She started her car and followed.

Mendez pulled up in front of Ballencoa’s house and got out, knowing he would be risking Cal Dixon’s wrath by coming here. Ballencoa was already feeling paranoid. He would be ringing his attorney’s phone off the hook with lawsuits to file.

But he didn’t care about Ballencoa or his threats. He cared about Lauren Lawton. The irony wasn’t lost on him. He would try to protect Lauren by warning Ballencoa she might be a danger to him.

Ballencoa, however, didn’t answer the door. His van was gone.

Mendez took a walk around the house, trying to look in the windows. This house looked as empty as the one in San Luis Obispo—until he got to the bedroom, where it looked as if a bomb had gone off. The bed had been stripped and ripped and torn. Feather pillows had been gutted. Clothes were strewn everywhere. The front panel of an old wall heater had been removed. Someone had tossed the place. He had a sinking feeling he knew who.

Oh, Lauren . . .

He walked around the back of the house and went to the back door. A glass pane had been broken out near the doorknob.

He wanted to go inside. He had observed evidence a crime may have been committed. He could have cited a concern for the occupant. Exigent circumstances could override the need for a warrant . . .

And a clever defense attorney could turn his probable cause into a pile of Fourth Amendment rights violations.

He went back to his car and drove back to the sheriff’s office.

Tanner and Hicks were still in the war room, going over old B&E reports with a fine-toothed comb.

“Did you give her hell?” Tanner asked, looking up.

“I couldn’t find her.”

She frowned, reading his unease. “Maybe she’s with her daughter somewhere.”

“Maybe,” he said, walking up to the whiteboard to stare, as if some clue might write itself like something from an Ouija board.

“Are you okay?” Tanner asked.

He was sweating. He felt a little sick. Adrenaline.

“Someone broke into Ballencoa’s house,” he said.

“Uh-oh.”

“I can’t get hold of Lauren. She’s not home. I came past Ballencoa’s. He’s not there, but there was a broken window in the back door and an open bedroom window, and the bedroom was tossed. I looked in.”

“Shit,” Hicks muttered.

“I guess she wasn’t going to wait for the warrant this time,” Tanner said.

Hicks got up. “I’ll go tell the watch commander to put out a BOLO on her car.”

Mendez looked at the time line for the past week, beginning with the day Lauren Lawton had tried to mow him down with her grocery cart at Pavilions. He had noted the night she called him when she had found the photograph on the windshield of her car. The photograph taken of her leaving the shooting range.