Mary Bolling turned and ran back to the Escalade, as her abandoned shopping cart ambled in the opposite direction down the shallow incline. By the time a breathless Nagle had grabbed the cart just before it slammed into a Mini Cooper, the aunt’s SUV was spinning tires as it vanished from the lot.

Not long ago a CBI agent, now former, had once called this the “Gals’ Wing.”

He was referring to that portion of the Monterey headquarters that happened to be the home of two female investigative agents—Dance and Connie Ramirez—as well as Maryellen Kresbach and the no-nonsense office manager, Grace Yuan.

The unfortunate utterer was a fiftyish agent, one of those fixtures in offices all over the world who wake up counting the days to retirement, and who’ve done so since their twenties. He’d had his share of collars at the Highway Patrol some years back, but his move to the CBI had been a mistake. He wasn’t up to the challenges of the job.

He also apparently lacked any sense of survival.

“And this is the Gals’ Wing,” he’d said, loud enough for everyone to hear, during a lunch-hour tour of HQ with a young woman he was wooing.

Dance and Connie Ramirez made eye contact.

That night they went on a panty-hose-buying mission and when the poor agent came to work the next day he found his entire office spiderwebbed in mesh, fishnet and glittery synthetic leg wear. Some personal hygiene products also figured in the decor. He ran whining to then–CBI head Stan Fishburne, who, bless him, could hardly keep a straight face during the inquisition. “What do you mean you only said, ‘Gals’ Wing,’ Bart? You actually said that?”

He threatened a complaint to Sacramento, but he didn’t last long enough in the CBI to see the matter through. Ironically, after the offender’s departure, the population of that portion of the office adopted the moniker instantly and the hallway was now known to everyone in the CBI as “GW.”

Whose undecorated hallway Kathryn Dance was walking down at the moment.

“Maryellen, hi.”

“Oh, Kathryn, I’m sorry to hear about Juan. We’re all going to make a donation. You know where his parents would like it to go?”

“Michael’ll let us know.”

“Your mother called. She’s going to stop by with the kids later, if that’s okay.”

Dance made sure to see her children whenever she could, even during business hours, if a case was taking up a lot of time and she’d be working late. “Good. How’s the Davey situation?”