The garage door rumbled on the far side of the house as I stepped into the hall. I carried the box into the bathroom, set it on the toilet, and pushed open the window. The front door opened as I climbed out. Marx said something I didn't understand as I reached back inside for the box.

I closed the window, slipped into the thick bushes between Marx's house and the next, and hit the speed-dial for Pike. He answered like this:

I'm here.

Never a doubt.

I pushed through the hedges into the neighbors' yard and saw Pike's Jeep in the street. I probably should have walked, but I ran as hard as I could without looking back and without caring who saw me.

I jammed into Pike's Jeep with the box in my lap, and Pike gunned away, the door snapping shut so hard it hammered my elbow.

Pike said, Close.

My eyes burned as I laughed. It was a stupid laugh, like a barking dog. I couldn't stop until Pike gripped my arm.

Chapter 34

THE CANYON behind my house was pleasant during the midday hours, with a slight breeze that brought out the hawks to search for rabbits and mice. Somewhere below, a power saw whined in the trees, punctuated by the faint tapping of a nail gun. Someone was always building something, and the sounds of it were encouraging. They sounded like life.

We put the file box and murder books on the dining table, then drank bottles of water. We ate muffins slathered with strawberry jam, standing over the murder books as if we were stealing time to eat like we had stolen the files.

We split the material between us. I skimmed the Frostokovich murder book first, and immediately saw that pages had been removed. Every murder book begins with an initial report by the original detectives who caught the case, identifying the victim and describing the crime scene. Marx and Munson had signed off on the opening crime scene report. Reports relating interviews with the workmen who discovered her body came next, followed by their initial interview with Sondra's parents, Ron L. and Ida Frostokovich. If Marx and Munson interviewed Sondra's girlfriends about the dinner they shared, the report of that interview was now missing. A twelve-page gap in the page-numbering sequence followed the interview with Sondra's parents. The medical examiner's six-page autopsy protocol was intact, but another three pages after it were missing. I didn't bother to flip through the rest of the book.

They gutted this thing. We've got missing pages all through here.

Pike was fingering through the files in the box. He grunted, then lifted a ziplock bag containing a silver DVD. The name REPKO was written directly onto the DVD and clearly visible through the transparent plastic bag.

Pike said, Your missing disk.

A folded letter was stapled to the bag. Pike read it, then passed it to me.