She would be able to see it, even in those cold, flat eyes. She would know. Because this was about Leslie, she would be able to sense a lie, or know the truth . . . or so she told herself.

This would be the moment everything had been building toward for the last four years. The final showdown. Good versus Evil. Mother versus child predator. A strange kind of excitement swirled through Lauren. She was going to know once and for all what had happened to her daughter . . . or die trying.

Chapter 51

51

Michael Craig Houston had been released from the minimum security section of the California Men’s Colony prison in San Luis Obispo in January after serving two years of a six-year sentence for larceny. His rap sheet was long. Mostly, it seemed he liked to swindle women, but he wasn’t above burglary, and he had been known to carry a gun and to use it as a threat.

Even in his mug shot he exuded the cockiness of a guy who believed he could get by on his looks alone. Just another smart-ass would-be mastermind con man too lazy to do real work. The only thing significant about Michael Craig Houston’s life as far as Mendez was concerned was his connection to Roland Ballencoa.

They had served time together in the Humboldt County jail in Eureka, California, and had both been questioned in the death of Ballencoa’s aunt. They had given each other alibis for the weekend the woman had died.

Because of Ballencoa’s personal proclivities for solitary perversion, Mendez hadn’t given any serious thought to the prior partnership. The name Houston had never come up again after Ballencoa had moved to San Diego. He figured the murder of the aunt had probably been a one-off for the money. Ballencoa wasn’t the sort of man to have friends. Yet Michael Craig Houston was here in Oak Knoll. He had left a photograph of Lauren Lawton on the windshield of her car.

“I’ll contact the Men’s Colony and have them check the visitation records,” Hicks said. “Ballencoa has been in San Luis for the past two years. Let’s see if he was in contact with Houston before he got out.”

“How the hell does he figure into this?” Mendez wondered aloud, pacing up and down the length of the time line they had stretched across the whiteboard at the front of the room.

“Crime makes strange bedfellows. Could be they stay connected through the money from the aunt,” Hicks offered. “If Houston killed the aunt or helped Ballencoa kill the aunt, that’s a tricky partnership. Ballencoa couldn’t just say thanks and good-bye. The other guy knows the truth. They’ll always be connected.”

“Maybe Houston is like one of those remora fish that hang on sharks,” Tanner suggested. “They’re not exactly friends, but it’s a symbiotic relationship.”

“But how would Houston benefit from stalking Lauren Lawton?” Mendez asked.