A light fog was rolling in from the south, a thin layer of moisture clinging to the air. Lauren and I used to sit on our back deck with a bottle of wine, watching the fog drift in from the other side of the island across San Diego Harbor. We'd talk about dinner plans and friends and vacations and work and family and other things you talked about when you were drunk on a cheap bottle of Merlot. Things that held promise, provided excitement.

I picked up the file and stood. I took a deep breath, let the salty air filter into my nose and lungs. Returning to Coronado was going to bring back memories. I knew that before I'd hopped on the plane. If I was going to help Chuck, I’d be fighting those memories the whole way and I wasn’t sure I had it in me.

As I gazed at the now gray-looking buildings across the bay, murky behind the fog, I felt no promise. No excitement. No hope.

FOUR

The Jordan address in Coronado was clearly a buy-in.

On a seven-and-a-half-square-mile island, inhabited by just 26,000 people, there was only one high school. The classes were small, the teachers rarely left, and the wealthy parents on Coronado were very involved. It was a good high school, perhaps the best public one in the state of California. As such, people wanted their kids to attend Coronado High School as much for the education as for the status.

But you had to live on the island to be eligible to enroll. With a limited amount of real estate and a median home price that edged closer to a million bucks every year, most folks just stared across the bay with envy.

Most folks.

The Jordan address on Coronado was a small bungalow south of the park on B Avenue. Maybe twelve-hundred square feet with a flat roof, windows without curtains, an uninspired lawn and an empty driveway. I knew it was vacant and didn’t even bother getting out of my car.

The only way around the tough enrollment boundaries for the high school was to buy in. The few homes that came up on the market were usually older, unexciting homes. Most people with the money to afford them wouldn't consider actually living in them, and the lots were too small to rebuild. So they would buy the home to get the Coronado address and send their child to the island schools but continue living elsewhere. The school district frowned upon it and did their best to ensure that it didn’t happen often.

But sometimes it did and it was clear to me that the Jordan family had bought their way in to the high school.

I plugged the Jordan’s Rancho Santa Fe address into my rental car’s GPS and headed over the bridge to the mainland. Headed north on I-5, through downtown, past the airport, Sea World and the backside of La Jolla. The area had continued to grow rapidly during my absence, clusters of homes built into nearly every valley and canyon along the coast, like Monopoly pieces on an already crowded board.

When I hit Del Mar, I exited the freeway at Via De La Valle and turned east. The GPS led me well back into the rolling canyons of Rancho Santa Fe, the mansions going from small to large to humongous the further east you went. The Jordan address was about as east as you could go, an indicator that whoever Meredith Jordan was, her family could afford a vacant home on Coronado. A few twists and turns into the canyon and I’d located the Jordan home.

Actually, I’d located their front gates. I couldn’t see the house from where I stood. There was a small intercom just to the left of the drive and in front of the ornate iron gates. I got out of the rental and pushed the call button. After a pause, it crackled to life and a smooth female voice asked “Yes, sir?”

I glanced up and saw two small security cameras mounted on top of the gates rotate in my direction. “My name’s Joe Tyler. I’d like to speak to Mr. Jordan.”

“Mr. Jordan doesn’t receive business calls at his home, sir.”

“I’m working on his daughter’s assault case.”

Another pause, longer this time. “Please wait there, Mr. Tyler.”

I nodded at the cameras and stepped back to the car. I stood on the tips of my toes and tried to get a glimpse of anything over the small, grassy hill behind the gates but failed.

Five minutes later, headlights flashed in the darkness and a white BMW 750 pulled up on the other side of the gates. I squinted into the bright halogen lamps. A tall blond woman stepped out from the driver’s side, pointed a remote at the gates and the huge iron fixtures began to slide to the sides.

She was around thirty, her hair cut short, almost to the point of looking like a boy’s. She wore black cotton sweat pants that flared at her ankles, the kind that usually had some word printed across the rear end. A matching jacket was zipped up to her neck. The stripes on her running shoes glowed in the dark as she crossed through the gate opening.

She held out her hand. “Gina Coleman. I work for Mr. Jordan.”

I took her hand and before I could say anything, she jerked me toward her, swept my legs out from under me with one of hers and dropped me to the ground on my back. The air whooshed out of my lungs and bright colors flashed in my eyes. She dropped down, spearing my chest with her knee, and dug a thumbnail deep into the skin just below my right eye.

“You move and I’ll bury my thumb directly into your eyeball,” she said, her other hand expertly sweeping my body.

I held still, more irritated than afraid.

She finished the sweep and refocused her eyes on mine. Up close, I could see that her hair was a natural yellow-blond, her skin golden-tan, her eyes the color of fresh-cut green grass. Very attractive if she hadn’t been threatening to blind me.

She increased the pressure just a fraction below my eye, blurring my sight. “Why are you out here?”

I was bigger than she was and I thought I could toss her weight off of me, but that thumb was too close to my eye and I appreciated the ability to see. “I told you. I’m working on his daughter’s case.”

“And you just show up here at night, unannounced?” She kept her voice low, relaxed, like she was perusing the items on a menu.

“I just got into town,” I said, moving my eyes to her thumb. Her nail was painted purple. “A friend of mine was arrested and I’m trying to help him.”

The pressure beneath my eye let up a fraction. “Your friend is Winslow?”

“Yeah.”

She blinked several times. “He tell you to come out here?”

“No. He can’t talk. He’s unconscious in the hospital. But where else would I start?”

Something flashed through her eyes. “The hospital?”

“With his head cracked open.”

The pressure let up again. “You’re serious?”

“Yeah.”

She removed her nail from my face and stood. She offered her hand to help me up. I ignored her and got myself up.

“He’s really hurt?”

I brushed off my jeans. “They found him on the beach. He’s in pretty bad shape.”

She started to say something, then stopped. She rubbed at her chin, her mouth drawn tight with concern. She glanced at me and the conflict in her expression was gone.

“You’ve got some guts showing up here and representing the other side,” she said.

“And you’ve got one helluva way of greeting visitors,” I said, rubbing the throbbing area beneath my eye. I could feel the tiny, crescent-shaped impression her nail had made in my skin.

“It’s my job,” she said.

“To threaten people who say hello on the intercom? I didn’t force my way in. You came down to meet me.”

“I’m Mr. Jordan’s security director. We aren’t comfortable with people making their way out to his property, particularly when we’re unprepared for their arrival.”

“Well, I’m trying to do my job, too,” I said. “I’m an investigator.”

She looked over my shoulder at the car. “You got a gun in the car?”

There was no reason to lie. “Yes. In the trunk, in a backpack.”