“What’s that? High what?” Foster asked.

“A category of liars’ personalities. The most ruthless and, yeah, slick”—she threw the word back at Foster—“are the ‘High Machiavellians.’ High Machs love to lie. They lie with impunity. They see nothing wrong with it. They use deceit like a smartphone or search engine, a tool to get what they want. Whether it’s in love, business, politics—or crime.” She added that there were other types, which included social liars, who lied to entertain, and adapters, who were insecure people lying to make positive impressions. Another common type was the “actor,” someone for whom control was an important issue. “They don’t lie regularly, only when necessary. But Serrano, he just didn’t present like any of them. Sure not a High Mach. All I picked up were what I said, some small evasions. Social lies.”

“Social?”

“Everybody lies.” The statistics were that every human being lied at least once or twice a day. Dance shot a glance to Foster. “When did you lie last?”

He rolled his eyes. She thought: Maybe when he’d said “Good to see you” this morning.

She continued, “But I was getting to know him. I’m the only one here or in any other agency who’s spent time with him. And now we know he could be a key to the whole operation. I don’t need to lead it. Just don’t take me off the case.”

Overby ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Kathryn, you want to make it right. I understand. Sure you do. But I don’t know what to tell you; it’s been decided. Peter’s already signed off on the reassignment.”

“Already.”

Foster: “More efficient, when you think about it. We didn’t really need two agents from this office. Jimmy Gomez is good. Don’t you agree, Kathryn?”

A junior agent at the CBI, one of the two others on the Guzman Connection task force. Yes, he was good. That wasn’t the point. She ignored Foster. She stood and to Overby said, “So?”

He looked at her with one raised eyebrow.

Her shoulders rose and fell impatiently. “I’m Civ-Div. So, what’s on my roster?”

He looked blank for a moment. Then scoured his desk. He noted a Post-it, bright yellow, glaring as a rectangle of sun fell on it. “Here’s something. Got a memo on the wire from MCFD a little while ago. About that Solitude Creek incident?”

“The fire at the roadhouse.”

“That’s right. The county’s investigating but somebody from the state is supposed to make sure the club’s tax and insurance certificates’re up-to-date.”

“Tax? Insurance?”

“CHP didn’t want to handle it.”

Who would? Dance thought.

Foster’s absence of gloat was the biggest gloat she had ever seen.

“Take care of that. Then I’ll see what else needs doing.”

With Dance “tasked” to take on the fine print of California insurance regulations, and tacitly dismissed, Overby turned to Steve Foster to discuss the manhunt for Joaquin Serrano.

Chapter 7

First, this is interesting—there was no fire.”

“No fire?” Dance asked. She was standing in front of the Solitude Creek club, which was encircled with yellow police tape. The man before her was stocky, forties, with an odd patch on his face; it looked like a birthmark but, she knew, was a scar from a blaze years ago that attacked the newly commissioned firefighter before he snuffed it dead.