Tera had been woken that morning by her Track-U-Gen app, notifying her that Luke Kingsley’s vehicle had left Los Angeles County, and was heading east on I-210. She got out of bed, made herself an herbal tea, and scanned the information on her cell phone. Luke had left his house at 6:42 a.m., and there he was in real time, his little red blip on the outskirts of San Bernardino.

“Where are you going, Luke?”

Tera had attached the GPS tracker to the underside of Luke’s Dodge Caliber several months ago, believing that he would, one day, return to the scene of the crime and lead her to Lisa Hayes’s body. He was of particular interest now, because of his link, through Kitty Rae, to Kris “Sly Boy” Streeter, who’d recently been reported missing. Kitty was missing, too—hadn’t clocked in for her shift at Fusion 44 for a few days. Los Angeles police were nosing around other leads; Sly Boy wasn’t as squeaky-clean as he liked to portray, and had a lot of friends in low places. Tera knew about the Luke Kingsley connection, though, and decided, as she watched that red blip move farther east, to drive to Luke’s empty house and check it out.

It appeared she wasn’t the only one with Luke on her radar.

Ruben Osterfeld—not exactly low-pro in his jacked-up Tundra—scoped the actor’s residence from across the street. Tera remembered from her cop days that Ruben worked security at Fusion 44. Sly Boy had put up Ruben’s bail on more than one occasion, when the big guy had been brought in on assault charges.

Her cop brain (now her private investigator brain) ticked noisily. Had Luke—that wife-killing motherfucker—offed Sly Boy and Kitty in a fit of jealous rage? Did Ruben suspect as much, and was here to exact his own brand of heavyweight justice?

Tera resisted leaping to conclusions, but this was a feasible explanation. Or so she believed, until two wild cards—Johan Fly and Xander Cray—appeared on the scene. As far as she knew, Johan didn’t have ties to any of this.

She watched Johan, Xander, and Ruben engage in brief conversation, then the two new arrivals crossed the street to Luke’s house, leaving Ruben in the truck.

“What the fuck is going on here?” Tera whispered. Her investigative brain whirled blankly for a moment, then kicked into a different gear. She plucked her cell phone from the Buick’s console and accessed Johan’s Instagram account. She scrolled through two months’ worth of self-absorbed bullshit before stopping on a photo of Johan and Kitty at some swanky residence, posing in front of a double staircase, champagne in hand.

Okay, so they knew each other. Were they dating? Just friends? Did Johan want in on the Luke Kingsley beatdown? Were they all here—like Tera—looking for proof of the actor’s crimes?