He isn’t, Cole wants to say. But he’s not telling Ed about the purchase he made that afternoon, or the jobs he’ll be able to bring back to Altamira after a few phone calls. He’s communicating with Charlotte Rowe, all right, but in his own way. And damn if he’ll run any of that by Ed, who has begun talking out of school because he hates being cooped up in warehouses overseeing outside security contractors.

“Let’s bring him in,” Ed says. “Have a conversation where he doesn’t set the terms. Find out how much risk he’s really put the company in.”

“He hasn’t been on the payroll for two years.”

“Yeah, but he’s been making choices that endanger the company for three now.”

“We’re watching, Ed. That’s all we’re doing. Watching. The minute we decide to force a conversation with either of these two parties, we take ownership of this. I take ownership of this. And I’m not ready for that yet. I need a verified episode of her defending herself on Zypraxon against a formidable opponent, preferably a man or several, and I need her to survive.”

“You’ve got the biker video.”

“I need it from a source I can trust. That’s what verified means. And not edited, for Christ’s sake.”

“We’ve got her demo from the other day.”

“Against a truck, a tree, and a fence post. I need her to survive a fight, Ed. A bad one. That’s the whole point of this drug.”

“OK. You want us to create one for her?”

“Ed—”

“For God’s sake, Cole, it’s crazy letting her wander around like this.”

“She is the only human this drug has ever worked on. The only one. But if she’s going to be worth anything to us, she has to be able to use it, fight on it, and survive.”

After Ed clears his throat, he says, “I apologize. For my insubordination.”

Insubordination is right. Another inch over the line, and Cole would have reminded him that the days of his father and Ed running secret drug trials in developing nations—on volunteers who didn’t have the slightest idea what they were being given—were long over, and they weren’t coming back. At least the people Project Bluebird killed had volunteered willingly, knowing the risks.

Cole’s little speech has been good practice for the pitch he’ll have to make to the entire Consortium to get Project Bluebird up and running again.

The other option—have Graydon provide all the funding—is unthinkable.

How would he ever explain that to his board or his mother, if she got wind of it? That’s the beauty of The Consortium, despite the perils of the egos involved. By pooling their resources, each company can make financial contributions that fly just under the radar of its legal and accounting departments. And, of course, the secrecy protects all the companies involved from any opinion the Justice Department might one day have about how they collectively decide to share in the benefits of their efforts, should any ever materialize.

“Any leads on Bailey Prescott?” he asks.

“No, and the digital team’s frustrated. But if the guy’s wanted by the FBI, I guess it makes sense.”

“We hack the FBI all the time.”

“Yes, and we did it again, and it’s only revealed how little they actually know about him. Are we sure that’s who she was talking to at the library?”

“It’s as good a guess as any.”

“She could have just been researching us,” Ed says.

“She meets Luke Prescott; suddenly she’s on her way to the nearest computer lab, where she hangs out for fifteen minutes. I don’t think so.”

“All right, well, I might have something,” Ed says.

“You personally?”

“Yeah, some contacts from my former life.”

“LAPD?” Cole asks.

“Uh-huh. Apparently, it’s not in the news, but Parker Center was hacked last night.”

“As in LAPD headquarters?”

“As in Robbery Homicide, specifically.”

“The department was targeted? Anything specific?”

“My source described it as broad-brush. Probably deliberately so whoever it was could hide what he was really after. But whoever did it was good. Very good. Cybersecurity didn’t notice the breach until this morning, and by then the creeper was long gone. But they think he was in their network for hours. Just kinda hanging out, looking at whatever he felt like.”

“And you think it was Bailey Prescott?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Do they think it was Bailey Prescott?”

“No, my guys don’t even know that name, and I didn’t give it to them. It’s their working theory that got me thinking.”

“I’m all ears.”

“They think it was journalists after info on the Mask Maker case. But, you know, what if it wasn’t journalists? What if it was her?”

“Holy shit,” Cole whispers.

What had Dylan told her again? Go find some bad men. Show them what you can do. Well, if this was true, she was on the trail of a real grade-A psycho. And given her background, her taste in bad men made a lot of sense.

“Holy shit,” Cole whispers again. “You kinda buried the lede on this one.”

“Could be nothing. Or it could be the beginning of quite a show.”

“I’ll say.”

“You’re sure as hell not going to bring her in now, are you?” Ed asks.

“Anything else?” he asks, trying to conceal how floored he is by this news.

“Yeah, your b—excuse me. Cody. He’s giving us quite a show on his TruGlass.”

“What does that mean?”

“I believe it’s called edging.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

“How long do we have to watch?”

“Take breaks. He can’t jerk off forever.”

“You sure? Maybe he invented a drug for that, too.”

“Take breaks, Ed. Good night.”

He hangs up, just sits there for a while, disgusted by the primal, lizard-brain urge he feels to pop open his laptop and take a peek at Dylan’s show.

Instead he lifts the screen and logs in to the feeds from ground teams A and B.

In seconds he’s looking at two different night vision angles on Martin Cahill’s trailer. There’s tinny audio via parabolic microphones, distorted, watery-sounding music drifting from some stereo he can’t see. Watching a creepy night vision version of something as innocuous as a friendly cookout seems comic. The green flares around each body and blazing, whited-out eyes are appropriate for fast-moving predators, crawling through brush. Not a bunch of lanky, slouching shadows hanging out around a smoking grill.

Even with the lousy sound he can recognize the song they’re all listening to. “Angel of the Morning” by Juice Newton. And he can see her there on the deck, leaning on her elbows, sipping a beer, it looks like. Her eyes are pinpricks of flare. She’s either staring at the group of men talking in the driveway nearby or gazing off into the night, maybe as she entertains fantasies of tearing a serial killer apart with her bare hands.

“You are something, Burning Girl. You are really something.”

It takes him a few seconds to realize he whispered these thoughts aloud.

34

“Juice Newton?” Charlotte asks. “Seriously?”

Marty’s iPod is hardwired to the three little speakers he’s mounted on the deck rail. Besides being a few generations out of date, the poor thing looks like it’s been through a ground war between rival paint manufacturers. But it’s working, and that’s all that matters, as Marty pointed out when she tried, in vain, to scrape some of the paint off the display with her fingernails.

“Hey. Don’t make fun. Some of us enjoyed it when songs had actual lyrics.”

“Not judging. Just surprised, is all.”

It’s a cool, breezy night, more so up here in the hills, but Marty’s stripped down to shorts, tank top, and an apron and put his hair in a ponytail, all so he can withstand the heat of his grill, which looks considerably newer than his iPod.

Maybe it’s the half a beer that’s done it, but she feels truly relaxed for the first time in days. It doesn’t hurt that Luke’s there, doing his level best to make small talk with Marty’s crew. The sight of him down in the driveway with the other guys, out of uniform and in what looks like one of his best dress shirts, has removed the constant replay of their last cruel words from the tape deck in her mind. Now she’s calm enough to notice Marty’s interesting taste in music.

She’s surprised nobody else has said anything. Stevie Nicks, ABBA, even a track or two from the Go-Go’s. And, of course, the song playing now. She hates to stereotype, but the last time she checked, “Angel of the Morning” wasn’t exactly a fan favorite among guys who threw up drywall for a living.

“Take it you’d’ve said something if he’d heard from his brother,” Marty says.

“That’s correct.”

“And I take it you’d’ve said something if he got shitty with you out on PCH earlier.”

“Like I said, he apologized.”

The closing chords of “Angel of the Morning” are replaced by gentle piano and eventually the soft, familiar voice of John Denver. It takes her a second to recognize the specific song, “Sweet Surrender.”

“All right,” Charlotte says. “Where did this music come from, Marty?”

Marty sets his tongs down, wipes his hands on his apron. “Well, if you must know, this was one of your grandmother’s playlists.”

“Gram never had an iPod.”

“That’s right. She had all these on a mixtape, and I made a playlist of ’em after she died.”

“Wow. How come she didn’t play them for me when she was alive?”

“’Cause she didn’t want to make you sad.”