her yourself.�

�Yeah, okay.�

�Thank you. How�d you find her, by the way?�

�Internet.� Tara tugged out her menthols. The pack was empty, and she crushed it.

Regina Klein had begun her investigation the same place I would have: at the computer.

The box contained copies of Nicholas Moore�s vital records, public records searches, a preliminary timeline. His driver�s license listed Tara�s address. He�d never paid a utility bill, in Santa Cruz or elsewhere, never bought or sold a property. His tenancy with Randy Smythe had been informal to the point of invisibility.

The Civic was a 2009, black, bought used in 2020. Registration had expired as of December. No record of resale or transfer.

The postmile in the TikTok video mapped to Shoreline Highway at the southern end of the Lost Coast, right before the inland detour that gave the region its name.

Thirty miles to Swann�s Flat as the crow flies.

Crows could bypass the punishing road.

Still, feasible. Though I couldn�t fathom why Nicholas would want to go there.

His bank account had lain dormant since his disappearance, the last debit card charges posting two days after the final text exchange with his mother. He�d spent six hundred dollars at a Santa Cruz camping outfitter. Klein noted the purchases: pack, boots, sleeping bag, and tent.

To know that, she would�ve had to sweet-talk some gullible employee into retrieving the sale record.

So sorry to bother you, my wallet was stolen, I�m worried someone else may have used my card. Would you mind terribly checking? Here�s the number.

Canvass of Randy Smythe�s neighborhood turned up only one person who recognized Nicholas: the clerk at a nearby mini-market. He recalled Nick coming in a few times a week for milk, bread, peanut butter, premade sandwiches.

A thumb drive held photos of Smythe�s property, backyard, and garage workshop, plus an audio file of Klein�s interview with him. Under pressure, Smythe stuck to his guns: He didn�t know where Nick had gone. Their relationship was professional, not personal.

At times Smythe came across as cagey, though that could�ve been due to Klein�s aggressive style. Her voice was girlish and high-pitched; his, marble-mouthed and narcotized. It was like listening to Betty Boop grill Matthew McConaughey.

You let him live in your house she said.

In the garage.

I don�t have anyone living in my garage she said. You just let anyone move in? You didn�t get references?

He said he wanted to learn. That�s how I learned.

Paying it forward.

Yeah.

Did he have a girlfriend?

I don�t know, man.

Boyfriend? Come on, Randy. A year? You never saw him with anyone?

It�s none of my business.

You have eyes.

That�s all I know. I�m busy.

Klein had called hospitals and shelters. She�d visited local skateparks and skate shops to show Nicholas�s photo around, and had begun working her way through gyms and bars. The lack of an active social circle was striking. A short list of friends and co-workers drew wholly on his previous life in Fresno � the people Tara Moore had referred to as a bunch of idiots. The first six names were starred. Presumably that meant Klein had spoken to them, but her reports didn�t indicate any pertinent findings.

In any event, she�d had almost no time to follow up. Invoices stamped Paid showed two weeks of work in January and February.

She�d tacked on a third week, gratis.

I left her a voicemail and began calling idiots.

Santa Cruz is a mellower version of Berkeley: surfers and locals, students and tourists, drifting in a tranquil stupor brought on by an overload of natural beauty.

The world might be ending, but not here.

How could it, with that view?

Regina Klein, licensed private investigator, smashed the myth.

�Adultery,� she said.

I�d asked about her caseload.

�Insurance fraud,� she said. �Bread-and-butter shit. People are the fuckin same everywhere.�

We sat outside a coffee roaster and vegan bakery on Beach Street. It was a bright, blustery day, the ocean bejeweled, palm trees doing a slow hula. Breezes carried the cloying scents of cotton candy and kettle corn, punctured by fetid spurts of sea lion. The table was cramped and my knees butted the post.

Not a problem for Regina at four foot eleven. Lemon-yellow Keds grazed the sidewalk; dyed-black bangs framed a doll-like face; oversized horn-rims further magnified her brown, owlish eyes. To judge from appearance alone, she�d be good at disarming people and getting them to lower their guard.

Assuming she could tone down the stridency a hair.

She wasn�t making any such effort with me.

That was her case. Her legwork. If Tara Moore could afford to hire a PI, why hadn�t she called Regina to finish what she�d started?

�What the actual fuck, man? Have you ever heard of professional fucking courtesy?�

I offered her a second oatmilk latte.

�Do I look like I need any more fucking caffeine? Get me a peach poppyseed scone.�

I bought one and brought it to her.

�One thing about these hipster scum,� she said, �they know how to make a pastry.�

She stuffed a chunk into her mouth. �So what�s your deal, Mr. Pro Bono? You�re a trust-fund baby? Why do you want my case?�

�It caught my eye.�

�Nice try, friendo. You don�t get to horn in on my shit and then act like a fuckin schoolgirl. Pay to play.�

I sketched the contours, leaving out Shasta�s name or anything material to Chris Villareal. When I mentioned the necklace, Klein waved dismissively toward the boardwalk.

�They sell those everywhere. Tourist crap.�

�Long way from Humboldt. How�d it get there?�

�Really, Poirot?� she said. �Okay. Here�s a few theories. It�s a different necklace. Or it�s the same, but your unnamed person of interest was a tourist here, bought tourist crap, and took it home. Or they bought it on the internet. Or Nick pawned it and your person bought it. Or he dropped it on the sidewalk and they found it. He met them and gave it to them and moved on. Now he�s in Outer Mongolia eating yak cheese. You want more? I can do this all day, as long as you�re buying.�

�There�s no evidence of him being anywhere else.�

�There�s no evidence of him being anywhere, period.�

�Except the necklace.�

She rolled her eyes.

I said, �The TikTok�s his first post in a year. He�s dumped all his other social media, but he wants the world to see where he is. What�s the significance of that spot? Where�s he headed?�

�Oh, you�re one of those guys.�

�Which guys.�

�Armchair shrink.� She affected a plummy, pompous voice. � �My guiding principle is that the why is more important than the how. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.� �

�I take it you�re a how kind of person.�

�All there is, sugar tits,� she said. �Who did what to who, how hard and how long. The rest is Monday-morning quarterbacking. Your wife cheats on you? I�ll sit in my car for nine hours and get you the proof. You want to know what�s in her head, buy a saw.�

�You�re right,� I said. �It�s thin. That�s why I�m here.�

�What do you want from me?�

�Whatever�s not in the file.�

�The file is what�s in the file.�

�You expect me to believe you haven�t thought about it?�

�Sorry, Freud, my compartmentalizing skills are world-class.�

�Did you know that Warren Pezanko is alive?�

She shrugged.

�You knew.�

�Of course I knew.�

�You didn�t put that in the file.�

�I was off the clock,� she said, cramming in the last bite of scone.

�What will it take for you to trust me?�

�You could share your Netflix login.�

�I�m serious.�

�So am I,� she said. She wiped her mouth. �I�ve missed the last two seasons of The Great British Baking Show.�

�How about another scone?�

�Cherry walnut.�

I brought it to her.

�It�s a start,� she said, breaking it in half.

�I�m asking about Pezanko because I think it could be relevant.�

�How?�

She had put down the scone and was paying attention. A turning point?

�Could explain why he�s heading in that direction,� I said. �I think it�s more than theory. The video�s called �In the name of the father.� �

�It�s a TikTok, for fuck�s sake, not the Bible. And how�s he finding out? Tara never told him the guy�s name.�

�Maybe it wasn�t Nick who found Pezanko. Maybe Pezanko got in touch with him.�

�Same problem. How�s he gonna know where Nick is?�

�I don�t know. I put in a call to the warden at Pelican Bay to see if he�ll talk to me.�

�And?�

�I haven�t heard back yet.�

�You�re a disappointment and a half.�

�All I�m trying to do is avoid reinventing the wheel.�

�Easy for you. I gave you a head start. What�re you going to give me?�

�Gabe Espinoza.�

�The fuck is that?�

�Number thirteen on your list of friends and co-workers.�

�Once again: my legwork.�

�No argument from me.�

She picked at the scone, trying, unsuccessfully, to squash her curiosity. �What�d he say?�

�Nick had a thing for this girl, Naomi Cardenas. She lives here.�

�In Santa Cruz?�

I nodded. �I�m headed over to her next.�

She was quiet for a long time.

�Okay. That�s a good lead.� Begrudging admiration.

�I�m sure you would�ve found her eventually.�

�Don�t you condescend to me.�

�I�m not. I�m rubbing it in your face.�

She laughed. �Get bent.�

�Despite your uncontrollable hostility, I�ll keep you in the loop.�

�No fuckin thank you.� She wiped the crumbs from her hands, shaking her head vehemently. �He�s all yours now.�

Before leaving the beachfront I made a quick circuit of the neighborhood souvenir shops. Of the many puka shell necklaces for sale, few featured pendants and none of those were a rooster. The shopkeepers claimed they�d never seen or sold anything like it. One guy suggested I try a �real jewelry store.� I asked for recommendations and he told me to google it.

Naomi Cardenas lived on the south side of campus. I loitered by the building entrance, pretending to talk on the phone and catching the lobby door as a resident left.

The roommate who answered my knock had me wait in the hall.

I heard the chain go on.

A moment later Naomi opened the door, peering at me through the crack. �Yes?�

I introduced myself and showed my license. �I wanted to ask you about Nick Moore.�

She flinched slightly; glanced back into the apartment. �One second.�

Taking off the chain, she stepped out into the hall and shut the door behind. She was less glamorous in person but prettier for it, wearing mesh shorts and a tank top and a messy bun. Dark circles under her eyes. Long night at the lab?

�What�s going on?� she asked.

�You know Nick.�

�Sort of.�

�When were you last in touch with him?�

�Is everything okay?�

�His mom hasn�t heard from him. She�s worried. It would help to know how long it�s been since you spoke to him.�

�A year? More.�

�What�s that mean, you �sort of� know him?�

�We went to high school together. But I didn�t know him then, we only met here.�

�How?�

�I was on my way to class and I heard someone calling my name. This guy comes up to me. He�s like, �I went to Hoover. You probably don�t remember me.� �

�Did you?�

�Kind of? I think I recognized his face. You know what it�s like when you�re out in the world and you run into someone from your hometown. You feel this... bond. Even if you don�t really know them. We were just, like, chatting about places and people. After that we started texting a little.�

�Was there anything romantic between you?�

�With Nick? Nooo. Nooo. Totally platonic. Truthfully, I felt bad for him. He seemed kinda lost. I think he was having trouble meeting people. I invited him to this Halloween party we were having. I didn�t think he�d actually show up.�

�But he did.�

�Yeah. And... Yeah.�

I said, �What happened?�

With another backward glance, Naomi led me down the hall and into the stairwell.

She said, quietly, �He hooked up with my roommate.�

�The one who answered the door?�

Naomi nodded.

�What�s her name?�

She stubbed the concrete with her flip-flop. �I shouldn�t even be telling you this.�

�I wouldn�t ask if it wasn�t important.�

�...Maddie.�

�Maddie what?�

�Zwick.�

�Do you think she�d be willing to talk to me?�

�That�s not a good idea. Her boyfriend�s over right now.�

�Was he her boyfriend at the time?�

�They were broken up when it happened. Plus she was really drunk.�

A door slammed on an upper floor. I waited for the echo to fade. �Did Maddie and Nick have a relationship or was it a onetime deal?�

She touched a fingertip to her lips. �Well, it�s not like they were dating.�

�But?�

�For a while they were hanging out, and he�d stay over sometimes. Then she got back together with Alex. But it became this whole big drama. Nick kept texting her. She blocked him and he started sending her letters. Actual letters, written on paper. Who does that?�

�What did they say?�

�I didn�t read them.�

�Does she still have them?�

�I�m sure she threw them out. One night he showed up, banging on the door. Alex was there. He and Nick got into a fight.�

�How serious?�

�It was mostly yelling and shoving. Alex was like, �Stay away from her or I�ll kill you.� �

�Was that a real threat?�

�Alex? No. He�s pre-med. Trust me, Nick was out of control.�

�When was this?�

�Last year. Spring quarter.�

Prior to the disappearance.

�Has Maddie been in touch with Nick since then?�

�I don�t think so.�

�It would really help if I could talk to her.�

�I can ask, but not while Alex is here.�

�I�m in town for the rest of the day. If you can get the message to her, I�d be grateful.�

She accepted my card. �I hope Nick�s okay. I mean, he shouldn�t have acted like that. But he�s not a bad guy. Just... confused.�

I nodded.

She said, �He said some cuckoo things that night.�

�Such as.�

�He loved her, he was going to kill himself if he couldn�t be with her. Maddie was totally traumatized. So, I hope he�s okay, for his sake. But for hers, too.�

�Thanks for agreeing to meet with me,� I said.

Maddie Zwick nodded.

She sat curled up on the living room futon, long legs folded beneath her, gnawing the cuff of her sweatshirt and gazing at me with watchful blue eyes. A miniature floral tattoo adorned the inside of her wrist. The sweatshirt read Banana Slugs Swimming & Diving.

After making introductions, Naomi Cardenas had excused herself to class. We weren�t alone � a third roommate was working in her bedroom � but Maddie still seemed uneasy, and I offered to move the conversation someplace public.

�It�s okay,� she said.

I said, �What�s your event?�

�One hundred fly and two hundred IM.�

�Cool.�

She reevaluated me. �Do you swim?�

�Dog paddle.�

She smiled cautiously. �That�s not an event.�

�Not yet. I did play basketball at Berkeley. Used to arrive for morning practice and the swimmers would be leaving. They�d already had two hours in the pool.�

�My alarm�s set for four thirty.�

�Brutal.�

�Yeah, it sucks.� Her posture eased. �In high school I lettered in basketball. Volleyball, too.�

�Triple threat. Lemme see. You�re what. Five-nine?�

�And a half.�

�Two guard.�

�Yup,� she said. �Point?�

�You know it.�

She smiled again, more fully.

I said, �Like I said, I really appreciate this, Maddie. I know you had a rough experience with Nick and I�m sure it�s not fun to talk about. Naomi told me some, but I�d like to hear it from you. Take as much time as you need.�

She spat out her cuff and shoved it up her forearm, irked by her own bad habit. �We had a party and she invited him. She must�ve forgotten, or she was ignoring him, because I went to my room to get something. He was in there.�

�Doing what?�

�Nothing. Standing there, with his hands in his pockets. I was like, �Uh, excuse me?� He apologized. He said he came in to get some space �cause he felt out of place. He didn�t know anyone except Naomi.�

�What was your first impression?�

�Part of me was creeped out, but at the same time it was kind of sweet and awkward. How he admitted it right away, most guys would be like, �Oh no, I�m good.� We started talking, and you know. One thing led to another.�

�Naomi said it wasn�t serious between you.�

�Not for me.�

�For him?�

�I mean. It�s my fault.�

�Why do you say that?�

�I should�ve been clearer. I�d just broken up with Alex, I was feeling shitty about myself. Nick... He was cute. And � I did like him. Just not the way he liked me.�

�How long did it last?�

�About seven months. But that makes it sound like more than what it was. We didn�t do, like, couple things. We never went anywhere together. I didn�t want to run into Alex, and Nick wasn�t allowed to have guests, so he�d come over and we�d sit and watch TV and talk.�

�What did you guys talk about?�

�Normal stuff. Life. He wasn�t my usual type. I had a typical suburban childhood. My dad sells insurance, my mom�s a nurse. Very Orange County mid. Naomi was like, �It�s so adorable, you�re going through your dirty hippie boy phase.� �

�Opposites attract?�

�Yeah, maybe. For a little while.�

�And then?�

�It felt out of balance,� she said. �Almost from the beginning.�

�Can you give me an example?�

�Well, like... He gave me this necklace?�

�The rooster.�

Her eyes widened. �You saw it?�

I showed her the still from the TikTok video.

�Yeah,� she said. �I gave it back when we broke up. I never wanted it in the first place.�

�That�s what you mean by out of balance.�

�Exactly. I get that he meant to be sweet. But I�d known him like three weeks. You should not be buying me gifts. He goes, �I didn�t buy it, I made it.� If you think about it, that�s even weirder. When did you start working on it? The day after we hooked up?�

The cuff had found its way into her mouth again.

�He�s a talented guy,� she said. �It was good. But it�s a chicken. I don�t want to wear that. When I tried it on, he looked so happy. I didn�t want to hurt his feelings. I�d wear it when he was around and take it off when he left.�

She pulled the cuff from between her teeth. �I�m not the best at setting boundaries.�

�Was the necklace supposed to represent something?�

�He said it was good luck for sailors. He told me that on ships they keep the pigs and chickens in crates. If it sinks, they float to shore and don�t drown.�

�At least he didn�t give you a pig.�

She laughed. �Oh my God. I can�t even.�

�The sailor fixation � what was that about?�

�We were comparing tattoos once. Mine,� she said, touching her wrist, �is for my grammy Lily. He showed me the anchor and was all like, �Life is a storm.� �

�What�s that mean?�

�I just thought he was being extra. Part of his moody-guy thing.�

�Tell me more about that, Maddie.�

�He took everything so seriously. The world�s black and white, everything has to mean something. He was very self-conscious that he�d dropped out. I think he felt he wasn�t good enough or smart enough so he had to prove himself constantly.�

�To you.�

�Actually, no. It wasn�t about me, it was about him. I�m an English major, right? So he�d always try to talk to me about books. Catcher in the Rye? High school stuff. He must�ve realized what I thought, because he started asking for recommendations. Anything I gave him, he�d read in a couple days and ask for more. It bothered me. You�re not seeing me, the person; you�re using me to fill in the holes in your life.�

She paused. �Does that make sense?�

�Perfect sense. Is that why you decided to end it?�

�Kind of. I let it drag out. But then it got really weird, really quickly, and I knew I had to just cut it off.�

�Weird how?�

�I was showing him the reading list from this seminar I took on Chicano literature. Sandra Cisneros, Richard Vasquez, people like that. I asked Nick if he�d ever read Octavio Prado.�

�I�m afraid I don�t know who that is.�

�He wrote this book, Lake of the Moon, about growing up in Fresno. That�s why I thought of it. I was like, �Oh, this guy, he�s from Fresno, too.� I wasn�t implying anything about Nick personally. I just thought he might like it �cause of the connection.�

�Is that how he took it? Personally?�

�That�s the weird part. I let him borrow it. The next morning he came back. He�d read it overnight and he was freaking out.�

�About?�

She exhaled. �So you know he never met his dad?�

�He discussed that with you.�

�No discussion, he just told me. It felt too heavy for what we were. I wasn�t thinking about it when I gave him the book. There�s a part where Prado writes about getting a girl pregnant. Nick... He was convinced the girl was his mom and Prado�s his real father.�

�That�s what he said?�

Maddie nodded.

�What gave him that idea?� I asked.

�No clue. I mean, I thought he was joking. Obviously. Then he starts showing me his notebook. He�s copied out all these passages from the book. Names and dates. And charts he�d created. Pages and pages, he must�ve been working on it all night. I�m looking at it and he�s pacing around my room, talking a mile a minute. �Don�t you get it? Everything lines up. This is why I came here, this is why we met, it�s destiny.� It was insane.�

�Sounds like it.�

�Yeah. Then it started to get scary. He�s asking questions about Prado and getting angry when I can�t answer. I told him, �I don�t know anything else, that�s the only thing we read in class.� Eventually he got fed up and left.�

�Had you ever seen him act like that before?�

�No. Never.�

�You described him as moody.�

�Okay, but this... It was a whole �nother level.�

�What�s the character�s name? The woman he thought was his mom.�

�...Sandra, I think.�

�Do you have the book?�

�He never returned it.�

�When did you lend it to him? Approximately?�

�I took the seminar winter quarter, so right after that.�

�Spring 2024.�

�Yeah.�

�What happened after he left?�

�I didn�t hear from him for a few days. I was worried, but also relieved. It felt like a wake-up call. I texted him that I needed a break.�

�How�d he take it?�

�Better than I expected. He apologized. I told him we could be friends. He didn�t text for a week or two. Then it was nonstop.�

�Do you have the messages?�

�I erased them when I blocked him.�

�He began sending real letters.�

She nodded.

�Do you remember what they said?�

�I only opened the first one. I started to read it, but it was too upsetting. The rest I put straight in the trash. I�m sorry.�

�You have nothing to be sorry for, Maddie.�

She bit her lip. �I just wanted it to stop.�

�Of course. And this went on till the night of the fight with Alex.�

�Yes.�

�Are you okay to talk about that?�

She started to go for her cuff but caught herself. �I think so.�

�Whenever you�re ready.�

She drew the hem of the sweatshirt over her knees. �Okay, so. It was late. I�m asleep, Alex�s studying in the kitchen. He and I had gotten back together. Naomi heard a knock and saw it was Nick through the peephole. She told him to go away, but he kept banging. Alex opened the door, and the two of them started arguing. It woke me up so I came out of my room. I almost didn�t recognize Nick. He�d shaved his head, and he was sort of sticking through the door, trying to force his way inside. It was like that scene from that movie. The guy with the ax?�

�The Shining?�

�Yeah. I was afraid someone was going to get hurt. I said I could talk to him, but only if he calmed down. He goes, �I�d never hurt you, I love you.� Alex heard that and went ballistic. He pushed Nick into the hall, and they started wrestling. Now I�m trying to calm him down, too.�

She�d crossed her arms protectively over her chest and was staring at the door, as if she could see them rolling around.

�What a thing to go through, Maddie.�

She swallowed. �Yeah.�

�Do you remember what Nick was saying?�

�Not really. More of that destiny crap. Basically he wanted me to come with him.�

�Where?�

�I don�t know. He was babbling, not making any sense.�

�This might sound strange, but did he mention the writer? Prado?�

�I... There was a lot going on. No, I don�t think so. I was just trying to say whatever I could to get him to calm down. All of a sudden he stops and looks at me. �You�re not wearing it, why aren�t you wearing it?� �

�The necklace.�

She nodded. �I couldn�t tell him the real answer, which was that I never wore it anymore. I didn�t want him to lose his shit. I said I took it off to sleep. His whole vibe changed, like that. He sort of... deflated? It was awful. I thought he would start crying. He asked me for it back. I gave it to him and made him promise he would leave.�

�After that?�

�I never talked to him again.�

�He never tried to contact you.�

�No. Well � he put up a TikTok, flipping me off.�

�You think that was directed at you.�

�I mean. Yeah. Who else would it be?�

�Do you recognize the location in the video?�

She shook her head. �Do you?�

�Mendocino County. About a five-hour drive north of here.�

�What was he doing all the way up there?�

�Good question. Did he ever talk about heading that way? When he was trying to persuade you to come with him?�

She bit her lip again. Hard enough to leave a rosy crescent. �I�m sorry, I really don�t remember.� She wiped her nose on her sleeve. �Everything was so chaotic.�

�You�re doing great,� I said. �And you can always call me later if something comes back to you.�

She nodded.

�One last question. Do you know the date of the fight with Alex?�

�Not off the top of my head. But... Hold on.�

She took out her phone, began scrolling. �I couldn�t sleep �cause I was so shaken up. I texted my coach and told her I wasn�t feeling well. One second, I have to find it... Okay, I wrote to her at four a.m. on June 12. So the night before.�

June 11. The day after Nicholas�s last message to his mother.

I thanked Maddie and left her looking forlorn.

Octavio Prado was the writerly equivalent of a one-hit wonder. Lake of the Moon, first published in the fall of 2005, was long out of print. I browsed reviews left by a tiny, loyal following.

My favorite book of all time

Why is he not more famous?

Unsung master, so much better than today�s �literature�

Used hardcovers went for a penny, plus shipping and handling.

I ordered one, expedited.

Two thousand five. Prado had had the good or bad fortune of making his debut immediately prior to the advent of Web 2.0 � that brief window when the internet held nothing but promise and privacy still existed. His Wikipedia entry was a stub, and he didn�t maintain a webpage or use social media. The bulk of the links about him were broken. More recent pages referred to him in the past tense and regurgitated the same set of factoids.

Wunderkind, published at nineteen to raves and nominations. Hollywood knocking.

He didn�t win the awards. There was no movie, no cushy post teaching creative writing at a liberal arts college. No heroic sophomore effort.

A supernova, there and gone.

If books were mirrors, Cathedral belonged in a fun house.

One thousand, nine hundred twenty-three mind-numbing, handwritten pages, clogged with strikeouts, erasures, words running left to right but also backward. Or vertically. Or diagonally. Many sheets were blank or featured a single word. Others had been victimized by marker bleed.

Prado catalogued the shelves in an AM/PM mini-mart.

He drew motorcycles. Drew a poor rendition of Keanu Reeves in The Matrix.

A wrinkled blotch marked where he�d spilled some sort of amber liquid.

Occasionally I stumbled across passages that demonstrated his skill and concision: sharp snippets of dialogue, crystalline descriptions of people or places. But these lucid moments were few and far between, and I couldn�t pinpoint any chronology or geography, making it impossible to extract actionable leads.

On page 450 I broke for coffee and ibuprofen.

On page 889 I stopped dead.

A rectangular block of text crowded the screen. At its center was a pencil sketch about the size of a baseball card.

Prado�s drafting skills were rudimentary. But I got the gist.

Saw-toothed water.

Lumpy hills.

Two convergent lines forming a road.

On it, a stick figure.

One arm up.

One giant middle finger extended to the sky.

Sea, mountains, highway; fuck you.

I opened Nicholas Moore�s final TikTok, let it play.

Sea, mountains, highway.

Fuck you.

The drawing was far too crude to call it a match.

Was I committing the same error as Eli Ru�z or Nick Moore or countless others?

Craving meaning, finding it in the mirror?

I combed through the surrounding text, a stew of Spanish and English.

A phrase was tucked into the bottom right corner.

En el nombre del Padre, y del Hijo, y del Esp�ritu Santo A Men 83261

In the name of the father.

I zoomed in. The writing was faint. But then I saw it. A speck between two digits made it 83.261.

And that reminded me of something.

I replayed Nick�s final TikTok, pausing on the frame where he stooped toward the camera.

As I adjusted the slider, the postmile sign came into focus, one character at a time.

The newest addition to the University of California, UC Merced, was built in 2005 to serve the undereducated, low-income agricultural communities of San Joaquin Valley. From the East Bay it was a two-hour drive inland, all fields and cattle farms till the campus sprouted from the earth like some modernist bumper crop. I�d never been there before and was struck by the contrast between its boxy, no-nonsense layout and the august, tree-lined pathways of my alma mater.

Kolligian Library was one of the larger boxes. I rode the elevator up to Special Collections.

The desk librarian was a dyspeptic middle-aged guy with a waxed mustache. In exchange for my reservation number, he handed over a pair of white cotton gloves, a golf pencil, and a baggie of weighted shoelaces.

�I�ll retrieve the item from storage and deliver it to you in the reading room. Are you planning on taking pictures?�

Without waiting for an answer, he shoved a tray of forms at me. �You�ll need to fill this out. Every image requires a separate form. No flash photography.�

I held up the shoelaces. �What are these for?�

�Keeping pages flat.� As if I should�ve known. �Never press down on the binding.�

�It�s a manuscript. I don�t think it�s bound.�

�Do we have a problem, sir?�

�No problem.�

�End of the hall. I�ll meet you there.�

�Thanks. One other thing: Can I view the request history for the item?�

He reacted as though I�d asked for nudes of his grandmother. �That information is confidential.�

�Okay.�

�How would you like it if I told people what you were reading?�

�I admire your commitment to privacy.�

He sniffed. �End of the hall.�

Along the way I passed a walnut display rack stocked with the current issue of California, the UC alumni magazine. My own copy had come in the mail a few weeks ago. The cover story, �Cuisine of Culture,� was about lab-grown meat.

I hadn�t read it or any of the articles, skipping straight to the class notes to check on my peers. Who�d made partner; had a baby; won a prize; written a book. Then there were the obits, citing car accidents and cancers. No cause given translated to suicide.

The reading room was glass-walled and light-drenched. A white-haired woman pored over a folio. I chose the seat farthest from her, by a window overlooking a wide, grassy expanse. Sprinklers hiccuped in the wavy heat.

The woman cleared her throat and turned a page.

The desk librarian arrived, pushing a cart loaded with archival boxes.

He hiss-whispered, �Gloves. Please.�

I obliged, and he gently set out the boxes � five of them, made of sturdy gray cardboard with protective metal edges. They touched down on the table with a soft, confident thunk. Call labels displayed a barcode, catalog number, and author information.

I nodded thanks and the librarian departed, looking back once to ensure obedience to protocol.

I pried up the cover of box one. It resisted, then rose with a farting sound, emitting the scent of old paper and attracting the white-haired lady�s disapproval.

I set the cover aside and leaned in.

I expected Prado�s frenzied handwriting, chaos in black and white.

Instead I saw a glossy full-color photo of a tentacle grasping a sealed jar.

It was the May � June 2024 issue. The cover story, �Sucker for Learning,� was about octopus intelligence.

I removed the magazine.

Beneath it was another, identical issue.

Below that, a third.

I reached into the box and removed the entire stack.

Octopi.

Same for boxes two, three, four, and five.

I refilled the boxes and balanced them in my arms. The white-haired woman glanced up as I butted through the door and into the hall.

Seeing me coming, the desk librarian began to hop up and down in alarm.

�Excuse me, sir. You can�t do that. Sir. Please wait while I get the cart.�

I dropped the boxes on the counter. �We have a problem.�

�Excuse me. Special Collection items are not to leave the reading room.�

�They already have. Take a look.�

He frowned. Opened a box. Frowned harder.

�What is this?� he said.

�It�s supposed to be a two-thousand-page handwritten manuscript,� I said.

He started removing magazines one by one, piling them sloppily on the counter.

�What is this,� he mumbled.

�I know what it looks like to me.�

He didn�t answer. He seized the next box, shook off the cover, and dumped the contents out. Magazines slid to the floor.

�The fuck,� he said.

I held up my PI license. His pupils dilated.

I said, �How about we rethink your commitment to privacy?�

I texted a screenshot to Maddie Zwick, who confirmed that the male hand was Nick�s. The tattoo combined with the one on his left knuckles to yield the phrase Hold Fast � another sailor�s mark, encouragement in times of trouble.

The storm will come. Grab a rope and cling for dear life.

I called Tara Moore.

She�d never heard of Octavio Prado, Lake of the Moon, or Swann�s Flat. When I sent her the picture of Nick�s hand, though, she yelped.

�Who is this bitch?� she said.

�She�s a minor.�

�Yeah? And? You trying to say something about my son?�

�No, just that��

�Like it�s his fault?�

�I�m not saying that.�

�That don�t mean nothing, they learn young... What�s he doing with her?�

�I don�t know how they met, but there�s a reference to the town in the manuscript. I�m thinking Nicholas went there following in Prado�s footsteps.�

�Goddamn pussy-whipped idiot. What�s her name? I�ll get acquainted with her.�

�No need for that. And to be clear, there�s nothing that adds up to evidence of a crime.�

�Oh bullshit, bullshit.� She began to weep. �Goddamn fucking idiot.�

�I know this is stressful, Tara��

�He�s dead.�

�We don�t know that.�

�He is.�

�Until we know for sure, it doesn�t help him � or you � to assume that.�

�It�s me.� She sobbed. �I did this to him. I lied to him about Warren, that�s why he left.�

�Not necessarily. He easily could�ve found something else to chase.�

�A stupid book! Oh Jesus... You think I�m a bad mother.�

�I don�t.�

�Then you�re stupid, I am a bad mother. I�m a bad person.�

�Tara, I�m going to get to work on this now, okay?�

Silence.

�Tara?�

�...Yeah.�

�Promise me you won�t interfere.�

�I promise. I don�t know nothing, anyway.� She huffed. �Story of my life.�

Ten days later I waited on my front steps in the predawn. Red and gold streamers fluttered from the eaves; a skull and crossbones was taped to the front door, along with an arrow directing guests to the backyard. Arrrgh matey, party be in the stern.

Regina Klein pulled up in a black rented Jeep Wrangler four-by-four.

I took my bag to the curb. The passenger window buzzed down, and she stretched across to hand me a gift-wrapped box. �For Charlotte.�

�You got her a present.�

�That was for dinner. This is for her birthday.�

�Thank you.�

I jogged back to the house and left the gift in the entry hall by Amy�s boots. When I returned to the car Regina had moved to the passenger seat. Her eyes were closed.

�Wake me up in an hour,� she said.

She was snoring before I hit the freeway.

A breeze ruffled Gallo�s desktop. In the schoolyard, recess got under way, the kids pairing off except for one girl skipping rope alone.

�He�s vetting us,� I said.

�Or calling the Bergstroms to give them a heads-up,� Regina said.

�Or searching for oatmilk.�

�Shouldn�t be that hard,� she said. �It�s everywhere now.�

�That�s the bougiest thing I�ve ever heard.�

�Tell it to my colon.�

At a quarter to, the school bell sounded again. Students began filing inside.

Gallo reentered, shut the door, and placed a foam cup in front of Regina. �Black it is.�

�Thanks.�

He lowered the window. �I moved here in 2007. There were hardly any families. Still aren�t many. That school� � he tapped the glass � �was falling down.�

He turned. �Who do you think paid to fix it up?�

�Kurt Swann,� I said.

�Library needed new computers.� He sat at his desk. �Someone had to pay for that, too.�

�He�s dead now,� Regina said.

�Yes, ma�am, he is.�

I said, �But they still have pull.�

�Not with me,� Gallo said. �Are we clear on that?�

He waited for acknowledgment from both of us before going on: �But I wasn�t always the one sitting in this chair. Now, I want us to respect each other.�

�Of course,� I said.

�Good. So tell me. How much shit do you plan to stir up?�

�As much as we have to,� Regina said.

I thought Gallo might get annoyed, but he smiled and shook his head. �I thought you might say that. So again, let me be clear: Everything I say, this point forward, is off the record.�

I nodded. Regina made a zip-the-lip gesture.

Gallo straightened the disordered pages on his desktop. �This is when I was a rookie. I respond to a disturbance at the 76. Two trucks, a Dodge Ram and a tow truck, pushed right up against each other. A young woman, eighteen, nineteen, arguing with a pair of older guys. She tells me they hemmed her in so she can�t leave. They don�t deny it, but one guy says first off, she�s his wife, and second, the Dodge is his, not hers. She stole it, so they followed her.

�I separate them, ask for IDs and registration. The first guy gives me his license and I do a double take. Kurt Swann, address in Swann�s Flat. Bear in mind, I�ve been on the job about three months. I�ve seen the town on the map, but every place around here�s named for some or other dead person. I didn�t know there was any actual Swanns. He�s smirking at me, waiting for me to connect the dots. The other guy, it�s his tow truck.�

�Dave Pelman,� I said.

�Yeah. I ask the woman for her license. She doesn�t have it. Doesn�t have any ID. �Okay, what�s your name.� �Leonie.� �Is that your husband?� She won�t answer. I�m trying to get her story and Kurt�s begging from over on the sidewalk: �I love you, I forgive you, come home.� �

�Forgive her for what?� I asked.

�Who knows? But now it�s looking like some sort of domestic dispute. She�s jumpy, but she doesn�t have any visible injuries. I offer to bring her to the station, speak with her in private. She won�t budge. Clams up totally. I have her open the Dodge to get the registration from the glove box. Sure enough, it�s in Kurt�s name only. Then I hear something in the back seat. I peek over. There�s two big suitcases and a baby in a car seat.�

�She was leaving him?�

�Maybe. Maybe she was going to visit her mother and would�ve ended up coming back.�

�Most of them do,� Regina said.

Gallo nodded. �One thing�s for sure: I�m out of my depth. I get on the horn to my supervisor.�

�The guy who used to sit in that chair,� I said.

�Correct. As I�m talking to him, Leonie goes and hands the keys over to Kurt. She gets in the Dodge with him and they drive off.�

�Willingly?�

�So far as I can see. I�m not about to go chasing after them, �cause��

�There�s a baby,� Regina said.

�Correct. I head back to the station and tell the sergeant what happened. He shakes his head. �Fucking rednecks.� �

�He�d dealt with Kurt before,� I said.

�That was the implication. He doesn�t have me do anything right then, but the next day he tells me to take a partner and do a welfare check. I remember being on that road for the first time, thinking anyone who�d live down there had to be out of their damn mind. Then we get to the house and ho-ly shit. Here�s this supposed redneck, and he�s living in a palace.

�Leonie comes to the door. You can smell the booze on her from five feet away. She says she�s fine, please leave them alone. Kurt comes running from the stable, screaming his head off. �You sonsabitches, step onto my land, threaten my family.� He herds her inside, slams the door, and runs around, yanking down the shades. Pretty soon the whole house is blacked out, and we can hear Kurt, ranting and raving.

�We try to radio in, but the reception�s for shit. We�re calling and calling and it�s not going through. We don�t want to leave before we�ve ascertained there�s no danger to her or to the child. So we decide to split up: I�ll stay behind, my partner will drive till he can get a signal.

�Before he can leave, a new vehicle pulls up and a young guy gets out, �bout the same age as Leonie. He�s smiling like it�s the greatest day of his life. �Why hello there, Deputy.� �

�That sounds like Beau,� I said.

�Yup. He tells us Leonie called him and said Kurt�s acting up. �Lemme talk some sense into him.� He knocks. �Open up, Kurt. It�s me.� Door swings in, and I tense up, thinking he�s gonna catch a face full of buckshot. But Kurt steps aside. Ten minutes later they both come out. Kurt�s done a one eighty. Meek as hell, like the kid shot him up with a tranquilizer.

�Beau goes, �These gentlemen don�t mean you any harm. They�re just doing their job. They just want to ask questions. Isn�t that right? What can we do for you, gentlemen?�

�I tell Kurt I�d like a word with Leonie. Beau says, �She�s not feeling well.� �I need to hear that from her.� �Of course, Officer, right this way.� I�m talking to Kurt and this punk�s answering. Then he tries to escort me in. Like it�s his house. I said, �Both of you, stay outside.�

�Leonie�s laid out on the couch. She�s got the baby in a playpen. She says, �I never called you, I have a headache, please leave.� Talking toward the front door, loud enough for them to hear her out on the lawn. She won�t even look at me.�

�She must�ve been terrified,� Regina said.

�Yes, ma�am. The baby starts crying. Leonie doesn�t move a muscle. It�s howling and turning red. I said to her, �Do you need me to pick her up?� That sets Leonie off. She jumps up and screams at me to leave them alone. Screams. I�m tripping over myself to get out of there.�

Gallo tented his fingers. �So now me and my partner have a choice.�

�Bust Kurt,� Regina said. �He�s free in forty-eight hours, goes home to take it out on her.�

�Bust them both and see if she wants to seek protection,� I said. �But she�s not giving off a cooperative vibe.�

�Plus there�s the baby to think about,� Regina said.

�Or?� Gallo smiled. �There�s another option.�

I said, �Apologize for the misunderstanding and be on your way.�

�Bingo,� Gallo said. �I didn�t have any DV training. Was pretty much a kid myself. I�d like to think that if I had another opportunity, I would�ve known what to ask and how to ask it. But she never called.�

�They usually don�t,� Regina said.

Gallo frowned. �True. But since then there�s no evidence she�s not fine.�

I said, �Could we talk about the night of Kurt�s death? Were you on the scene?�

�Everyone was,� Gallo said. �It was an all-hands situation.�

�The coroner�s report is based almost entirely on Dave Pelman�s account. Was he ever considered a suspect?�

�It never got that far. I can tell you we spoke to Pelman�s ex-wife. She runs the hotel.�

�Jenelle Counts?� I said.

�That�s her. She told us Pelman had a thing for Leonie.�

�Were they having an affair?� Regina asked.

�She didn�t come right out and make an accusation. More hinting. And it�s his ex talking, you gotta take what she says with a shaker of salt. In the end, the coroner was strong on it being an accident. We had to abide by that. As you, Clay, are no doubt aware.�

�The report doesn�t mention the Bergstroms at all,� I said. �Were they interviewed?�

�Not by me.�

�They weren�t suspects, either.�

�Like I said: accident.�

�I�m asking your opinion.�

�My opinion didn�t matter. I wasn�t the sergeant.�

�You are now,� Regina said.

�Yeah,� Gallo said. �So I can imagine his thought process. Are these folks in Swann�s Flat a buncha weirdos? You bet. So�s everyone else in a hundred-mile radius. We got lots bigger problems, more so back then. Cartels muscling in, shooting each other up, setting fire to grow sites. Now you have this redneck, and his woman�s losing her mind if you try to touch her baby. My opinion? Nobody�s shedding tears over Kurt Swann.�

We left the station and set out west beneath gathering clouds, Regina at the wheel.

She said, �Takeaways.�

�Beau having Kurt on a leash interests me,� I said. �I�ve thought of them as a management-ownership arrangement. The Swanns hold title, the Bergstroms do the work. But this makes it seem like Beau and Emil have serious leverage.�

�They know how the scam works, can bring it crashing down.�

�Not without implicating themselves, and I can�t see Emil doing that. He�s an egomaniac. Self-interested, first and foremost.�

�The land was doing nothing till he showed up,� she said. �Meaning, Kurt�s no business genius. It takes Emil to coax money out of it. That gives him power over Kurt.�

�Probably makes Kurt resentful, too. And if he�s a loose cannon, he becomes a liability.�

Regina nodded. �How about this: Kurt suspects Leonie of cheating on him. He�s jealous, beating on her. That brings the cops around, which makes the Bergstroms nervous. They have Pelman take Kurt out. Added bonus, they do Leonie a favor and put her in their debt.�

�Why would Pelman agree to that?� I asked. �He�s the one helped Kurt force her back to Swann�s Flat in the first place.�

�Both things can be true. If Pelman had a soft spot for her, he probably didn�t want her leaving, either. But he also doesn�t like how Kurt treats her, and when the Bergstroms give him a chance to get rid of a rival, he goes ahead.�

�Or they paid him, simple as that,� I said. �Or the Bergstroms weren�t involved and Leonie got Pelman to do it herself.�

�She seem capable of that?� Regina asked.

�She struck me as more high-strung than psychopathic. But I talked to her under unusual circumstances. I have no idea what she�s like normally.�

�If Kurt dies, Leonie inherits from him automatically. How does the land wind up in Shasta�s trust?�

�He could�ve had Leonie sign a prenup and left everything to Shasta. Or transferred the property in his lifetime without telling her.�

�That implies he didn�t trust Leonie.�

�Or he was lording it over her.�

�Or, again, we�re totally off base,� Regina said. �Kurt had nothing to do with it. Leonie made the transfer.�

�Why would she do that?�

�Say the Bergstroms do have dirt on her. Getting the land out of her hands creates a layer of insulation between her and them. And depending on how the trust is set up, it can also protect Shasta, at least to some extent.�

�Be nice to know who the trustee is.�

�Be nice to know a lot of things,� Regina said. �Whatever the specifics, they�ve reached a working arrangement and are all making money. So at the moment it�s not in anyone�s interest to be contentious.�

�Pelman, too,� I said. �He�s got the coolant concession.�

�Think Jenelle will talk to us?�

�I think you�ll do better with her than I will.�

�Tell me something I don�t know.�

�After they executed Mata Hari, her head was preserved,� I said. �But then it was lost and never recovered. It�s still missing, to this day.�

She stared at me. �What is wrong with you?�

�Did you know that?�

�No. Why would I know that?�

�You�re welcome.�

She faced the road and sighed. �You�re gonna get me fucking killed.�

The house was a silvered A-frame, sturdy and plain, emphasizing security and self-sufficiency over aesthetics.

Bars encaged the windows. Solar panels tiled the roof. Bock�s rustbucket Chevy sat by the chained driveway gates. Motion sensors with alarms and lights protected the vegetable beds and hoop houses where he grew his food, serving to deter animals as well as human intruders. The toolshed, outhouse, root cellar, and smokehouse were padlocked. State law limited him to two deer and one elk per season; throw in fish, small game, and the occasional field trip for wild boar, and he had more than enough to see him and the puppy through.

The surrounding forest contained additional sensors and trip wires, plus an electric fence.

�No land mines?� Regina said.

�Too expensive.�

The front door was sealed � another diversionary tactic. King Kong, a ninety-pound brindle pitbull-mastiff mix, had quieted down, although he stuck to his master�s legs, casting sullen glances in our direction as we went around to the rear. An outdoor shower stall faced the trees. Nearby Bock had cleared room for what he called �my social life�: a sixteen-foot ham radio mast. The mountains prevented him from reaching points inland. Mostly he talked to ships and other hams along the coast.

He opened the back door � it was triple-locked � and stood aside.

�Welcome to my humble abomination.�

The interior was rustic but cozy, consisting of an open main floor and a sleeping loft, furnished with basic, handmade pieces in unfinished cedar and pine. A dedicated cabinet housed his radio gear. Regina and I sat at the small eating table while Bock scooped coffee into a moka pot and set it going on the woodstove. King Kong stood alertly by his side.

No TV; no light fixtures. He woke with the sun and went to bed at dark. Every few months he drove to Millburg to stock up on essentials and check out the maximum of twenty library books.

Listening to him, I found myself wavering between envy for the simplicity of his life and pity for its isolation. A stale musk permeated throughout � one man�s sweat soaked into every surface. While he was dressed neatly and well groomed, I could smell him, too, when he put out the mugs and sat across from us.

I asked how long it would take to repair the phone line.

�Twelve to fourteen weeks.�

�You didn�t want to do it yourself?�

�I offered to. They told me if I touch it they�ll cancel my service. You know, I didn�t have any trouble for years till you came around.�

�Shoulda shot him when you had the chance,� Regina said.

Bock smiled. �To what do I owe the honor?�

I showed him Nick�s flyer. �Recognize him?�

Bock shook his head.

�We think he was in Swann�s Flat last summer. He hasn�t been heard from since.�

�You never noticed him around town?� Regina asked.

�No, ma�am. I don�t get out much, though.�

I said, �He may have connected with Shasta Swann.�

Regina said, �What can you tell us about her?�

�Shasta?� Bock said. �I see her time to time, riding her bike or walking her dog. Seems like a nice enough kid. I remember when she was born, �cause it was a big deal. First baby on the peninsula in fifteen years.�

�Who came before her?�

�DJ Pelman.� He scratched King Kong�s neck. �Truth be told, I don�t know how happy she is.�

�What makes you say that?� I asked.

�This is no place for a girl her age. It�s one thing, you�re a grown man, you make a decision. But ask me, it doesn�t seem fair to do to her. Can�t fault her wanting to get out.�

�Did she express that to you?�

�Not in so many words.�

Regina said, �But?�

�Well... This is years ago. I was down by the marina, getting ready to take my boat out. She comes riding over, starts asking me questions about joining up.�

�As in the military?� I asked.

�Yes, sir. She wanted to know how old you had to be, where I�d gotten to live. I told her Japan and Korea, but mostly I spent my career in the same damn spot. I said, �You want to see the world, there�s better ways.� �

�How old was she when you had this conversation?� Regina said.

�Eight? Ten? I�m not the right person to ask about kids� ages.�

�And she was already plotting her escape.�

Bock nodded.

�She�s still here,� I said.

�Well, look,� he said. �It�s like that song. �You can check out when you want, but you can�t leave.� I think I got that wrong.�

�Close enough,� Regina said.

I showed him a copy of Octavio Prado�s jacket photo. �What about this person?�

�Oh yeah. The writer guy.�

The response was so swift that I was momentarily thrown. Regina�s hand flew to her mouth.

I said, �You recognize him.�

�Yes, sir. He helped build my house.�

Our primary interest was talking to Shasta Swann, but our cover story put us in town to look at property. We had to do what normal people did, in the normal order, starting with checking in.

The bell jangled as we entered the Counts Hotel.

Jenelle barreled through the saloon doors. �You�re back.�

�I�m back. And I brought the boss.�

Regina introduced herself. �Clay had the best time. He can�t stop raving about it.�

She had donned a new persona: soothing, earnest, intimate; her voice satiny and the skin around her eyes crinkled with pleasure.

A childhood spent in musical theater, indeed.

Jenelle appeared flattered, and slightly flustered, by the assault of warmth. �I have the same room, if you�d like.�

�Wonderful,� Regina said.

I counted out six hundred dollars.

�Will you be wanting dinner?� Jenelle asked.

�Not sure yet,� I said.

�Kitchen closes at seven.� She handed me a key. �You know the way.�

It was drizzling as we arrived at the Clancy residence. Regina and I hurried onto the porch. Bowie began barking before I�d knocked.

Coming.

Leonie opened the door, one hand on the dog�s collar. She stared at me.

�Hi, Mrs. Clancy. This is my wife.�

Regina introduced herself. �Great to meet you.�

�You, too,� Leonie said. Stock niceties, reflexive. Then reality kicked in and she reverted to form: �What�s this about?�

�We�re in town for a few days,� I said. �I wanted to check in, see how Shasta�s doing.�

Bowie lunged, forcing Leonie to grab at the doorpost. Her body wobbled, her eyes were bleary. �Better. Thanks.�

I held up a pair of Apple AirPods, new in the box. �These are for her.�

�To replace the ones she lost,� Regina said.

�Oh,� Leonie said. �That�s... It�s very kind of you.�

I said, �Would you mind giving them to her?�

Regina and I smiled simultaneously. What a lovely couple.

Our plan was to forge a connection with Shasta � an opening to exploit, if not now, then at some later date.

It worked faster and better than expected.

Leonie said, �You can give them to her yourself.�

We got free of the Clancys, thanked them for their hospitality, and dashed to the car through the sheeting rain.

Regina slammed the passenger door and flopped back. �Family values.�

�How�d you do?�

�I was in Shasta�s room for less than a minute. I didn�t see anything connected to Nick.�

�What�d she say about the necklace?�

�Gift from a friend.�

�Not a boyfriend.�

�She said friend, I didn�t press,� Regina said. �You saw how she tried to discourage us from buying. Think she knows about the scam?�

�Or she hates it here because it�s been a miserable childhood.�

�All that power play stuff with her mother? I�m pretty sure she knows.� Regina paused. �I feel for her.�

�Me too.� I started the car.

With no streetlights and few stars, visibility was limited to ten feet, and I crept along, following the reflection of the headlights against the rusted guardrail.

�How �bout that cave painting Beau showed us?� Regina said.

�Awe-inspiring,� I said. �I didn�t realize he was an artist, too.�

�Oh yeah, a regular fucking Renaissance man.�

I laughed. �Priorities for tomorrow.�

�For me, it�s Shasta.�

�Agreed. We need to speak to her away from her parents.�

�Bright ideas on how to go about that?� Regina said.

�She�s gonna leave the house at some point,� I said, �to ride, or to walk the dog. We stake her out and �happen� to run into her.�

�Didn�t you do that already?�

�Ha ha ha. Are you done?�

�Not on your life. Continue.�

I said, �We strike up a conversation with her. Keep it light. If she seems open, shift it to growing up in Swann�s Flat, her social life. Then we try to guide her to Nick.�

�We can�t come on too strong.�

�Definitely. If we can�t find a way to get there, we tee her up to try again. �Could you swing by the hotel later? We wanted your opinion on something.� �

�You sure that�ll work?�

�She�s a teenager,� I said. �She thinks her parents are idiots. Two adults, wanting to know what she thinks?�

Regina nodded. �We also need a typewriter sample from Beau.�

�Let�s see what he says about tomorrow and figure out how to proceed.�

�And Al? Do we trust him?�

�I can�t see him being the one to harm Prado, but I�ve been fooled before.�

She said, �I thought it was strange, him preemptively defending DJ Pelman. Something to ask Jenelle about.�

�Bright ideas for that?� I asked.

�Watch and learn.�

The next morning Jenelle looked tired and hungover, avoiding eye contact with us as she set out breakfast.

�Will you need the room again?� she asked.

�I�m not sure,� I said. �Can we let you know?�

�Noon. Full day after that.�

�Okay. Thanks.�

�This is all so good, by the way,� Regina said.

Jenelle nodded and retreated to the kitchen.

I offered to sit, but she wanted to walk. An athlete: She felt calmer with her body in motion.

She said, �I was riding out to Blackberry Junction. He was coming in the other direction.�

�Driving?�

�No, on foot. He had this ginormous hiking pack and he wasn�t wearing a shirt. I think he waved. I wasn�t really paying attention. I get focused when I ride, you know?�

�Oh, I know,� I said.

She laughed softly. �Yeah. On my way home, I saw him again, sitting in the dirt. He was really grungy, and scrawny, with pale stripes on his shoulders from the pack. He�s got this necklace on� � she touched her own chest � �and he�s shaking his water bottle into his mouth, to get the last drops. Honestly, it was kinda pathetic. So I stopped.�

�You felt bad for him.�

�Totally. And... I mean, we get hikers, but it�s never anyone my age. Like, okay, maybe you�re a homicidal maniac, but at least that�s something new.�

I smiled.

�He asked how much farther to Swann�s Flat,� she said. �I go, �Seven point two miles,� and his face just... collapsed.�

Maddie Zwick had described him in similar language.

�I knew he�d never make it without water,� Shasta said. �I poured my bottle into his.�

�Kind of you.�

�I had to. I felt responsible. I said, �Pace yourself. In about five miles, you�ll see a stream to your left. But it�s not drinkable unless you filter it.� He�s all, �Thank you so much, you�re a lifesaver.� I asked why he needed to go there. He told me he�s looking for someone. �Who? I know everyone.� He opens his pack and starts taking out stuff. Rations, matches, a flashlight.�

�Camping supplies,� I said.

She nodded. �At the bottom there�s a pillowcase with these huge bundles of paper, held together by rubber bands. He unties one and starts turning pages. I couldn�t read it because he was going so fast. Finally he finds what he�s looking for. Pencil drawing, about this big.�

Displaying her palm.

�A woman�s face,� she said. �I asked who she is. He said he didn�t know her name. �How do you expect to find her, then?� He shrugs. �I�ll figure it out.�

�Then he gave me a funny look. He goes, �Do you know her?�

�It was such a strange thing to ask. The drawing � it was really shitty. One eye was way too big and her jaw was all crooked. It didn�t look like it could be an actual person. But.�

Her breathing had accelerated again.

�I did know her,� she said. �I knew, right away. It was my mom.�

She stopped, downed a big gulp of water, offered me the bottle.

I drank. I was parched; I also wanted to help her regain a sense of control.

�Thanks,� I said.

I gave the bottle back and we resumed walking.

�What did you think when you saw the drawing?� I asked.

�I was imagining things. I was dehydrated, or low blood sugar. But... I know what my mom looks like.�

�Did you tell Nick that?�

�No way. Are you kidding? I just met this guy. I have no idea who he is. What if he� I don�t know. Wants to hurt her.�

�I agree with you, Shasta. I�d do the same thing.�

�Yeah. So. I told him I�d never seen her before. And he says, �I thought you knew everyone.� �Not her.� He�s staring at me, like he knows I�m lying. He didn�t say anything, though. He just started putting the pages away. I asked him what is all that. �A book.� �You wrote it?� �My dad did.� �Who�s your dad?� �Octavio Prado.�

�Then he gives me that same funny look. �You�ve heard of him.� �No, sorry.� And it�s the same thing: I could tell he knew the truth.� She paused. �I guess I�m just a bad liar.�

�You did know about Prado,� I said.

She nodded. �I read Lake of the Moon.�

�When?�

�A couple years ago. It was the summer we had all the wildfires. I couldn�t train or be outside for too long. I felt so bored, I was losing my shit. We don�t have a lot of books, but Maggie has tons, and she lets me borrow whatever I want. I rode over, and...� Faint smile. �I could hear her, upstairs, singing in the bath. I yelled that I�m here for a book. �Okay, go ahead, I�ll be down in a minute.� I went to the garage and started looking through the shelves.�

�What drew you to Lake of the Moon?� I asked.

�It was short.�

I smiled. �Always a plus.�

�And the author was from Fresno. That�s where my mom�s from.�

I said, �Leonie is?�

�She was born there.�

�How�d she get to Swann�s Flat?�

Shasta shook her head. �She won�t talk about it. She gets really mad if I try to ask. I only knew about Fresno because my grandma came to visit once. She wanted us to move back.�

�How old were you?�

�Eight or nine? The two of them got into this huge fight. My grandma was like, �You can�t do this to Shasta, it�s not good for her to grow up this way.� And my mom goes, �I�d rather die than set foot in that hick town,� which is ridiculous, if you think about it, because...�

�Look where you are.�

�Exactly,� Shasta said, her relief palpable: I got it.

�Did you ever talk to your grandmother on your own?�

�That was the only time I met her. I wasn�t allowed to call. She used to send me birthday presents and my mom would throw them in the trash.�

�That sounds tough.�

She nodded. �I never met my grandfather. My mom hates him. She said he�s a sicko. I don�t even know if they�re alive, either of them. I googled them but, you know. They�re old, so.�

�I�m sorry, Shasta. This is a lot.�

�Yeah. It�s all right. Thanks, though.�

�What did you make of Lake of the Moon?� I asked.

�Well, I just started looking at it when Maggie comes into the garage. I show it to her, and she literally runs over and grabs it out of my hands.�

�Did she say why?�

�No. She made me take Wuthering Heights instead. �You�ll like this better, I loved it when I was your age.� And it was so, so not her to act like that. She�s never been strict with me. So now I�m like, I have to read this.�

�Of course.�

�I came back later, when she was out on her walk. I go into the garage, but the book�s not there. She left a gap on the shelf. Like a warning. It pissed me off. First you assume I�m going to try and steal it. And I mean � yeah, okay. I did. But still. It proved she didn�t trust me. And like, stop, please. I�m not five. I can use the internet.�

�You ordered it.�

�With my mom�s account,� she said. �Then I had to make sure she and Jason didn�t find out. �Cause obviously there�s something radioactive about this book. It became this whole complicated thing, �cause we don�t get our mail delivered, we have to pick it up from the post office in Millburg. DJ drives out and collects it, then he gives it to Jenelle, and we pick it up from the hotel. Usually Jason goes, but for the next month I volunteered to do it. He just thought I was being helpful.� She mimicked him: � �Gee, thanks, kitten.� �

I laughed. �Nothing stops you.�

She shrugged, gave a half smile.

�Okay. So now you have the book.�

�I didn�t get why Maggie was acting so weird. I kept waiting for some massively inappropriate scene, but it was just cursing and a tiny amount of sex. I�ve read much worse.�

�Did you like it?�

�Kinda? The main character felt real, not some adult pretending to be a teenager. And the parts about Fresno were interesting. I wanted to ask my mom about it but I didn�t want to upset her. I stuck it under my bed. One night I�m doing homework in the kitchen and she barges in, holding the book. �Where�d you get this?� Like it was a bag of crack. She called me an ungrateful little bitch, and...�

Shasta broke off, her face hard.

She said, �She slapped me.�

�That�s awful.�

�It didn�t hurt that much. Just...� Shasta swallowed. �She yells. A lot. Especially when she�s drunk. So, all the time, basically. But she really doesn�t do... that.�

Our feet squelched in the soft forest floor.

�So, yeah,� she said. �That�s how I knew about Octavio Prado.�

�You didn�t tell Nick that, either.�

She shook her head. �I asked where he�s planning to sleep. �I�ll figure it out when I get there.� I said, �There�s a bridge by the town sign. Meet me there tomorrow. Eight a.m.� �

Quarter past three. Beau and Regina would have long finished their hike. Emil would be back from Eureka. They would be sitting around, wondering where I was.

I saw no reason to linger now that we knew the truth about Nick.

The bell jangled as I entered the hotel.

DJ Pelman looked over from his barstool.

�Hey,� I said.

His lips parted.

Jenelle Counts called from the kitchen: �Hello?�

�Just me,� I said.

I took the stairs three at a time, packed up Regina�s stuff and mine, returned to the main floor with bags in hand. Jenelle was behind the bar.

�You�re leaving?�

� �Fraid so.�

She tilted her head. �Something wrong?�

�Not at all, we just need to get rolling.� I laid the room key on the counter and tugged out my wallet. �Six hundred?�

She didn�t answer right away. �Don�t worry about it.�

�You�re sure.�

�On the house.�

�Thank you.� I turned to DJ. �My apologies to the chicken.�

He stared blankly. �What?�

�The chicken you killed. For dinner.�

�Oh... Yeah. Yeah, it�s all good.� Weak smile. �Rain check.�

�Say goodbye to your wife for me,� Jenelle said.

I grabbed the bags. �Will do.�

Stage set slaughterhouse:

Bone and blood and brain, misted like a winter�s day breath; the shotgun arcing skyward, tethered to the dead man by his finger through the trigger guard.

Regina, head averted, eyes clenched.

Beau Bergstrom cowering in the muck; his father, rigid with disbelief, mustache bristling, arms outstretched to ward off the assault, SIG Sauer flung from his grasp and hovering in midair.

Then everything was moving.

Emil�s pistol hit the ground, followed by Pelman�s body. The impact set off the shotgun and blew a hole harmlessly through a patch of dogwood as songbirds and squirrels and raccoons erupted from the underbrush and took flight amid a cascade of white blossoms.

Beau rose up, firing wildly at the unknown, five earsplitting booms. The front of his jeans was soaked.

Emil turned and fled.

�Dad,� Beau yelled.

A bullet caught his left shoulder and dropped him.

�Dad.� He kicked his heels, propelling himself backward, trying to return fire. But he�d spent the revolver�s capacity; it hammered loudly on the empty chambers. �Wait.�

He scrambled to his feet and crashed off into the brush right as a third shot plugged into the mud and sent up a splash.

Seventy yards away, Al Bock leaned out from behind a stout tree trunk, began darting from blind to blind.

I yelled, �Clear.�

He hustled toward us. Over his T-shirt and jeans shirt he�d added camouflage body armor and a matching cap. �Are you hurt?�

�No,� Regina said. �Hurry.�

He freed us with his hunting knife. I grabbed the SIG Sauer, Regina took the shotgun, and the three of us ran through the woods, skirting a junkyard ambush, spilling into the street.

Emil rocketed past in the Range Rover.

Regina raised the shotgun and blew out his rear window.

He sheered, fishtailed, accelerated away.

�Dad.�

Beau stumbled onto the front lawn, clutching his bleeding shoulder, right in time to see his father escape around the block.

Regina swung the shotgun toward him. �Stop, motherfucker.�

He spun and ran up the driveway.

�Get Emil,� Regina said and took off after Beau.

Al glanced at me, then followed her.

Al had come on foot. We took the Jeep to his house on Black Sand Court. Along the way, I described the crash.

�The road�s blocked.�

�I�ll have a look,� Al said. �Other business first.�

I pulled into the cul-de-sac.

�Stay put,� he said.

While he was gone Regina and I got clean shirts from the trunk and dry-swallowed ibuprofen. I brought her up to speed on Nick.

�Poor kid,� she said.

The gate opened. Al beckoned to us.

We caravanned out to the crash site.

While Al examined the tree, Regina stared at Emil�s skewered body. The first blowflies had arrived, congregating around his mouth and nostrils. The bloodstains on his clothes, the upholstery, and the ceiling were dry, though the pool surrounding him remained semi-viscous, clumping up and losing its shine.

She tilted her head back, breathing deeply to control her nausea.

�Remind me how long you were a coroner,� she said.

�Thirteen years.�

�Ever seen anything like this?�

�No.�

�Well,� she said. �First time for everything.�

Al rendered his verdict: No way could we open the road before dark.

�You can stay with me tonight,� he said. �We�ll come back at dawn. Either of you know how to work a chain saw?�

I said, �I�ve cleared brush.�

�Mm. We�ll get it done. Now let�s see to whatever hurt the two of you have.�

Tara Moore sat on her living room sofa, rubbing the surface of the pendant.

�He was happy,� she said. �With her.�

She looked up at us. Grief had softened her face, her voice.

�Yes,� Regina said. �He was.�

�And it�s a pretty spot she chose.�

�Beautiful,� I said.

�Do you have pictures? Can I see it?�

I said, �Once we sort everything out, we�ll send you some.�

�Maybe I could go visit, sometime,� Tara said. �I�d like to meet her. I think that would be nice. Don�t you think it�d be nice?�

Regina nodded.

Tara said, �I think it would.�

She crushed the pendant to her chest, folded over with a moan.

Regina got down on the dusty carpet and held her as she sobbed.