“Forget it, we’ve got bills to worry about.”

Rick stared at him and he stared back and they both broke into laughter. Milo knew it was temporary tension relief, more Band-Aid than cure. But that was fine.

Milo watched Rick drive away in the rental Volvo. The counter agent had been a good-looking blond woman, and she’d taken one look at Rick, flirted outrageously, and upgraded him.

No meeting of the minds about where Rick would stay and for how long. Milo agreed to let it ride until tonight.

Alone, he drove downtown, to Skid Row. The fleabags that Vance Coury, Senior had owned twenty years ago had all been situated on a two-block stretch of Main Street. The chance that any personnel from that era remained was nil, but what did he have to lose?

The moment he drove by each of the hotels, the iota of optimism vanished. The spots where the Excelsior and the Crossley had stood were now parking lots, and the Grande Royale was the Shining Light Mission.

He made his way back to the Hall of Records and pulled property tax records on all three parcels. The parking lots were leased to a Nevada corporation, but the land was owned by Concourse Elegance, Inc., which traced to Concourse Auto Restoration on Van Nuys Boulevard. Vance Coury’s shop. Junior had inherited the buildings, torn two of them down and converted to low-hassle, income-churning asphalt.

The Shining Light Mission was interesting, though. The Shining Light Foundation was a nonprofit run by the Reverends Fred and Glenda Stephenson—a pair Milo knew because back in his uniform days he’d transported bums to their soup kitchen on San Pedro. He’d found the couple to be saints who put in twenty-hour days serving the poor. Coury probably donated the third lot as part of some sort of tax deal, in order to end up with the other two, free and clear.

Feeling like Don Quixote’s dumber brother, he moved on to death records. Sucked in his breath when he encountered unexpected success.

Luke Matthew Chapman had died in a drowning accident, twenty years ago, at the age of twenty-two.

Date of death: December 14. Six months after Janie Ingalls’s murder. Eight days prior to Caroline Cossack’s final day at Achievement House and nine days prior to Boris Nemerov’s execution.

He phoned the coroner’s office, got hold of one of the few friendly voices at his disposal: a morgue assistant who’d come out of the closet after learning about Milo’s travails. Milo was uncomfortable being viewed as inspirational, but the guy had come in handy from time to time.

Today, Darren asked no questions and went to pull the file. Milo wouldn’t have been surprised to encounter another vanished folder, but a few minutes later he had the relevant data jotted down in his notepad: