This is bullshit. The word rolled around inside his head, loud and pulsating with slow-growing outrage, with disbelief. It had been the house in exchange for his cooperation. The house so Lucas could understand, could appreciate what had transpired in March of 1983. He was living there so he could write the story that no run-of-the-mill reporter ever would.

The media relayed the story, but what they fail to acknowledge is that this story, my story, is one that has yet to be told.

Lucas needed this story, goddammit. He needed this fucking book to work.

“Sorry, man,” Morales said, speaking if only to get Lucas moving again. “We have to go all the way back.”

Lucas would have moved to Washington regardless of whether or not Halcomb had asked him to do so—that was just the way he worked. He just wouldn’t have done it in a mad ten-day dash. The house was a dated relic, a dormant nightmare that he’d dragged his daughter into. He’d dumped money into a moving van, into endless tanks of gas. He’d signed a lease and made a security deposit. It was money he couldn’t afford to lose or even had in the first place.

“Son of a bitch,” he hissed.

“Hey, sorry, man, I thought . . .” Morales cut himself off, as if catching himself in a statement he shouldn’t have been making. Backpedaling, he posed a question instead. “It’s going to mess you up, huh?”

“Uh, yeah, just a little.” Lucas narrowed his eyes as they trekked back to the front of the facility.

“Hey, you wrote a book about the Black Dahlia,” Morales reminded him. “You didn’t interview anyone for that, and that book was good, man. It was really good.” So Morales had read something beyond Bloodthirsty Times; a repeat reader. His eagerness to make Lucas feel a little less defeated would have been endearing if he hadn’t been so pissed off.

“Thanks.” He nearly sneered the word, then sighed at his own aggravation. “I’m sorry. I appreciate you trying to lighten the mood, I’m just . . .” He shook his head. “I just can’t believe this blew up in my face.”

Morales nodded.

“You interact with the inmates, right? I mean, you said that you don’t make it a point to get friendly, but you do interact with them.”

“Yeah, sure, man. All part of the job.”

“So, if you wanted to go one-on-one . . .”

Morales made a face at the suggestion.

“What if it was for a project?” Lucas asked, sensing the guard’s disapproval.

“You mean, like . . . for your book?” Morales’s expression turned thoughtful before giving Lucas a rueful glance. “I’m not real good with that stuff. I mean, I don’t know how I could help . . .” He cracked a grin. “I’m just a guy from East L.A., man. I know the streets, but that’s pretty much where my smarts dead-end. Cool offer, though. My mom would flip if I got my name printed in a book somewhere.”

“What about that other guy?” He tipped his head to motion behind them.

“Eperson? Yeah, he knows a lot of those guys.”

“You think he’d be willing to sit down and talk with me?”

“Probably. Eperson’s pretty cool. He does a lot of visitation stuff. That’s one thing I do know. Halcomb, he’s always got a visitor, and it’s always this one woman.”

Lucas stared at the guard, thrown for a loop by the new information.

The second barred door buzzed. He nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Do you know who she is?”

“That’s more like something Eperson would know. He knows when inmates are in and out of their cells, for how long, and for what reason. I don’t know if he has access to, like, names or copies of ID’s or anything, but I can ask.”

“What does she look like?” Morales continued to walk. Lucas suddenly wanted to grab him to make him stop, wanted to shake him by the shoulders and yell Do you know what this means? It was the mother lode of possible leads.

“Dirty blond, I think, but it’s hard to tell. She wears these scarf things on her head, and the one time I saw her up close, I was on break. She was sitting in the waiting area when I was leaving for lunch. She was wearing these big glasses. You know, like the ones the chicks in Hollywood wear? Lenses so big they swallow half your face.”

The third door. The buzz. The security desk. Morales sidled up to the counter and gave Lumpy Annie a smile. “Hey, anything up here for Mr. Graham from inmate”—he glanced to Lucas’s visitor release form—“881978?”

She rose from the counter without a word and wandered into the back, presumably to check on Morales’s request.

Morales gave Lucas a patient nod. “Like I said, I don’t know if that was the woman for sure. Marty would know better. I’ll ask him. Just have a seat.” He motioned toward the plastic chairs. “It may be a few minutes.”

“How can I reach you?” Lucas asked. “Do I just call the facility and leave a message?”

“Yeah, that’ll work. I’m the only Morales here. First name is Josh.”

Lucas extended a hand to shake in official greeting. “Thanks for your help, Josh.”

“Yeah, man. It was an honor. Sorry about the letdown with Halcomb. But it was nice meeting a real-life author, anyway. Your stuff really is top-notch, Mr. Graham.”

“Call me Lucas.”

“Okay, Lucas then. Give me a shout when you need me.”

“Will do,” Lucas said, and finally took a seat.

16

IT TOOK LUMPY Annie fifteen minutes to locate whatever it was that Halcomb had sent to the front. It wouldn’t have mattered if it had taken her fifteen days, Lucas wouldn’t have moved from his seat. She finally called him up to the counter and slid a note-card-sized manila envelope across the cracked and peeling laminate. Lucas didn’t bother walking out of the waiting area before tearing into the package; Lumpy Annie looking on.

It was a cross about the size of his palm. Delicate hand-painted flowers coiled across each tarnished silver arm. A small metal loop at the top suggested that someone had once worn it around their neck despite its large size. He peered at it, turning it this way and that, as though flipping it over would answer the obvious question—why did Halcomb gift this thing to him? Why had he bothered giving Lucas anything after refusing to see him?

His gaze flicked up to the woman behind the counter. “What’s this?” he asked, as though Lumpy Annie was privy to some important nugget of information.

“Looks like a cross,” she said, not interested in Lucas pulling her into his confusion.

“Obviously,” he murmured to himself, peering at the artifact in his hand. “But why would he send it up here? What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Send it up here?” Lumpy Annie arched an eyebrow. “No, that wasn’t sent up here.” Lucas shook his head at her, not understanding. “An inmate can’t send something like that up,” she said. “You think we’d let any of our charges have something like that in their cells?” Lucas blinked down at the cross once more. Its edges seemed sharp, its innocuous design far more weapon-like now than it had seemed seconds before. “Someone left that, but it wasn’t the inmate,” she said matter-of-factly. “Don’t ask me by who because I don’t know . . . but I’ve seen it done before.”

“Is there a way to—”

“No.” She cut him off.

“But someone keeps a record, right?” Lucas stared at her, determined. “Someone knows who left this, yeah? What if it was a piece of evidence? What if it was a murder weapon?”

“Sir . . .” Lumpy Annie’s expression went sour. Cool it. Lucas took a breath as she gave him a measured look. “You have a nice day.”

He turned away from the front desk, readjusted his bag against his hip, then veered around to face her again. “I want to schedule another visitation,” he said. “I want to know why I was stood up.”