“It wasn’t as risky as it sounds,” said Susan. “We ran a background check through a friend, he does security for one of the hotels. He said she came up absolutely spotless.”

“Could we have his name?”

Silence. “That’s absolutely necessary?”

“There’s a problem, ma’am?”

“Well,” said Susan, “actually, he’s not a friend, he’s my brother and I’m not sure he’s allowed to freelance with the hotel account.”

“I promise not to get him in trouble, Ms. Van Dyne, just want to find out anything I can about Adriana.”

“Okay. Michael Ramsden. Here’s his number.”

“Appreciate it and if you think of anything, here’s mine.”

“It really makes no sense,” said Bradley. “Whoever did this has to be mentally ill or something.”

“Absolutely,” said Susan. “Adriana was so stable, Lucas adored her. I am not going to tell him what happened.”

Michael Ramsden was caught off-guard by the call from Milo.

He said, “Who?”

“Adriana Betts.”

“Never heard of her.”

“Hmm,” said Milo. “So I guess your sister lied.”

“Hold on—let me switch to another phone.” Moments later: “Are we talking the housekeeper?”

“Susan said you backgrounded her.”

“All I did was the basics, nothing anyone couldn’t do online, so I’d appreciate your not making a big deal of it.”

“Doing it on company time.”

“Coffee-break time,” said Ramsden. “My personal laptop, my sister was satisfied. You’re saying someone killed this girl?”

“Yes.”

“Whoa,” said Ramsden. “Well, there was nothing in her record to suggest that might happen.”

“Spotless?”

“That’s what the computer said.”

A scan of the UCSD med school faculty revealed that Donald Chang, M.D., was a fellow in vascular surgery and Lilly Chang, Ph.D., worked in Oncology as a cell biologist. He was in the operating room. She answered her extension.

“Adriana? Oh, no, that’s terrible. In L.A.?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“Well,” she said, “I suppose that might explain it.”

“Explain what, Dr. Chang?”

“Her flaking on us,” she said. “At least that’s what we assumed. Not at the outset, mind you. Our initial worry was something had happened to her, because she’d always been so reliable, never even went out at night. Then about three months ago she said she was meeting a friend for dinner and never came back. We called the police, checked E.R.’s, were really worried. When she didn’t answer her phone we figured she’d bailed and got pretty irate, I have to tell you. Both of us work all day and now there was no one for May. We complained to the agency and they gave us a discount on her replacement.”

“What about her car?”

“She didn’t have one, used the bus or walked. Obviously that would restrict her but as I said, she wasn’t much for going out.”

“Until she was,” said Milo.