“Calista…Stan Prescott. And Otto Grant; he was hanged in front of an open window. Lots of light there, as well. Every time somebody died because of you, you wanted lights. Why? For Calista and Prescott, we thought it was to take pictures of the bodies. Were you filming at the venues too?”

Just after she’d had this thought, at the concert hall earlier, she’d called O’Neil and had a crime scene team seize and dismantle the security camera in the elevator. They found a cellular module in it.

She had remembered that at Solitude Creek she’d wondered why the security video that Sam Cohen had shown them seemed to come from a different angle than that of the camera she’d seen in the club. That was, she realized, because there were two cameras—with March’s pointed, as Trish Martin had said, at the blocked exit doors. To see the tragedy most clearly. The teen had also mentioned brilliant lights.

“The cameras were streaming the stampedes, full high-def, brightly lit. But why? So Grant could gloat over his revenge? Maybe. But if he planned to kill himself he wouldn’t be around very long to enjoy the show.” Through the lenses of the steely glances Dance probed March’s face. “And then I remembered the bucket.”

“Bucket?”

“Why did Grant have a bucket for a toilet? If he’d vanished on his own, well, wouldn’t he just go outside for the bathroom? Kidnappers have buckets for the victims to use because they’re handcuffed or taped.”

He squinted slightly. A kinesic tell that meant she’d struck a nerve. He’d made a mistake there.

“And the venues that were attacked, Solitude Creek and the Bay View Center? Grant’s complaint was with the government. He would’ve hired somebody to attack state buildings, not private ones, if he really wanted revenge.

“Which meant maybe Otto Grant had been set up as a fall guy. You went online and found somebody who’d been posting antigovernment statements. A perfect choice. You made contact, pretended you were sympathetic, then kidnapped him and stuck him in that cabin until it was time to finish up here. Made his death look like a suicide. And all the texts and the call logs we found? About payments and what a good job the supposed hit man was doing? They were both your phones; you just called and texted yourself, then planted one on Grant.”

She now placed her hands flat on the table. “So. Grant was a setup. But then who was the real client who’d hired you?”

She’d eliminated Michelle Cooper’s ex-husband, Frederick Martin. Brad, the fireman. And Daniel Nashima.

Another suspect had arisen briefly. Upon learning that it was Mexican commissioner Ramon Santos’s mercenaries who’d orchestrated the arson of the warehouse in Oakland, Dance had wondered if he’d been behind the entire plot—suspecting Henderson Jobbing and Warehouse, at Solitude Creek, to be one of the hubs for illegal weapons traffic in Central California. And taking his own measures to shut the place down and cover up the crime as the work of a psycho.