“That’s true,” she said. “But that spin won’t help you much, will it?”

“We’re going to look good at your expense.”

“I don’t care.”

“The sheriff might,” he said.

“All that matters to me is what’s good for the case,” she said. “Besides, now you’ll owe me two favors.”

“How do you figure two?”

She gave him a stern look. “Have you forgotten how we met?”

“I’ll have the knife sent over to your CSU,” he said.

“Can you email me the photos you showed me of Roger and the knife?”

“Sure,” he said. “I’ll do it now.”

Eve thanked him and hurried out of the station as fast as she could without actually running. Because with each passing second, the realization of what really happened on that bloody, horrible Wednesday in Topanga was coming to her in revelations that felt like body blows. So much of what they thought they knew about what happened in Tanya’s house was wrong.

The moment Eve stepped outside, she looked to the south. The smoke from the Topanga fire loomed over the Santa Monica Mountains like huge, vicious storm clouds seething with thunderous fury. It terrified her.

She took out her phone, googled the Wikipedia listing for the original Planet of the Apes movie, and scrolled through the post to the section labeled “Production Information.” One line jumped out at her:

Most of the scenes of the ape village, interiors and exteriors, were filmed on the Fox Ranch in Malibu Creek State Park, northwest of Los Angeles.

It was the same park where Roger worked.

That was the key piece that she’d been missing.

Now she knew how the ranger’s truck ended up at the corner of Mulholland and Mulholland and why Coyle had killed him.

But it was everything else that was becoming clear to her now, all of the wrong assumptions that she’d made, that was threatening to cripple her with panic and fear.

How could I have been so blind and stupid?

Eve called Duncan and cut him off before he could finish saying hello. “I need to see you, the captain, and the sheriff immediately. It’s an emergency. If either of them argue with you, tell them their careers will be ruined and more people will die if they don’t get their asses to the station right now.”

“What have you found?” Duncan asked.

“We got it all wrong,” she said. “And we’re running out of time.”

She hung up, got into her car, and raced back to Lost Hills with her siren on, lights flashing, and gas pedal pressed to the floor, running red lights and weaving through traffic. It took her seventeen minutes to travel thirteen miles.