“The Lawton kidnapping. Lauren Lawton has recently relocated to Oak Knoll.”

“Oh,” she said, then with great joy in her voice added: “Hallelujah!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means better you than me, pal. Good luck with that.”

“She’s difficult?” Mendez asked.

Tanner’s laugh held a note of near-hysteria. “Ha! She ran one detective into early retirement, another moved to Barstow, and if I wasn’t related to a bad-ass attorney, she would have gotten me fired.”

Maybe you deserved it, Mendez thought, not liking her attitude. Maybe the cops in SB spent too much time surfing. Maybe they were a bunch of incompetent assholes.

“I’d like to get some background on the case,” he said. “Are you around for a while?”

“I’m here.”

“I’ll be there in an hour.”

The view coming over the Santa Ynez Mountains to the Santa Barbara coastline never failed to take his breath away. The sky was clear and as blue as the ocean. The Channel Islands were plain in the distance, and Santa Barbara stretched along the beach like a mosaic necklace.

It was a hell of a thing to live in this part of California and have to pick which incredible scenery to look at every day—the coast or the lush valleys that lay between the mountain ranges.

There had been a time when all Mendez had thought about was relocating to Virginia to have a career as a profiler for the FBI. He had spent some weeks there in the early eighties attending the FBI National Academy course. There he had met his mentor, Vince Leone, who was nothing short of a legend with the Bureau, first in the Behavioral Sciences Unit, then the Investigative Support Unit.

Vince had encouraged him to become an agent, but Mendez had returned to Oak Knoll, partly out of a sense of obligation to his boss, but partly because he loved it there. His family was around. He loved the town and the area and all it had to offer. Then Vince had ended up coming to Oak Knoll for the See-No-Evil murders, and had never left.

Retired from the Bureau, Leone now worked as a consultant to law enforcement agencies all over the world and raked in major bucks as a speaker. He pulled Mendez in on cases when he could, furthering his education. Tony knew that when he was ready to leave the SO, Vince would take him full-time.

All that and he got to stay in a place he loved. He was a lucky guy.

The streets of Santa Barbara were busy with residents and tourists. Mendez found his way to East Figueroa, parked, and went into the big white two-story building that housed the police department and went in search of Detective Tanner.