He hadn’t expected to hear about Laney, though. His beautiful girl, drifting in the cold currents of the Pacific. Dark hair waving like seaweed, body tumbling slow—stop.

But now he had something to live for. Someone had killed his wife. There was a lot he still didn’t understand, but one thing he knew for certain—hell, the cop had all but told him—was that the police weren’t investigating. The sheriffs were so sure they had their man that they were letting everything else slip through the cracks. Well, he could do something about that.

The waitress set his check on the edge of the table, “For whenever,” and breezed away. Daniel slurped his coffee, finished his bacon. He collected his new cell phone—a prepaid he’d bought at a gas station—and hit the bathroom. Splashed cold water on his face and finger-combed his hair, used paper towels to sponge-bathe his armpits. Then he walked out into a bright blue morning, Los Angeles sick with sunlight, same as ever. He unlocked the BMW, got in.

Nine times out of ten, when a wife is murdered, the husband is involved.

Okay. So what about that tenth time? What then?

Think like a writer. Why do people kill?

Love and money, the old song went. It seemed like money was some sort of factor, given the jewelry Laney had bought. But that didn’t help him much, or at least wouldn’t until his memory returned.

Which left love. And on that one, he did have a thought.

He started the car and headed north. Navigating on autopilot, innately knowing how the streets connected, which were the fastest routes. Some of the places he passed seemed familiar—a bar he might have haunted, a café with a patio that he could almost remember the view from. He could feel the pressure of his memories, the way they surged and throbbed behind the levee his unconscious had erected to protect him from himself. Maybe the levee would give on its own; maybe he needed more information. Maybe he needed to find the person who had done this.

A lot of maybes. But that was the way things were for now. And he was tired of reacting. It was time to get proactive.

Then he turned the corner, and saw Laney looking at him.

The studio wall was thirty feet high, not tall enough to hide the enormous soundstages beyond. But it did serve nicely to display enormous billboards of the major FOX shows: American Idol, The Simpsons, . . . and Candy Girls. The shot was of Laney with her “sisters,” the redhead smiling and innocent, the blonde with a scheming seductive look, and Laney smiling that head-cocked Emily Sweet Special.

Daniel stared up at his dead wife. Wasn’t there a point where life couldn’t get more surreal?

Apparently not. As he watched, a guy in a spacesuit drove a battered Tercel up to security and rolled down his window, passing something to the guard. A moment later, the gate went up and the spaceman drove through. The guard wiped his brow, hitched his belt, and trundled back to his booth.

Daniel sucked air through his teeth, stared across the street. Cars came and went, pausing at the gate in both directions. He thought of the tabloid lines he’d read last night, all that dirty laundry.

“Laney was a beautiful woman with a beautiful soul. Everyone adored her. Me? I loved her.”

Robert Cameron. Her “hunky costar.” The one that fuck Perez Hilton had said she was rumored to be having an affair with, that People magazine had shown pictures of with Laney, the two of them shot in a nightclub, dancing one of those sexy Latin dances.

He didn’t want to believe that she might have strayed. But if nine times out of ten the husband was to blame, maybe on the tenth, it was the lover. It was the kind of obvious angle the cops should have followed up on, but apparently hadn’t, because they were certain Daniel was to blame.

“Laney was a beautiful woman with a beautiful soul. Everyone adored her. Me? I loved her.”

“I bet you did,” Daniel said. The light changed, and he pulled away. His wife’s eyes hung in his rearview mirror.

But how to get to Cameron? The man’s phone number and address would be unlisted. No way Daniel could stake out the studio and watch for him to leave. For one thing, security would notice; for another, the lot was big. Who knew how many entrances it had, which one Cameron used, or what he drove. So what then, Star Maps?

Well, he couldn’t risk being himself. Fine. Then he had to be somebody else. He could show up at a cattle call, try to land a part as an extra. The studios always needed bodies. But that could take a long time. Besides, he had to imagine those people were thoroughly handled—no one wanted aspiring writers tracking down Al Pacino to thrust a script into his hand.

No, he needed to have reasonably free access. Who came and went on the lot? Who didn’t work there, but wouldn’t draw attention? Who did they let in, then not look at?

Got it.

Daniel gunned the car.

5

The uniform supply place was at the south end of downtown, and from the outside looked like a warehouse, blank walls and loading docks. The place was in the shadow of the 10. Traffic was a steady roar, and the air was exhaust.

The showroom took up only a portion of the whole, but even so, it was startling. Racks and racks and racks of outfits, the kind he’d never really thought about. Cops had to get the uniforms somewhere, he supposed. And firemen, and chefs, and maids . . .

He fingered a police uniform, thought about maybe changing his plan. The uniform was incomplete, of course; it didn’t have the flashing or the insignia. But what average citizen would think to look for those things?

No. People look at policemen . He wanted to be invisible. In a section toward the back, he found a pair of shiny gray slacks. Polyester to avoid ironing, cut in a distinctly unfashionable style, and with a vertical stripe of shiny blue running up the leg. They were hideous. He grabbed them.

Next was a short-sleeve polo: diamond knit, the texture of paper towel, bright yellow with blue stripes ringing the collar and the sleeves. Perfect. He paid, then went looking for a screen printing shop.

5

Timing was key.

He’d gotten everything he needed by eleven, so he killed an hour at a communal table in a Coffee Beanery, between an actor reviewing headshot possibilities and a well-dressed woman sipping a latte and reading a Robert Ludlum novel. Daniel spent the time trying passwords on the laptop, but none worked.

Shortly before noon, he pulled up to the studio gate. The lunch rush had cars going in both directions, and it took a couple of minutes before he reached the security booth.

He left his sunglasses on, rolled down the window. “Hey man. Delivery for,” he paused, grabbed the clipboard from the seat beside him. “Robert Cameron.”

“Name?”

“Cameron, C-A-M—”

“No, your name.”

“Oh, my name’s Jay Dobry, but it should be under Arrow Couriers.” He pointed to the logo on his bright yellow polo shirt. The guy at the screen printing shop had done nice work with it, put the words in italics with little speed trails following them.