Dance was reviewing James Reynolds’s notes from the Croyton murder case when TJ arrived—only three or four minutes later, breathless. Maybe her voice had sounded more urgent than she’d realized.

She took the files he carted and spread them out until they covered her desk an inch thick. In a short time they’d accumulated an astonishing amount of material. She began riffling through the pages.

“The girl, was she helpful?”

“Yep,” the agent replied absently, staring at a particular sheet of paper.

TJ made another comment but she wasn’t paying any attention. Flipping through more reports, more pages of handwritten notes, and looking over Reynolds’s time line and his other transcriptions. Then returning to the piece of paper she held.

Finally she said, “I’ve got a computer question. You know a lot about them. Go check this out.” She circled some words on the sheet.

He glanced down. “What about it?”

“It’s fishy.”

“Not a computer term I’m familiar with. But I’m on the case, boss. We never sleep.”

“We’ve got a situation.”

Dance was addressing Charles Overby, Winston Kellogg and TJ. They were in Overby’s office and he was playing with a bronze golf ball mounted on a wooden stand, like a gearshift in a sports car. She wished Michael O’Neil were here.

Dance then dropped the bomb. “Rebecca Sheffield’s working with Pell.”

“What?” Overby blurted.

“It gets better. I think she was behind the whole escape.”

Her boss shook his head, the theory troubling him. He was undoubtedly wondering if he’d authorized something he shouldn’t have.

But Winston Kellogg encouraged her. “Interesting. Go on.”

“Theresa Croyton told me a few things that made me suspicious. So I went back and looked over the evidence so far. Remember that email we found in the Sea View? Supposedly Pell sent it to Jennie from prison. But look.” She showed the printout. “The email address says Capitola Correctional. But it has a ‘dot com’ extension. If it was really a Department of Corrections address it would’ve had ‘dot ca dot gov.’”

Kellogg grimaced. “Hell, yes. Missed that completely.”

“I just had TJ check out the address.”

The young agent explained, “The company’s a service provider in Denver. You can create your own domain, as long as the name’s not taken by somebody else. It’s an anonymous account. But we’re getting a warrant to look at the archives.”

“Anonymous? Then why do you think it was Rebecca?” Overby asked.

“Look at the email. That phrase. ‘Who could ask for anything more in a girl?’ It’s not that common. It stuck with me because it echoes a line in an old Gershwin song.”

“Why is that important?”

“Because Rebecca used the exact expression the first time I met her.”

Overby said, “Still—”