Neither coffee server claimed to have ever seen her. They were certain. The tall girl in frumpy suede boots and shorts barely glanced at the photos as she wiped off the hot milk nozzle and shook her head. But her partner, a shorter, rounder woman of around fifty, studied the shots thoughtfully. Above her rimless glasses her eyebrows drew together. “She could have come in when we were busy or when someone else was working, but she’s not a regular. At least not a morning regular. I would know her.” She went on to explain that there were six or seven servers on staff, so someone else might have helped the woman in the picture.

He glanced at the table where “Jennifer” had sat in the photo, went to the window and stared out at the street. To the left, a dozen or so blocks from here, the streets ended at the Pacific Ocean. He and Jennifer had spent some lazy afternoons there, walking the Santa Monica Pier and the path that cut alongside the beach. Long ago he’d considered Santa Monica their special place, a spot where, near the jutting pier, he and Jennifer had first made love in the sand.

He sipped his coffee and tried to imagine what Jennifer—no, make that the woman posing as Jennifer—had been doing here, and why he’d been led to this spot. What was the damned point? He stared out the window for a few minutes more, then left with his too-hot coffee and a feeling that he was being worked.

Shana, breaking the surface after swimming underwater the length of her pool, drew in a deep breath, then shook the wet hair from her eyes. Forty laps. She was congratulating herself on keeping in shape when she heard the doorbell peal.

She wasn’t the only one. At the first bong of the dulcet tones Dirk, her husband’s damned German shepherd/rottweiler mix, began barking his fool head off. He’d been lying at the edge of the pool, but was instantly on his feet, the hairs at the back of his neck bristling upward.

Great.

Just what she needed—a surprise visit by some stranger. She hoisted herself onto the tile strip near the waterfall, then climbed to her feet. She was naked, not even the small pieces of her string bikini covering her body. The housekeeper had the day off, the gardener had already left, so she’d taken her alone time to sunbathe for a perfect tan, one completely devoid of lines or shading. She’d just swum her laps after lying on her back on her favorite chaise. Had she not been interrupted, she would have lain facedown, toasting her backside.

“Later,” she promised herself as she scooped up her white poolside robe, jammed her arms down the sleeves, and cinched the belt around her slim waist.