desert on a street in a neighborhood called Colonia Solana.
Alec Sheppard was waiting by his rental car.
He looked good.
He was a good-looking man.
She liked Alec Sheppard. In fact, she liked him a lot.
They toured that house and two others. One was in the foothills. The sun was starting to get low. “We could have dinner,” Alec said.
Tess opened her mouth to say she had to get back. Instead, she excused herself and went outside to call Bonny’s extension. It was late and he was already gone. She left a long message detailing what had transpired in California. She sent photos from her phone of the area where Peter Farley had been buried by the mountain pool. She sent photos of the animal sanctuary.
Then she went to dinner with Alec Sheppard. The food was good. The conversation, better. However much she liked him the first time they went out together, she liked him even more now.
She went up to his room for a nightcap.
Not advisable. She knew she was letting herself in for big trouble. He was too attractive, too decent, too nice, too smart, too good a man for it not to cause a major wrinkle in her life, but it was all operations go from the moment they stepped inside. She wanted him and he obviously wanted her. It started to get warm and then hot, and Tess realized she was equal parts attracted to Alec Sheppard and angry with Max.
It was hard to stop. Like a pilot trying to pull a plane out of a dive. He wasn’t just a good kisser, but a good toucher, a good hugger, a good feeler, and she was getting to the point—quickly—where she would not be able to stop.
She might be there now.
They were more urgent now, lips, mouths, tongues, hands, hips, molding each other into an approximation of the act but with clothing between them—it was impossible.
They tangled on the bed. She unbuttoned his shirt. She ran her fingers down his chest and then below that. He was doing plenty of research on his own. It seemed physically impossible to break away.
Too late…too late.
But there was Max.
Maybe she and Max were over, but she couldn’t do it this way.
She managed to pull away. It was one of the hardest things she’d ever done.
She said, “I’m in a relationship.”
Alec looked at her. His face was a mirror of hers. Not shock exactly. He wasn’t bereft, or brokenhearted, or disappointed. More like the rug had been pulled out from under him and he’d hit the ground flat on his chin.
She felt the same way.
He sat up, rubbed his neck. Looked away.
“I’m in a relationship,” Tess said. “It’s…problematic.” Then she added in a rush of words, “I can’t add to that, to our troubles. I have to…I have to think about it and I have to figure out if I want to stay with him.”
She was aware that she sounded like she was pleading.
He sat still beside her. He blew air out of his lips. Looked into the middle distance and then down at his hands.
A good-looking man.
A man she liked being around.
A man she could maybe, possibly, fall in love with.
But she wasn’t going to do it this way. “I’m sorry, Alec.”
“I know.”
She managed to pull herself together. Uncrimp and straighten her clothes. Tell her body to stop screaming at the top of its horny little lungs.
She heard herself say, “I want to keep in touch.”
Then she bolted out into the chilly spring night.
Wondering just how much more she could screw up her life.
As Tess headed for her car, her phone chimed. It was Barry Zudowsky.
“I got a sketch artist with Frieda Nussman today. I’m going to send you a photo of her sketch.”
“Do you have a name?”
“No. Let me send it to you.”
He disconnected. Tess knew he was done.
A few moments later she was staring into the face of the man who had purchased the mountain lion.
She’d seen the face before—twice. In the first picture she’d seen of him, he’d been thirteen years old, standing at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for a water treatment plant. He’d lost the baby fat he’d had as a child but had retained the passivity in his expression. She recalled the more recent version of him from the family portrait in
As a young man, his mane of blond hair was streaked with white from hours, days, months, and years of the surfing life in California. His face had become more angular and was deeply tanned. Chad DeKoven was a true boy of summer.
He was also a gamer like his brother, Michael, and his sister Jaimie.
He was part of it.
Tess looked for an address for DeKoven. He lived in Laguna Beach. She was able to access the DMV files, and this in turn yielded his phone number.
She sat in the car and considered how she would approach him. If he was a killer as she suspected, he would stonewall her. She knew she would only tip him off if she approached him head-on. She knew she’d need to do an end run around his defenses, run a game on him, but right now she couldn’t think of anything. So she decided to call and see if he was there. She used her home phone to punch in his number.
A canned message sounded. Chad DeKoven’s phone had been disconnected.
There was one person she hadn’t yet talked to, other than Chad—Brayden DeKoven McConnell.
CHAPTER 33
Brayden McConnell lived in a very nice townhouse in Ventana Canyon at the foot of the Santa Catalina Mountains.
The first thing Tess noticed was a wood gilt-edged sign beside the door said, “Brayden McConnell, Real Estate Law.”
She rang the lighted bell.
No answer. She tried again. Nothing. She was walking back to the car when Brayden answered.
Brayden’s hair was pulled up messily in a clip. She wore a sweatshirt and purple drawstring velveteen sweatpants, none too clean. But she was pretty in a plain, sweet way. She looked nothing like the whippet-thin Jaimie or comic-book-hero-handsome Michael.
She kept the door between them, her pale eyes wide, sad, and frightened at the same time.
“Oh, I thought you were the babysitter.” She started to close the heavy door. Tess was practiced at putting her foot between the door and the jamb. Thinking: you’re going out like that? “Just a couple of questions, I’m a detective with Santa Cruz County.” She nodded to the shield clipped to her belt.
“This is Pima County.”
“I’d like to talk to you anyway. I can come back with a TPD detective if you’d like, or we can go to TPD midtown.”
“Might as well. “ She opened the door and led the way inside.
Tess pulled the door shut behind her.
Nice place, expensive furnishings, but sparse. Tess knew Brayden was divorced. It looked like someone had
