An officer appeared in the doorway. He nodded to those inside and said, “Detective O’Neil?”

“Yes?”

“We did a canvass of the neighborhood, following the route your unsub escaped down. And found this.” He held up a plastic evidence bag containing a Nokia phone. “Guy walking a dog said he saw it fall out of the perp’s pocket when he was running to the Chevy, the getaway vehicle.”

Dance and O’Neil shared a look. Guardedly optimistic. The phone was clearly a prepaid burner—they were invariably cheap, like this model. So it was unlikely they could trace it back to the man. But it might have helpful information inside.

“Can we get the prints from the man who found it?”

The uniform smiled. “He never touched it. He used a plastic bag. He watches all the crime scene shows, he said.”

Dance took the phone and through the plastic tried the keys. “Pass-code protected. Well, one way or the other, we’ll get inside.” She said to the Orange County detective, “I’ll want to take his computer and the phone into custody. You all right with that?”

“Sure.”

O’Neil couldn’t have done this, not without Orange County’s okay, since the crime had occurred here and Monterey had no jurisdiction. The CBI, however, trumped county public safety departments and she could take the evidence. Her intention, however, was not to deliver the victim’s computer and the perp’s phone to the CBI’s small forensics department—they actually farmed out physical evidence work to the Monterey lab most of the time—but to have Jon Boling analyze them. The former wonder boy in Silicon Valley occasionally consulted for the CBI, FBI and other law enforcement groups that needed IT or computer assistance. Computer forensic science is an art and he was good at it.

A woman officer with Crime Scene handed the computer over to her; Dance signed a chain-of-custody card for it and the phone. She stepped outside and slipped the plastic bags into her suitcase.

They arranged with the lead detective for the reports from here and the theme park to be sent to Monterey. In silence they walked to the rental car and headed for the airport. After a day like this, the idea of flying commercial, with the many hassles, had no appeal whatsoever; Dance reminded herself to do something nice for Charles Overby, thanking him for the pricey state jet.

Maybe she’d bake him a cake.

Chapter 48

Dance and O’Neil’s flight from John Wayne Airport in Orange County to Monterey landed at six. A young uniformed officer with the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office greeted them.

Dance knew him well. Gabriel Rivera was a deputy who worked frequently with O’Neil. The stocky, cheerful man, with a mustache that rivaled Steve Foster’s, wanted to be a detective, like his mentor, and was known for putting in long hours.

“Detective, Agent Dance.”

She shook his hand.

“I’ve got the preliminary from the scene in Santa Cruz. Otto Grant.”

Dance recalled O’Neil had received the phone call about discovering a body in the bay.