He took the oath “To Protect and Serve” seriously. Maybe a little more seriously where women were involved, but that was how it was supposed to be—at least in his mind, and in his family culture, and in his Marine culture. The man protected the woman. Period.

Ballencoa’s house was on a corner lot, an unassuming bungalow with a detached one-car garage and a similar building at the back of the property on the alley. The yard was neat, and yet the place had a strange feeling of vacancy about it.

There was no car in the driveway. There were no potted plants on the steps, no bicycle parked on the front porch. The shades were drawn. Not unlike the house in San Luis Obispo, there was nothing to suggest anything about the inhabitant, if there was one. Mendez half expected to peek in a window and be struck by the same still emptiness he had felt there.

Hicks rang the doorbell, and they waited.

“How would you like to be a neighbor and find out this guy had moved in next door?” Hicks asked.

“Or worse,” Mendez said, “not know this guy had moved in next door.”

Of course Ballencoa’s neighbors didn’t know who had moved in next to them. His one conviction had been pled down to nothing, and it was so long ago, no one kept tabs on him. And, as convinced as Lauren or Danni Tanner or anyone else might have been of his complicity in the disappearance of Leslie Lawton, the man had never been charged with anything. By strict letter of the law, there was nothing to warn the neighbors about.

Hicks rang the bell again, and they waited.

Finally the door opened and they had their first look at Roland Ballencoa. Mid-thirties, olive skin, large dark eyes with heavy lids. His brown hair was straight, shoulder-length, clean, and parted down the middle. He wore a neatly trimmed mustache and goatee. He looked a little like John Lennon, Mendez thought, or, as Danni Tanner had said, like an extra in one of those life-of-Christ movies.

Mendez held up his ID. “Mr. Ballencoa. You’re a hard man to track down.”

“And why would you need to track me down, detective?” Ballencoa asked without emotion.

“May we come in, Mr. Ballencoa?” Hicks asked. “We have a few questions for you.”

“Or maybe you don’t mind if your neighbors see a couple of sheriff’s detectives on your front porch,” Mendez said.

“No, you may not come in,” Ballencoa said. “I haven’t done anything wrong. There’s no reason for you to come into my home.”

He was dead calm. He wasn’t going to be the kind who got nervous and overly solicitous in his attempt to make them believe he was a good citizen. Nor was he going to let them bluff their way in.