Allerton explained about the mysterious truck on Highway 1.

“Contraband on One? Is there a transfer hub along that way we don’t know about?” Foster seemed interested in this.

“That’s what we’re going to find out.”

“Hope that one pans out.”

Overby said to Foster, “Can you and Al Stemple check out Pedro Escalanza?”

“Who?”

“The lead to Serrano. Tia Alonzo mentioned him, remember?”

Foster’s frown said no, he didn’t.

“Where is this Escalanza?”

“Sandy Crest Motel.” Overby explained it was a cheap tourist spot, about five miles north of Monterey.

“I guess.”

“TJ ran Escalanza’s sheet. Minor stuff but he’s facing a couple in Lompoc. We’ll work with him on that if he gives up any info that gets us to Serrano.”

Foster muttered, “A lead to a lead to a lead.”

“What’s that?” Overby asked.

Foster didn’t answer. He strode out the door.

Outside CBI, Steve Foster looked over his new partner.

“Just for the record, I’m playing along with you because”—a slight pause—“the rest of the task force wanted it. I didn’t.”

Kathryn Dance said pleasantly, “It’s your case, Steve. I’m still Civ-Div. I just want the chance to interview Escalanza, that’s all.”

He muttered, repeating, “The rest of the task force.” Then looked her over as if he were about to tell her something important. Reveal a secret. But he said nothing.

She waved at Albert Stemple, plodding toward his pickup truck. His cowboy boots made gritty sounds on the asphalt. Stone-faced, he nodded back.

Stemple grumbled, “So. That lead to Serrano?”

“That’s it,” Foster said.

“I’ll follow you. Brought the truck. Was supposed to be my day off.” Got inside, started the engine. It growled.

Dance and Foster got into the CBI cruiser. Dance was behind the wheel.

She punched the motel’s address into her iPhone GPS and started the engine. They hit the highway, headed west. Soon the silence in the car ran up till now it seemed louder than the slipstream.

Foster, lost in his phone, read and sent some text messages. He didn’t seem to mind that she was driving—some men would have made an issue of piloting. And he might have, given the fact that Dance really wasn’t a great driver. She didn’t enjoy vehicles, didn’t blend with the road the way Michael O’Neil did.

Thinking of him now, his arms around her at the stampede in Global Adventure World. Then their fight after they’d returned.

Tapped that thought away fast. Concentrate.

She turned music on. Foster didn’t seem to enjoy it but neither did the sound seem to bother him. She’d reflected that while everyone else in the task force had congratulated her on nailing the Solitude Creek unsub, Foster had said nothing. It was as if he hadn’t even been aware of the other case.

Twenty minutes later, she turned off the highway and made her way down a long winding road, Stemple’s truck bouncing behind. As it meandered, from time to time they could see north and south—along the coast, misting away to Santa Cruz, the sky split by the incongruous power plant smokestacks. A shame, those. The vista was one that Ansel Adams might have recorded, using his trademark small aperture to bring the whole scene into crystalline detail.