“Jesus Christ,” he said, and whistled through his teeth. “This is good work.”

“Right?” Xander thrust out his jaw, somewhat vindicated. “You can see how they fooled me.”

Johan studied the photos, looking for inconsistencies in the blood spatter and the position of Kitty’s body. He found none. Her eye maybe looked a little more open in the headshot, but it was difficult to be sure. Johan wondered if he would’ve been fooled, too, if some homicide cop brandishing a badge had shown these to him . . . and thought he probably would. He wasn’t going to admit this to Xander, though.

“These don’t help us, either.” He handed the photos back to Xander. “You want to find something we can actually use? How about a golf club or a baseball bat—something blunt and heavy to knock them out with. Rags, too, to shove in their mouths. Duct tape. Twine.”

“On it,” Xander said.

He’d taken only a single step, though, when the doorbell rang—two brief, bright trills that, nonetheless, sounded altogether ominous.

“The fuck?” Xander whispered. “I thought Ruben was on lookout.”

Johan edged toward the window and scoped the front of the actor’s property. No vehicles in the driveway, and he couldn’t see Ruben’s truck from this angle. Nor could he see the front step, or whoever was at the door.

“Probably just a neighbor,” Johan whispered, and flipped through his phone. “I’ll call Ruben. See what’s going on.”

He was beaten to it. His phone buzzed three seconds later and a message from Ruben came through. Johan frowned and turned the screen toward Xander.

“Answer the door,” Xander read, then looked curiously at Johan. “What the hell?”

“I guess we answer the door.”

Johan stepped into the hallway, approached the door, then unlocked and opened it. Ruben stood outside, his face tight and anxious. Next to him, with a semiautomatic pistol tucked beneath Ruben’s rib cage, was a tall woman with platinum hair and a crooked smile.

“Oh shit,” Johan said.

“Johan Fly, you slimy motherfucker.” Former detective Tera Montecino tilted her head, her eyes as blank as stones. “You want to tell me what the hell is going on?”

18
Happy Hour

Rock music thumped from speakers posted outside Stray Bullets—Ozzy Osbourne singing “Crazy Train,” loud enough to send a bassy vibration through the boardwalk. And why not? There were no neighbors, only hawks, vivid as checkmarks in the sky, and a couple of gray chuckwallas fastened gamely to a nearby boulder.

“Sounds open,” Luke said wryly.

It was only eight minutes past opening but they were not the first customers. A smoky-haired woman had both elbows on the bar, her face plunged into a glass of red wine, and several jock types—all fixed teeth and gym muscle—crowded a booth, selfies every three seconds.