Three thousand miles away.

Too bad.

Andy told himself that he had tried. It had felt right. Maybe for the wrong reasons. Now Nick could have it all.

On his way out he knocked on the office door. His father told him to come in. Max was sitting in Marie’s chair and tiny Marie was curled in his lap like a child. She cracked open one eye and gave Andy a wily, frightened look.

“Leave your visitor’s badge in the box on the counter, son.”

He had just started up his ice blue Corvair when he remembered something for the first time in eight years. Thanksgiving, 1960. David home from San Anselmo’s, Clay with his smart friend Eileen. Nick and Katy. The Stoltzes and three Vonns. Meredith.

They were all in the family room for after-dinner drinks and conversation. Wine racing in his head and lust charging almost uncontrolled through him every time he looked at Meredith Thornton or brushed against her.

Roger and Marie Stoltz were seated in Max and Monika’s blue and white recliners. Lynette and Janelle Vonn were brought to them like babes to Jesus.

What Andy remembered now, for the first time, was the look on Roger Stoltz’s face as he touched Janelle Vonn’s pudgy eleven-year-old’s arm and smiled down at her. An unmistakable expression, thought Andy. The same one his father had with Marie.

Pity.

“SO YESTERDAY, Shirley’s doing the laundry and guess what she finds in Kevin’s pants?” asked Lobdell. “In a little ball of chewing gum foil?”

“Uppers,” said Nick.

“How did you know?”

“From his lipping off to his teachers and mom,” said Nick. “And sleeping all weekend. You know, jacked up on the pills all week, then crashing. It came to me this morning when I was thinking about him and my third cup of coffee kicked in.”

Lucky fixed Nick with a look but said nothing while Nick turned off Laguna Canyon Road onto Stan Oaks. They were headed to Cory Bonnett’s for a knock-and-talk. Bonnett looked good but not good enough for a search warrant. Nick figured their chances of catching him at home were small.

“I feel like a dumbass,” said Lobdell. “Here I am a cop, I’m supposed to know these things. The signs.”

“Nobody figures their seventeen-year-old is taking pills.”

Lucky sighed. “Shirley was upset. More than upset. Kevin made it worse, said he had no idea what the pills were, no idea how they got into his pants. I grounded him completely, for starters. I told Shirley I know a guy in narcotics detail-you know, Gant-who could come over and give Kevin a good shaking up. Really tell him what that shit can do to you. Kevin won’t listen to me or his mom, so I figure maybe a young guy like Gant can scare him straight. But Shirley says if I call the cops on my own son she’ll leave me and take Kevin with her. She’s serious. She really means it. I wasn’t going to have him arrested. That’s not what I meant at all.”

Nick steered up the steep, winding road.

“Gets worse,” said Lobdell. “Last night we sat Kevin down and asked him what was the reason for the pills. I mean, why was he taking that shit? And he says it’s because he hates us, his mom and me. Can’t wait to get out of the house. Hates the rules and the boredom and the homework and the chores and the teachers and me telling him what to do. Wants to be free. Says he’s packing up the second he turns eighteen, going to goddamned Humboldt or some such thing. You know what they got there-rain and dope. Plenty of both. Know what I said?”

“I have an idea.”

“I said fine, son. Do it. A young man should be free. I’ll wish you all the luck in the world. I’ll help you get a used car. They got a decent state college up there. I can send you off with my blessing and a little folding money. And Shirley-”

“Oh no.”

“Oh yeah. She hit the roof. Thinks I’m trying to kick him out. She’s yelling at me and I’m yelling at Kevin again and Kevin’s yelling at her and you know? That was the worst day of my life. I feel worse now than I did after hell week at the academy or that motorcycle wreck or the kidney stones back in sixty-four. I feel like I married a woman I don’t even know and had a kid I don’t even like.”

“I wish I had some advice.”

“That’s the last thing I need. I just wanted to hear myself complain. But Nick?”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks for giving some thought to my son.”

Nick glanced across at his partner. “You’re welcome.”

“And look at that damned house.”

Nick stopped in the middle of the driveway. The big house loomed on the hillside above them. Redwood and smoked-glass windows and river rock. Like something you’d see in the Colorado mountains, thought Nick. Two stories high, three chimneys, and what looked like a pool house off to one side.

“That’s another thing that pisses me off about these drug people,” said Lobdell, “is all the money they make off of kids like Kevin. Look at the size of that thing. The guy’s twenty-two years old.”

Nick drove slowly up the steep drive. There was another home a hundred yards off to the left and down. And one below it, almost out of view around the hillside. Besides that, just coastal scrub and prickly pear.

Bonnett’s rock, wood, and glass castle dominated the hill. Above the roofline Nick saw only sky and a redtail hawk gliding on a thermal. Felt the temperature creep up as they climbed. Up closer Nick saw a big garage with all three of the doors open. Two vehicles inside. A blue and white pickup truck in the driveway.

Then a swimming pool. A weight-lifting bench loaded with a heavy barbell beside the clean blue water. A row of four green chaise longues. A pool house behind.

They parked and followed a walkway past the pool. It curved through a small stand of yellowing cottonwoods and brought them to a redwood stairway that led up to a deck and the big double front doors. Peepholes in both doors but no windows. Windows on either side of the doors but the blinds were drawn tight.

Nick rang the buzzer and waited. Lobdell knocked.

They followed the deck around the house. The windows all had blinds and the blinds were drawn. The north wall of the house was dark with stain. Moss between the slats. But on the sunny exposures the redwood had turned silver-gray in the sun. Lizards stuck to the warm boards of the west wall. Nick looked out to the blue Pacific wedged between the brown canyon hills. Smelled the sage and eucalyptus and just a hint of ocean blowing into the canyon from the sea.

They walked down to the pool house. The sliding glass door of the house was open. Curtains wafted in and out in the canyon breeze. Nick rapped on the glass with his knuckles, said “O.C. sheriff’s deputies.”

The voice came at him close and strong. “Beat it.”

“We’re here to see Cory,” said Nick. Hand to his auto. Hammer of the gun caught on the lining of his sport coat. Nudged it away with his fingers.

“Ain’t here so beat it.”

Suddenly the curtains shot to the side. Big man right in front of Nick. Lobdell’s arm came from behind him,.45 leading the way. Nick jumped back and drew cleanly.

Guy in the window put his hands up. Eyes big. Shaking his head. “I don’t have a gun,” he said.

“Step outside,” said Nick. “Now.” His heart pounded and his hands had gone cold.

“Don’t shoot, man. I don’t have a gun.”

“Step outside,” said Nick. “Keep your hands where I can see them. Good. Easy. You can do it.”

Nick moved back and the man stepped from the pool house. Nick’s age-thirty or so. He was big, naked except for a swimsuit. Skin dark. Long black hair and a sharp little beard like a musketeer. Hands out but not up. A look on his face like he’d done this before and could strangle someone.

Lobdell turned him, looked him over, holstered his Colt. “Good way to get shot,” he said.

“I was asleep.”