“Need me to step out?” he says.

She nods, but it’s like her eyes have already joined the upsetting phone call she’s about to have with her incredibly sick, possibly soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend.

Luke subtly closes the screen on her laptop as if this is polite and necessary. Necessary for him, perhaps. But it’s far from polite.

When he steps out into the main room, drawing her office door shut behind him, he’s literally sweating under his collar for the first time he can remember. That giddy confidence that came over him a few minutes ago has turned into a blend of anxiety and dread. Before it can paralyze him, he starts toward the plant Lacey Shannon brushed up against. Slowly, he walks past it. On the surveillance cameras, it’ll look like he’s just peering down the short hallway to the interview room and bathrooms. If Mona somehow sees this footage later, she’ll just think he’s retracing Lacey’s steps. But as he pretends to look down the hallway, his eyes cut to the ficus.

That’s when he sees what Lacey dropped inside the ceramic pot.

Just to complete the lie, he walks down the rest of the hallway, even opens the door to the interview room, in case someone comes out of the bathroom and spots him.

Then he returns to the plant and pretends to study it. He bends forward slightly as he runs his fingers through the fake leaves. Once he’s confident he’s hidden his left hand from the security camera, he reaches into the pot and removes the flash drive he spotted there a few seconds before.

He stands, shaking the edge of the pot with his right hand, as if he only wants to know why it didn’t topple over when Lacey brushed against it. But he couldn’t care less. She was brushing against it to make sure it was fake. To be sure no one was going to douse the flash drive with water after she deliberately dropped it into the pot.

Luke turns in the direction of the camera, takes a deep breath intended to make him look both tired and frustrated. All of it a ruse to distract from the fact that he’s holding some sort of secret. Slowly, he walks through the station, nodding goodbye to others as he leaves, the flash drive burning a hole in his palm.

She wanted us to have this thing, he realizes. But she was afraid to hand it over until Jordy was in a cell. Whatever’s on it is proof Jordy’s not who everyone thinks he is. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to give it to Henricks after he threatened her. Instead, she got the hell out of there, but not before leaving it behind.

But if that’s true, it leaves one big, unanswered question.

Why hasn’t she called me to tell me where it is?

26

Charley’s amazed at how much they’ve managed to add to the Altamira Lodge in the month she’s been gone. It’s Sunday, so none of the crews are at work now, but the roof of the main building’s practically finished, and the frames of the adjacent cabins occupying the same promontory are also mostly complete.

Across the highway, they’ve started razing the newer-growth forest on the lower slopes of the mountain so they can lay the foundations for the additional rows of cabins. Just behind where she’s sitting now, the tunnel they’re about to build will one day open onto PCH.

If all goes according to the renderings, this entire rest area, with its bed of gravel and spread of tables and benches, is going to be cleared away, along with a chunk of the mountainside nearby.

This rest stop has always been Marty’s favorite spot. Years ago he carved Luanne’s name into the bench where they’re sitting now while enjoying Diet Cokes and greasy sandwiches from the Copper Pot. But if Marty’s upset this place will soon disappear, he hasn’t mentioned it. Right now they’re too busy discussing topics that would probably make the occasional passing motorist’s head spin.

“When did they tell you?” Marty asks.

“After I woke up.”

“So you didn’t see it happen?”

“No.”

She figures Marty’s suppressing a dozen different questions he knows better than to ask.

“How did he tell you?” he asks. “Like it was your fault?”

“No. He had a very relaxed, professional attitude about the whole thing. He was . . . humble.”

“Cole Graydon. Humble. Imagine that.”

“He took this attitude that it was our first time going out in the field together, and nobody expected everything to go perfectly.”

“So he didn’t accuse you of killing the guy. He just told you the guy was dead.”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

Marty wipes mustard off his chin, chugs his Diet Coke like it’s the source of life.

“And you’re confident, based on what you saw, based on what he did to you, that this guy was the real deal?” he asks.

“A serial killer? Jesus. Yes.”

“All right, then. Bye, freak. Enjoy hell.”

She smiles, but the laughter she was expecting doesn’t come. Instead, the urge creates a tension in her chest that also gives her a headache.

“I hate that it has to be like this,” she says once the ache passes.

“Like what?”

“That I can’t tell you guys anything.”

“You can tell me anything you want.”

“I can’t, though. That’s not the agreement I made.”

“Charley, they set me up with a job I’m barely qualified for. I’m making more money than I ever thought possible. What I’m saying is they’ve bought my silence, and they know it. But they’ve only bought it when it comes to CNN and the National Enquirer. Not when it comes to you and your sanity.”