“If I were you, I’d write up your notes for the case file, then go back to the house for another walk-through of the crime scene. Maybe CSU will have a clearer picture of what happened.”

“What will you be doing?”

“Practicing for my retirement by eating dinner with the wife and binge-watching Downton Abbey.”

Eve returned to the interrogation room, and Jared gave her the slip of paper. There was very little written on it. He listed only two female friends, one of them Alexis, and the names of the hairdresser, nail salon, Pilates studio, and acting class that she frequented. Either Tanya didn’t have much of a social life or, if she did, Jared didn’t care about it.

“Thanks for this,” she said. “We’ll have a deputy take you back to your truck, but you’ll have to find another place to stay.”

“For how long?”

“A few days,” she said.

He thought about that for a moment. “Will you be reimbursing me if I can’t find a friend to crash with and have to go to a hotel?”

“Why would we do that?”

“Because you’re the ones not allowing me to go home.”

“There’s blood everywhere and it’s a possible crime scene,” she said. “We’re processing the evidence. Would you really want to spend the night there even if we’d let you?”

“What about my clothes? Can I go in and get some stuff?”

“I’m sorry, we can’t allow you to remove anything from the house right now,” she said.

“So I’m going to be out of pocket on clothes, too.”

“I guess so,” she said.

He shook his head and stood up. “This is fucked.”

She asked for his cell phone number, gave him her card, and told him to let her know where he could be reached when he decided where he’d be staying.

Once he was gone, she went to her cubicle and sat down to write up everything that had happened that day and fill out the necessary reports. The Aleve had kicked in by then and so did her hunger. She’d skipped lunch and hadn’t had anything to drink in hours. Eve ordered a small pizza and a Coke from Domino’s, had it delivered to the front desk, and worked through dinner at her cubicle, managing to get grease on her blouse to go with the dirt. It was after 9:00 p.m. when she finished her paperwork and headed back out to Topanga in a plain-wrap Explorer.

The house and the grounds were lit up by portable floodlights so crime scene techs could see where they were going and so deputies could spot any interlopers. One of the benefits of being deep in Topanga was that there were very few neighbors or other onlookers for the deputies to keep away. But that would change soon. Eve saw two TV satellite trucks setting up down the street for live broadcasts on the late local news. Once the details got out, the number of reporters and lookie-loos would increase exponentially.