She instructed the three men to keep an eye on Coyle and told them that she was headed back to the station to start slogging through the paperwork that needed to be done while they waited on the warrant. On the way to the station, Duncan called her.

“How’s it going with Coyle?” he asked.

“He’s at home and under surveillance. How’s the warrant going?”

“ADA Burnside is doing a rewrite,” Duncan said. “Then we have to find a judge. It will probably be another few hours until we get the warrant.”

“I’ll be at the station, writing up reports.”

“I have a better idea. Go home, get some sleep. I’ll call you if anything happens or the moment the warrant comes through.”

“I need to be here,” she said. “I have work to do.”

“You haven’t slept in two days,” Duncan said. “You’re setting yourself up for disaster. When you’re that tired, you make bad decisions and your reaction time is shit. You could hurt the case or, worse, get me killed when I’m only weeks away from retirement. You know what a tragic cliché that would be?”

She knew he was right. “Okay. But call me the instant anything breaks.”

Eve drove back to the station, unloaded her bike, and was riding out to Agoura Road just as Cleve Kenworth pulled into the parking lot in his Chevy Malibu. He was going too fast and his tires squealed as he came to a hard stop in the parking space. She pulled up beside his car as he kicked open his door and got out, his face as red as his bloodshot eyes.

“I heard on the radio coming down here that there’s blood all over Tanya’s house, and you’re out searching the woods with dogs for my kids,” he said in a loud voice. “Is that true?”

“Calm down, Mr. Kenworth. Let’s talk inside.”

“Fuck that,” he said, stabbing a finger at her. “It’s my kids who are missing and a Goddamn reporter and everybody in LA knows more about what’s going on than I do. It isn’t right.”

Eve knew she’d made a big mistake. She’d told the public more than she’d told him. But it was a lot easier to talk to a camera than to a man who’d lost his family. So to spare herself discomfort, she’d jacked up his torture instead. It was a selfish, cruel thing to do and she couldn’t understand how she had done it so easily, without a second thought or regret. Sometimes it felt like she was a stranger to herself.

“No, it isn’t, and I’m sorry.” The apology wasn’t enough and she knew it.

“So answer the question,” Cleve said.

“There’s a lot of blood at the house. But we don’t know who it came from yet. Your family wasn’t there.”

“You mean there were no bodies. Is that what the dogs are looking for?”

“They’re looking for a trail that will lead us to your children,” Eve said, baffled that, even now, she couldn’t bring herself to tell him the truth. What was wrong with her? There was no hope and she wasn’t sparing him any pain by implying that there was. In the end, she would just be hurting him more. But she’d done it again anyway.