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you leave it?”
    “I dropped a bug in his ear when I left, ” Timms said. “Hung back and watched awhile, see if it got him moving.”
    “And?”
    “He might have taken another nap.”
    “I love it.”
    “Went somewhere after about an hour, ” Timms said.
    “Driving fast?”
    “Not particularly.”
    Even if he'd been inclined, Timms had no hope of tailing, given the logistics. Kindler's borrowed neighborhood consisted of a short row of expensive beachfront homes fifteen feet off the beachside shoulder of PCH. Sandstone cliffs for an eastern shoulder and two lanes of fast traffic in either direction. After talking with Kindler, Timms had to move his car to a nearby pay lot and decide between the beach side of the property or the highway side. From the highway side, he'd had a fantastic view of a gated brick wall and a closed garage door. So he'd found a spot on the beach path that offered decent line-of-sight through the field binoculars he kept in the glovebox of the Oldsmobile. What the position had lacked in cover it made up for in immobility.
    “So are we calling this guy a player?”
    “Don't have much choice until the lab on that letter comes back, ” Timms said. “I'll say this, though. Kindler may have a cool streak, but he's a shitty liar.”
    “Think he's holding something?”
    “That's just it, ” Timms said. “When he said he didn't know our guy, I believed him.”
    “Then what?”
    “You want to know the only time I really knew for sure this guy Kindler was full of shit?”
    Drea watched as he dumped back the last of his cold coffee. She didn't bother making a guess.
    Timms popped a breath mint and said, “When he pretended he knew what I was talking about when I mentioned the Tavlin thing.”

6
    BORLAND Management hung its shingle on the fifth floor of an unimaginative high rise downtown. Andrew had never been to the place, but it wasn't hard to find. He took the elevator up, followed the floor directory, and arrived in Lane's neo-primitive reception area a little after one o'clock.
    After giving his name, Andrew stood and absorbed the decor, which featured lots of brushed aluminum, glass, burnished cherrywood, trendy earth tones, and mass-produced totems meant to look imported from dark exotic locales. He doubted very much that Caroline had anything to do with the scheme.
    At a desk made of improbable angles sat an attractive middle-aged woman with a spiky platinum crew cut. Without looking at Andrew, she poked a button with a gunmetal fingernail, repeated his name, and told him to have a seat.
    Andrew had a seat.
    He didn't intend to get into a conversation in the process. But the ponytailed guy already waiting tipped a nod, which Andrew returned. The guy asked if Andrew had the time, which Andrew did. After that, the guy just sort of kept on chatting.
    Before long, Andrew found himself leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He figured he had a few minutes to spare.
    “Wait, back up a minute, ” he said. “Tell me again about the det cord?”
    The guy, who had introduced himself as Kyle, claimed to own his own business.
Crash and Burn Productions.
He was—of all things—a special-effects technician for Hollywood.
    Andrew couldn't help but enjoy the professional coincidence. By the time Kyle started naming off a few of the movies he'd worked on, Andrew was hooked. He'd actually seen a few of them.
    “Okay” Kyle said, re-explaining the type of detonating fuse he'd already described. “It's frequency-activated. Right?
Frequency-activated.
As in, you use padded plastic snips to cut it if you wanna keep all your hands attached.”
    He waggled his fingers for emphasis. Andrew grinned and shook his head, imagining the scenario.
    Kyle said he'd been working on a small-budget horror flick when the incident occurred. According to Kyle, his first mistake had been putting moves on the female day player who had gotten hacked apart in a dormitory shower sequence earlier that