Robin said, “I’d stick with Phil. It was his wife whose name got used.”

Girl detective.

Both cars edged out of the lot. North on the canyon would take them back to the Valley, south, past the spots where Steven Muhrmann and Tiara Grundy had died.

The Suss twins chose neither, staying on Old Topanga and proceeding deeper into the wooded, quiet corners of the canyon.

Two brothers, two cars.

Two brothers, two guns?

Easy nonverbal twin communication could lead to a perfect two-man firing squad. The synchronized wounds that had puzzled Clarice Jernigan.

Ready, aim. Bro.

They’d probably done it a thousand times as kids, using peashooters, toy pistols, water guns.

Adulthood changed the game, as the big thrill became aping Daddy’s approach to women.

Taking on Daddy’s Sweetie as a cruel inheritance.

A foolish, naive girl who had no idea she was chattel, easily disposed of like any other liquid asset.

Phil’s white car slowed.

Frank’s black car did the same.

The surroundings changed to tucked-away houses, many of them trailers and shacks and do-it-yourself follies, set well off the road. The brothers turned onto an unmarked dirt strip that angled acutely. A rural mailbox tilted on a stake. Shaggy cedars and drought-loving oaks drooped over the passage.

Both cars were soon enveloped in darkness, then gone.

I drove another twenty yards, kept the Seville running, got out.

“Where are you going?”

“For a look.”

“I’ll go, too.”

“Inefficient,” I said. “Take the wheel and keep the motor on. If I need to make a run for it, you’ll be ready.”

“A run? How about neither of us goes and we just give Milo the address.”

“I’ll just check for a second, it’s no big deal.”

She held my wrist. “Too much testosterone, baby, and now we know what they’re capable of.”

“Testosterone will work in my favor. They’re thinking fun, not felony.”

“You can’t be sure of anything, Alex.”

I removed her hand, left her there.

Dried-up stick-on address numerals curled on the side of the mailbox. I memorized them, checked the box. Empty.

Thirty feet in, the dirt driveway S-curved, explaining the cars’ quick disappearance.

Pressing to the left side, so I’d be facing any surprise oncoming vehicle, I continued, sinking into leaf litter that squished and hissed. Stopped to listen. Heard nothing.

A few more yards: laughter.

Fun, the best distraction of all.

As the driveway snaked to an end, afternoon sunlight flashed hot and white.

I inched forward. Stopped twenty feet back from a tamped-soil clearing, half an acre or so in diameter.

Aqua flash of swimming pool. Behind the pool, the log-sided flanks of a low, wide house. Behind the house, forest.

The Suss brothers’ cars were parked carelessly in front of the pool, providing partial barriers.

Hums, thrums, laughter.

A male voice said, “Oh, yeah, baby.”