The older cop was waiting for her outside the restroom. “Your FBI friend Bauer is in the waiting area.”

He wasn’t. Ellie found a Hispanic woman dozing on a stiff plastic chair. Her clothes smelled of smoke, and her dried tears had left trenches in the soot on her face.

Ellie stepped out the front door, into the cool morning air. It was shortly after five, the sky red and not as dark as last night. She could see tornado-shaped plumes of smoke in the distance.

Roland was leaning against the trunk of a white Chrysler sedan, its sides streaked with ash and dirt. He wore the same suit she had seen him in earlier. He looked like he hadn’t slept.

Ellie knew why he was here. He was going to take her someplace, probably a federal safe house where, for the next few days, a bureaucratic machine composed of men and women who had never put their lives on the line would find the best way to dump as much blame as possible into LAPD commissioner Jim Kelly’s lap.

Roland glared at her as she approached the car, his gaze a volcanic mix of anger and resentment, all of it aimed at her.

She turned it all to ice with a handful of words. “Want to take a ride to Sebastian’s blood farm?”

“Where is it?”

“I haven’t been to it yet. All I have is an address. I should also add that I have no idea if he was telling me the truth. He told me under . . . unusual circumstances.”

“Where is it?” Roland asked again.

“First thing is, I’m going with you. Second thing is, I’ll tell you after I see Cody. Those are my terms.”

“Terms,” Roland repeated, as if making sure he’d heard her correctly. He dug his tongue into a back molar for a moment, then shook his head. “You’ve got a set of balls on you—I’ll give you that. Who’s the boy in the picture?”

“His name is Jonathan Cullen. I’ll tell you the rest along the way.”

“No, you’ll tell me now.”

Ellie said nothing, looked out into the distance, at the plumes of smoke drifting above the mountains and rolling hills, thinking about Sebastian Kane’s final moments.

Roland eased himself off the car. For a good ten minutes, he threatened to come down on her with the full power of the federal government, throwing in all sorts of sanctions and promises of prison time, everything he had.

Ellie held her ground, waiting for his tantrum to end. When it finally did, when he realized she wasn’t going to budge, he moved to the driver’s-side door, turned back to her, and then knocked twice against the passenger window.

The door opened. Cody got out, wearing a Patagonia vest over a long-sleeved flannel.

Ellie’s eyes filled.

“Yes,” she said.

Cody looked at her, puzzled. “Yes to what?”

“To you,” she said. “To everything.”

CHAPTER 56

ELLIE STILL HAD official business to conduct, and Cody wasn’t allowed to accompany her. Cody drove home with the federal agent who had driven him here.