“Let’s see his face,” Duncan said.

Eve clicked some more keys and his picture came up. It was the same guy they saw on the Walmart video.

Duncan held the printout of the video screen grab next to Eve’s monitor just to drive the point home. “Hot damn. He’s even got his mother’s facial hair. I’ll bring Crockett and Tubbs back in to work the databases. We’ve got to find out everything there is to know about Coyle . . . starting with where the hell he is right now.”

“We can cruise by his home and see if the car is out front.”

“Problem is, that mobile home park is a tight-knit community. Two seconds after we roll through, the entire place will know we were there, including Coyle. And if he’s not around, then a neighbor might call him and warn him off.”

“How about sending the chopper over?”

“We can, but those mobile homes are packed tightly together and most of ’em have carports. If his car is under one, we won’t see it. And if he is there, a chopper circling overhead might spook him.”

“I have a solution,” she said.

“A drone?” he said.

“More old school than that.”

“I like it already,” Duncan said.

At the top of Topanga Canyon Boulevard, where it crested the hill, was an overlook that offered a spectacular view north over the smog-choked San Fernando Valley and beyond. A huge cloud of smoke from the Stevenson Ranch fire that Eve had passed that morning hung over the Santa Susana Mountains. A digital sign on a trailer, set up at the overlook by the forestry service, warned drivers on Topanga of the red flag warning in effect and the extreme fire danger. The Santa Anas were blowing hot and hard through the dry Santa Monica Mountains and one tossed cigarette could spark an inferno.

Duncan parked the plain-wrap SUV beside the digital sign and Eve pulled her bike out of the back. They’d swung by her condo earlier and she’d changed into a blue short-sleeve biking jersey, black cycling shorts, and wraparound racing sunglasses.

She placed her phone into a carrier on her handlebars, checked to make sure her Bluetooth earpiece was synced, and put on her helmet.

Duncan spoke into his phone. “Can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear.”

“Are you sure he won’t recognize you if he steps out to water his roses?”

“I’m wearing a helmet and sunglasses, which pretty much hides my face, and I won’t be stopping to give him a good look at me anyway.”

“Stay in touch,” Duncan said.

She nodded, got on her bike, and headed down the hill, something she’d done many times before. Biking in the Santa Monica Mountains was what she did whenever she had free time. In fact, it was how she’d ended up in Robbery-Homicide.

Eve had been riding downhill on a remote, winding two-lane stretch of Mulholland Highway when a Lamborghini Aventador roared around a curve and nearly ran her off the cliff. She spotted the car later in the parking lot of the Rock Store, a popular hangout with bikers.