Milo stopped, told me to stay put, took his nine-millimeter in one hand and his flashlight in the other, and climbed out. He walked to the trees, looked around, parted a branch, and peered through, finally disappeared into the gray fringe. I sat there, absently rubbing one thumb against the warm wooden stock of the rifle he'd placed in my lap. No animal sounds. No air movement. The place felt vacuum sealed. Maybe another time I'd have found it peaceful. Tonight it seemed dead.

I was alone for what seemed like a long time. Then scraping sounds from behind the trees tightened my throat. Before I could move, Milo emerged, bolstering his gun.

"If anyone's out there, I can't see them." He looked at the rifle. Unconsciously, I'd raised the weapon and pointed it in his direction.

I relaxed my hands. The rifle sank. He got behind the wheel.

When we were rolling again, he said, "It's pretty open once you get past the trees, just some reeds and other low stuff on the other side. No Jeep or any other car in sight; no one's filming." Grim smile. "Unless it's an underwater shoot-new twist on Creature from the Black Lagoon.... For all we know, they've already been here and gone, did what they wanted to do, dumped the girl in the water. Or they never came here in the first place."

"I think they did," I said. "No other reason to kill Heidi on the route that leads straight up to Fairway. And Crimmins paid the Soames kid to take the Corvette home-just a mile or two from Hollywood. If he was in the city, he could Ve driven the Jeep home himself, walked back in half an hour, and gotten the' Vette. Why bother with Soames unless he was planning to be far away?"

"Because he has plans for Soames? Nice little screen test?"

"That, too. Tomorrow morning. But there'd be no reason to entrust him with the car."

"Why'd he kill Heidi?"

"Because he had no more use for her," I said. "And because he could."

He chewed his lip, squinted, lowered his speed to ten miles per. The map had indicated a service road that hugged the southern end of the White Oak golf course and led to the rear of the development. The streetlamps were less frequent now, visibility reduced to maddeningly subtle shades of gray.

Milo missed the road, and we found ourselves at the sign marking the entrance to Jersey. Lights out in all the mobile homes. I remembered the street bisecting the subdivision as freshly asphalted. In the darkness, it stretched empty and smooth, so perfectly drafted it appeared computer generated. Resumption of the tangerine light. Deep orange on black; every night was Halloween.

"This is where Haas lives?" he said.

"First street to the right. I can show you the trailer."

He cruised past the trailers.