I guess she just wanted to be someplace where she could feel safe.

We sat around a big table, sipping something red that the counselor called bug juice, Krantz and I explaining Sobek to Lucy and Ben. Lucy kept one hand on Ben, and held my hand with the other, but still did not look at me. She spoke only to Krantz, though she occasionally squeezed my hand as if sending a message she was not yet capable of saying aloud.

Finally, Krantz was paged, and checked the number. "That's Stan."

He called Watts, listened for a few seconds, then nodded at Lucy. "We've secured your home. Manager let us in, and officers are on the site."

The tension drained out of her like air from a balloon. "Oh, thank God."

"Let me just wrap up here, and we'll get you home. If you decide you want to leave town, let me know and we'll bring you to the airport. I'll call the Baton Rouge PD, if you'd like, and bring them up to speed."

Lucy smiled at him like Krantz was human. "Thank you, Lieutenant. If I decide to go home, I'll call you."

Home.

She took my hand again, and smiled at me for the first time in a while. "It's going to be all right."

I smiled back, and everything seemed much better in the world.

While the counselors were getting Ben's things, I took my bug juice to the door and stared out at the tree line, searching it the way I had when I was eighteen, and in the Army. I thought about Sobek, and what we had found in his garage. His goal was to kill the people he blamed for putting DeVille in prison, and he had started with the people most removed from the prosecution, probably because it would be hardest for LAPD to connect them together. I wondered if that was the only reason. I wondered if maybe he also didn't blame them the least, which meant he was saving the people he blamed the most. Pike, for sure, but there was also Krakauer and Wozniak, though they were both dead. The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me, because he had had a personal relationship with Wozniak, and there was every possibility that it was Sobek who had been the one who had tipped Wozniak to DeVille's location that day. I stared at the stables and thought about the horses within; I couldn't see them, but I heard them and smelled them. They snorted and whinnied and talked to each other, I guess, and were real even though they were beyond my sight. Life is often like that, with realities layered over other realities, mostly hidden but always there. You can't always see them, but if you listen to their clues, you'll recognize them all the same.

Krantz was having two of the sheriffs load Ben's things when I said, "He's not coming here, Krantz."

Krantz nodded. "Maybe not."

"You don't get it. He's not coming here, or my place, or Lucy's. It's a diversion."

Now Krantz frowned, and Lucy looked over, both hands draped on Ben's shoulders.

"Think about it, Krantz. He wants to kill the people he blames for DeVille, and he's doing that, but then he realized we're onto him. His game's over, and he knows it, right?"

Krantz was still frowning.

"He knows that it's only a matter of days before we link the vics, and when we do we'll have a suspect pool, and he's in the pool."

Krantz said, "Yeah, that's why he decides to take you out of the play."

"But to what end? He can't go on working at Parker, killing another couple of dozen people. If he believes we're on to him, he's going to cut to the chase. If he's thinking that his play is over, then he's going to want to kill the people he blames the most. He can't get to Pike, Krakauer's dead, so that leaves Wozniak."

"Wozniak's dead, too."

"Krakauer was a bachelor. Wozniak had a wife and a child, and they're in Palm Springs. That's where I got Wozniak's daybook. That's where we should be."

Lucy's hands tightened around Ben, as if her new found security was falling away. "But why would he take Ben's picture? Why would he have our address?"

"Maybe he put those things together to distract us. We're here with you now; we're not with Wozniak's widow, and that's where he's going."

"But you're just guessing. Did you see her address there? Were there pictures of her and her daughter?"

"No."

"We know he had our address. We know he's a killer." She gripped my arm then, as hard as Frank Garcia had gripped me when he had begged me to find his child. "I need you right now."

I looked at Krantz. "Krantz, he's going to Palm Springs."

Krantz didn't like it, but he was seeing it. "You got her name and address?"

"Her name is Paulette Renfro. I don't remember the address, but I can tell you how to get there."

Krantz was already dialing his phone. "The States can get the address. They can get a car there before us."

Krantz frowned as he made the call, and I knew what he was seeing in his head, a couple of sheriff's deps snapping the cuffs on Sobek, the two deputies getting the headlines and being interviewed by Katie Couric.

I looked back at Lucy, and gave her my best reassuring smile, but she wasn't at home to receive it.

"That's where he's going, Luce. I can't go back with you now, but just stay here until I get back. I'll take you home when I get back."

Lucy's eyes were distant and cold, and hurt.

"I don't need you to take me home."

Krantz went for the door even as he worked the phone, calling to Williams. "Jerry, let's mount up. We're going over there."

When we left the cafeteria, I glanced back at Lucy, but she wasn't looking at me. I didn't need to see her to know what was in her eyes:

I had chosen someone else once again.

Sobek has not moved for the better part of an hour. The desert sun has driven the temperature inside his Jeep to almost 130 degrees, and his sweatshirt is soaked, but he imagines himself a predatory lizard, motionless in the brutal heat as he waits for prey. He is armored by muscle and resolve, and his mission commitment is without peer. He will wait for the rest of the day, if necessary, and the night, and for all the days to come.

It does not take that long.

A car eases up the residential streets below and pulls into the vic's drive. Sobek fingers the.357 when the car turns in, thinking it's her, but it isn't. A man gets out and stands looking at the house in the brilliant desert light, the man wearing jeans, an outrageous beachcomber shirt with the tail out, and sunglasses.

Sobek leans forward until his chest touches the steering wheel.

It is Joe Pike.

Pike goes to the front door, rings the bell, then goes around to the back of the house. Sobek can't see him back there, and thinks Pike must be sitting on the little veranda, or that he's found a way inside.

Sobek waits, but Pike does not return.

His heart pounds as he clutches the.357 with both hands.

The gun is nestled between his legs where he can feel the weight of it on his penis. It feels good there.

He allows himself to smile, the first expression of emotion he's had in days. Pike has come to him.

Control.

Sobek settles back and waits for Paulette Wozniak and her daughter to return.

Paulette picked up her daughter Evelyn earlier that morning from Banning, where Evelyn had dropped her car for service. Evelyn's Volkswagen Beetle had gone kaput, and now Evelyn was without a car. First the boyfriend, then the apartment, now the car. Paulette had taken Evelyn to her job at Starbucks, then picked her up again, and was bringing her home to wait until her car was ready at the end of the day. Evelyn, of course, wasn't happy about it. Paulette never expected to find a strange car in her drive.

Evelyn was sulky and angry, and glowering in the passenger seat like she was fit to choke a dog. The only thing she'd said that morning was to ask if Paulette had heard from Mr. Cole again. Paulette hadn't, and thought it odd that Evelyn would ask.