“There’s a website. It’s called ‘The Look of Love’ or ‘LOL’ for short. It helps wealthy older guys meet up with friendly younger girls for dates. What happens after that is between them.”

“Do you set up a profile on the site?” Jessie pressed.

“Yeah, that way the guys can find girls who are their type. And it lets the site do a security check on the guys.”

Jessie and Dolan looked up at Harrington, who had retreated to the corner of the den and was looking out one of the massive windows facing Santa Monica.

“Did you go through one of those checks?” Dolan asked him.

Harrington turned around, sighed deeply, and walked back over to them.

“Yes,” he admitted.

“You weren’t worried about this website having you on file as a client?” Jessie wanted to know.

“I heard about it through a friend who vouched for it. He knows the person who runs the site, so there’s some accountability. Plus, it’s a pretty exclusive circle. There are maybe fifteen to twenty clients and less than a hundred girls. It’s in everyone’s interest to keep things under wraps.”

“We’ll need the name of the site operator,” Jessie told him.

Harrington looked ashen.

“But like Gabby said,” he balked, “there’s nothing illegal about it. It’s just a really exclusive dating service.”

“We’re not looking to shut it down,” Jessie assured him, though the idea was appealing. “We just need to access Claire’s profile and dating history.”

“Would you mention that you got the information from me?” he whined.

“Only if we have to,” Dolan said, showing what Jessie considered more deference to him than to Gabby.

“Don’t worry,” she added tartly. “You should be able to keep this hidden from your wife, at least until the trial.”

“What?” he asked, genuinely horrified.

“Mr. Harrington,” she said, knowing she was taking more pleasure in this than she probably should, “when we catch this guy, he’s going to face trial. You’ll have to testify in open court. So you’d be well-advised to figure out how you plan to explain your ‘date’ to Mrs. Harrington. Maybe you should call her before she returns from whatever extended trip she’s currently on, the one that has you so comfortable parading Gabrielle around. I wish you luck.”

CHAPTER SIX

Jessie was flabbergasted.

“Can you repeat that?” she asked incredulously.

“You heard me,” Dolan said as they stood in the driveway outside the front of Harrington’s mansion. “Now that the case is closed, I’m headed back to the station.”

“The case is not closed,” she reminded him. “There’s a murderer with blood-soaked keys out there somewhere.”

“That’s not my concern,” Dolan said nonchalantly. “The case is closed in terms of Crutchfield and Thurman. It’s clear that whoever did this, it wasn’t one of them. And since I’m after those two, this case is officially in the rearview mirror. Besides, the North Hollywood detectives can handle this just fine. They can just get names from the dating site and find out which of them don’t have alibis. I bet this thing is solved in twelve hours, without any help from us.”