In the photos I was able to identify bags carried by various shoppers as coming from Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue and Barnes amp; Noble. In one of the photos the family walked through a food court that included the concessions Cinnabon and Hot Dog on a Stick. I wrote all of these down in my notebook and knew that with these five locations I would probably be able to determine in which mall the photos had been taken, if I decided it was necessary to know this information and I did not want to ask Graciela about it. That was still an open question. I did not want to alarm her if it was not necessary. Telling her she may have been stalked while with her family-and possibly by someone with a strange connection to her husband-might not be the best avenue to take. At least at first

That connection turned stranger and more alarming when the printer finally spit out one of the photos I had chosen from the mall sequence. In the picture the family was walking in front of the Barnes amp; Noble bookstore. The shot had been taken from the other side of the mall but the angle was almost perpendicular to the storefront The front display window of the bookstore caught a dim reflection of the photographer. I had not seen it on the computer screen but there it was in the print.

The image of the photographer was too small and too whispery against the display behind the window-a full-size stand-up photo of a man in a kilt that was surrounded by stacks of books and a sign that said ian rankin here tonight! I realized then that I could use the display to place the exact day that the photos of Graciela and her children were taken. All I had to do was call the store and find out when Ian Rankin had been there. But the display also helped hide the photographer from me.

I went back to the computer and found the photo among the miniatures and enlarged it. I stared at it realizing I didn't know what to do.

Buddy was in the cockpit using a hose attached to a gunwale faucet to spray the eight rods and reels leaning against the stern. I told him to turn the water off and to come back down to the office. He did so without a word. When we were back in the office I signaled him to the stool and men leaned over him and outlined the area of the photographer's reflection on the screen. "Can this be enlarged here? I want to see this area better."

"It can be enlarged but you lose a lot of definition. It's digital, you know? You get what you get."

I didn't know what he was talking about. I just told him to do it. He played with some of the square buttons that ran along the top of the frame and started enlarging the photograph and then repositioning it so the area of the reflection stayed on the screen. Soon he said that he had maximized the enlargement. I leaned in close. The image was even murkier. Not even the lines on the author's kilt were crisp.

"You can't tighten it up any?"

"You mean make it smaller again. Sure, I-"

"No, I mean like bring it more into focus."

"No, man, that is it. What you see is what you get."

"Okay, print it. It came out better before when I printed it. Maybe this will, too."

Lockridge put in the commands and I spent an uneasy minute waiting.

"What is this, anyway?" Buddy asked.

"A reflection of the photographer."

"Oh. You mean it wasn't Terry?"

"No, I don't think so. I think somebody took pictures of bis family and sent them to him. It was some sort of message. Did he ever mention this?"

"No."

I took a shot at seeing if Buddy might let something slip.

"When did you first notice this file on the computer?"

"I don't know. It must've been… actually, I just saw them for the first time with you here." "Buddy, don't bullshit me. This could be important. I've watched you work this thing like it was yours since high school. I know you went into that machine when Terry wasn't around. He probably knew, too. He didn't care and neither do I. Just tell me, when did you first see this file?"

He let a few moments pass while he thought about it.

"I first saw them about a month before he died. But if your real question is when did Terry see them, then all you have to do is look at the file archive and see when it was created."

"Then do it, Buddy."

Lockridge took over the keyboard again and went into the photo file's history. In a few seconds he had the answer.

"February twenty-seventh," he said. "That was when that file was created."

"Okay, good," I said. "Now, assuming that Terry didn't take these, how would they end up on his computer?'

"Well, there's a few ways. One is that he got them in an e-mail and downloaded them. Another is that somebody borrowed bis camera and shot them. He then found them and downloaded them. The third way is maybe somebody just sent him a photo chip right out of the camera or a CD with the pictures already on it That would probably be the most untraceable way."

"Could Terry do e-mail from here?"

"No, up at the house. There is no hard line on the boat. I told him he ought to get one of those cellular modems, go wireless like that commercial where the guy's sitting at his desk in the middle of a field. But he never got around to it." The printer kicked out the photo and I grabbed it ahead of Buddy's reach. But then I placed it down on the desk so we could both view it. The reflection was blurred and dim but still more recognizable on the print than it was on the computer screen. I could now see that the photographer was holding the camera in front of his face, obscuring it completely. But then I was able to identify the overlapping L and A configuration of the Los Angeles Dodgers logo. The photographer was wearing a baseball cap.

On any given day there might be fifty thousand people wearing Dodgers caps in this city. I don't know for sure. But what I do know is that I don't believe in coincidences. I never have and I never will. I looked at the murky reflection of the photographer and my sudden guess was that it was the mystery man. Jordan Shandy.

Lockridge saw it, too.

"Goddamn," he said. "That's the guy, right? I think that's the charter. Shandy."

"Yeah," I said. "Me, too." ^.

I put the print of Shandy holding up the Spanish mackerel next to the enlargement. There was no way to make a match but there was nothing that made me think the other way. There was no way to be sure but I was sure. I knew that the same man who had showed up unannounced for a private charter with Terry McCaleb had also stalked and photographed his family.

What I didn't know was where McCaleb had gotten these photos and whether he had made the same jump as I had just made.

I started stacking all of the photos I had printed. All the time I was trying to put something together, some connection of logic. But it wasn't there. I didn't have enough of the picture. Only a few pieces. My instincts told me that McCaleb had been baited in some way. Photos of his family came to him in the form of an e-mail or a photo chip or a CD. And the last two photos were the key. The first thirty-four were the bait. The last two were the hook hidden inside that bait.

I believed the message was obvious. The photographer wanted to draw McCaleb out to the desert. Out to Zzyzx Road.