It showed. Some enterprising soul had broken a window in back and looted the house for whatever valuables it contained: plumbing hardware, paintings, three wall-mounted televisions. The thief had been kind enough to leave all the food in the cupboards, where it had rotted and putrefied, the smell drawing in what appeared to be half the insect population of Southern California. The bugs, in turn, had attracted the birds; their nests occupied every bookshelf and hanging light fixture in the house. The worst to come in, though, had simply been the elements. Below the broken window in back, water had soaked the carpeting and subfloor with every rainfall; weeds had germinated and sprouted out of the carpet piles in that corner. The basement was worse: water draining through the flooring above had flooded everything down there, probably dozens of times. Though the space was dry at the moment, the air was thick with the odor of mildew and God knew what else. Even up here in the entry Dryden could still smell it—the scent that had dredged the tunnel nightmare up out of his memory. It had been months since he’d last dreamed it.

“So?” Caine asked. His eyebrows went up: What’s the verdict?

“Tell you outside,” Dryden said.

Caine stepped back to clear the doorway, and Dryden moved past him into the morning breeze.

He crossed the brick-paved motorcourt to a low stone wall at its edge. Beyond the wall was a ten-foot drop to a sandy slope covered with scrub brush and, farther below, dense pines. Down past those, Dryden could see the switchback road that led up from the Pacific Coast Highway. The ocean lay calm—glassy and dark blue to the horizon.

He stood breathing in the smell of the pines. His gaze settled on a car parked at the roadside, one switchback below the villa, midway between the gated driveways of two other estates. The car looked like something you could pick up for three hundred bucks at a discount lot. Through the sun-silvered windshield Dryden could see someone in the driver’s seat, though he could discern little detail. Dark hair, shoulder length. Pale hands resting on the wheel.

Caine’s footsteps came to a stop behind him. Dryden turned to him, then took in the front face of the villa again. Seen from this spot near the stone wall, the house stood framed by the high country of the coastal range behind it, deep green forest and baked-tan desert hills. Empty blue sky above it all, except for a few wispy cirrus clouds.

“You like it,” Caine said.

Dryden nodded. “I need to crunch some numbers before I make an offer. If I make an offer. There’s a lot of damage. Some of the stuff that’s ruined is original artisan work from the twenties. Carved stone and trim. I don’t imagine Home Depot’s going to have replacements in stock.”

“How much time do you need?”