Ten minutes later, Decker sat back down at the table with a smile on his face after speaking to Allan Sugar. The appetizers were gone and there were no entrées as of yet. He was starved, but in too good a mood to be his usual famished, grumpy self.

“Entrées should be here soon,” Rina said. “Service is a might slow.”

“I can tolerate the slow service. But I’m a little miffed that you didn’t save me an egg roll.”

“I thought you were off fried foods.”

“I’m never consistent. You should know that by now. Good news.” Decker brought everyone up to date. “So now we have two definitive links between Latham and Moreau—the same key on both their key rings and they both checked out the Petroshkovich book—or at least Terry did it for Angeline.”

“Or maybe he didn’t do it just for her,” Oliver said.

“What do you mean?” McAdams asked.

“Ask the boss,” Oliver said.

Decker hit his forehead. “He means there is a possibility that Lance Terry was in on the thefts and now he’s scared.”

McAdams raised an eyebrow. “Interesting.”

“Didn’t you mention that he was a theater arts major?” Rina said. “As in acting?”

“Yes, I did,” Decker said. “Let’s pay him a visit right after lunch.”

“What about Gerrard?”

“It’s been about two weeks, he can wait another couple of hours.”

“Should I call Lance up?” McAdams asked.

“No. We’ll pop in. I don’t want him rabbitting. Eventually, we should check out Terry’s key ring. Maybe he has a copy of Latham’s key.”

“Like he’s going to incriminate himself in the theft?”

“If he doesn’t show us his keys, it says something,” Oliver said. “There’s a reason he’s running scared and it probably has to do with more than a few hang-up calls.”

“His alibis checked out for both murders,” McAdams said.

“He could have always hired out. He was rich enough.”

“What are you thinking, Scott?” Rina asked.

“Maybe originally Terry and Angeline had this little art theft thing going on. And then Latham comes in and not only takes over the operation, he steals the girl. So Terry cuts off his dick. ‘You cut me, I cut you.’ The Latham murder was personal.”

“I don’t know,” Decker said. “This feels like something bigger than a love triangle and a few pieces of stolen art. I keep thinking about that codebook.”

Rina said, “Maybe it started as something simple and Latham made it more complicated. And that’s when the real bad guy decided to show up.”

McAdams said, “It’s crazy: a codebook, a missing storage bin, three names erased from Jason Merritt’s client book, and we’re still missing Victor Gerrard.” The kid looked around. “I’m starving.”

“Yeah, this is ridiculous.” Decker got up.

“Be kind,” Rina said.