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introduced by Annette herself, had to do with Paul Grayson’s disappearance. This was, after all, the NBC affiliate, and Grayson was a high-profile NBC bigwig. A young female reporter—one Ali had never seen before—delivered a brief story filmed in front of the gated entrance to the house on Robert Lane. That, Ali knew, would send Paul utterly ballistic once he got wind of it. Having your front gate identified on television news for all the world to see was not good from a security standpoint.
    The second, related segment, done by a roving reporter, was filmed in the paved parking lot of a less than desirable apartment complex somewhere in Banning. Of course, by the time the filming occurred, Paul’s Arena Red 911 had already been towed away. Yellow crime scene tape was still visible but the vehicle wasn’t, as the reporter earnestly let viewers know that this was where Paul Grayson’s abandoned Porsche had been found early in the afternoon.
    By the time the two segments were over almost three minutes of news time had elapsed and Ali had learned almost nothing she hadn’t known before from simply surfing the Net.
    “Useless,” Ali muttered under her breath. She was close to changing the channel when part of a story Randall James was relating penetrated her consciousness. This one concerned an unidentified man found dead in the desert late Thursday night in the aftermath of a fatal train/vehicle collision that had occurred northwest of Palm Springs. Since Ali had been in such proximity to the incident when it happened, she stayed tuned to see the remainder of the piece.
    The smiling faces on the tube, reading blandly from their teleprompters, didn’t seem to make any connection between that case and the one they had reported on two stories before, and why should they? After all, they were paid to read what was given to them—stories that had already been written and edited by someone else. Connecting dots was never a required part of the news desk equation.
    But Ali’s life had undergone a fundamental change months earlier when she had started trying to piece together the details that would explain the sudden death of her friend Reenie Bernard. And now, this newly reconstituted Ali Reynolds was incapable of not connecting dots, especially when they were this obvious.
    The body of an unidentified man found outside Palm Springs? Paul’s abandoned vehicle located in a parking lot somewhere in Banning, ten or fifteen miles away? Without knowing how, Ali understood immediately that the two incidents were connected. She knew in her bones that the dead man found near Palm Springs had to be Paul. The only remaining question was, how long would it take for someone else to figure it out?
    The answer to that question wasn’t long in coming. Before Axel could launch into his weather report, there was a sharp rap on Ali’s door.
    “Who is it?” she asked, peering out through the security peephole. Two men wearing white shirts, ties, and sports jackets stood in the hall. One was white and older—mid-fifties—with a bad comb-over and the thick neck of an aging football player. The other was younger—mid-thirties, black, with a shaved head and the straight-shouldered bearing of an ex-Marine.
    “Police,” the older one said, holding up a wallet that contained a badge and photo ID. “Detectives Sims and Taylor, Riverside Sheriff’s Department. We need to speak to you about your husband.”
    Helga Myerhoff’s warning should have been uppermost in Ali’s head, but it wasn’t. Shaken by her sudden realization that Paul really was dead, she unfastened the security chain and opened the door.
    “Is he dead?” she asked.
    “He may be,” Detective Sims, the older one, said. “That’s why we need to speak with you. May we come in?”
    Ali opened the door and allowed the two men into her room. Their looming presence combined with the weight of the news they carried filled what had previously seemed to be a spacious room.