Private

"It was lying on the riverbank in the shadows under the bridge," said Cruz. "Maybe the killer panicked for some reason and threw it away. Maybe there's a witness we haven't heard about yet."

Dr. Sci picked up where Cruz left off. He was wearing a red Hawaiian shirt, khaki shorts, and flip-flops, one of his standard outfits.

"I printed every fricking item in the girl's bag," Sci said. "There were smudges on Co

"Too bad," said Cruz. "I was hoping for something better than that."

Sci went on. "All is not lost. The cell phone is the jackpot, my friends. Mo-bot came in at four a.m.," he said, "and she pulled the data."

"Mo, you found something?" Justine asked.

"There were a slew of text messages," said Maureen Roth, aka Mo-bot, computer geek extraordinaire, self-appointed mom to the Private family. She was fifty-something but didn't look it, with her tattoos, ultrahip clothes, spiky hair-and then there were the bifocals, which looked like they ought to belong to somebody's grandmother in Boca Raton, Florida.

"I found hundreds of messages, all traceable to IP addresses and cell phones except for the last one, which came from a prepaid phone. I know. What a shock. But still, you'll all want to see this."

Mo-bot inserted a flash drive into a laptop and poked some keys. Messages scrolled up on the center wall screen.

I read the text message at the top of the list, time dated yesterday afternoon. co

Mo said, "Let's assume that Co

"So the text message was a fake? A lure?"

"Exactly. Anyone could have known the name of one of Co

Justine said, "So a hacker gets into the girl's phone, figures out who she trusts, and takes on a friend's identity by texting from a no-name phone."

Sci said, "That's what I'm thinking. A ghost in the machine. But that still doesn't lead us to the killer. We hit a wall after that."

Chapter 13

JUSTINE GOT TO her feet, quickly changed places with Mo-bot, and put her fingers on the computer keyboard. "I don't believe in ghosts," she said. "If the Schoolgirl psycho walks and breathes, he's got fingerprints and hair and skin cells. The more times he kills, the more likely he is to make a mistake."

She hit a couple of keys and projected a summary of the Schoolgirl case up on the flat-screens.

The time line placed the murders at roughly every two months for the past two years, except that recently the pace was accelerating. Next to the time line was a map of East LA with electronic flags representing the victims' locations.

The faces of the victims took up another screen.

The girls were of all descriptions. Light. Dark. Some pretty. Some fairly plain. Scholars. Athletes. Some thin. Some not. All high school girls. All unreasonably, tragically dead.

"We should put out the word about these no-name phone calls," said Mo. "Talk to the school principals again. Do a TV campaign about fake text messages with personal info."

"Saying we're right about this," Justine countered, "as soon as we broadcast a warning about texts from unlisted phones, the killer is going to change his pattern. And then we'll be nowhere again. He might even accelerate the murders further. We know he likes publicity."

"About what you said, Justine," Sci said in his usual nasal monotone. "The different profiles. How could a man who would set a girl on fire do it only once? How could that same person shoot someone from fifty yards away?"

"What are you thinking, Sci?"

"What if it's more than one piece of shit? What if it's more than one killer?"

Chapter 14

RUDOLPH CROCKER was hiding out in a toilet stall in the eighth-floor men's room at Wilshire Pacific Partners, a private equity firm, when his cell phone vibrated. He had been fantasizing about a new temp, Carmen Rodriguez, who had a perfect rack, beautiful brown eyes, and was practically brain-dead. He was thinking about asking her out on a date, preferably an all-nighter.

He fished the phone out of his jacket pocket, saw that the call was being forwarded from his direct line. It was Franklin Dale, senior partner, one of "the ancients." Crocker answered, and Dale invited him to have a drink after work.

Crocker had been an equities analyst for over a year. He'd done his work diligently while at the same time keeping his head down. His concept was to be one of those bright young men with a huge future in number crunching, a dull and steady sort of worker who kept the portfolio safe, the profits flowing, and his light hidden safely under a bushel.

Now he had to have a drink with pesky Franklin Dale.

At seven p.m., Crocker locked his office door and met Dale at the elevator bank. They took the car downstairs together, and Crocker wondered if maybe the old fuck was gay and going to make a move on him.

Two drinks and a bowl of cashews later, Crocker had been told that he was doing extremely well, and that dinosaur Franklin Dale was highly impressed with his work. Dale said that he thought Crocker was an outlier, a guy with hidden talents who would be rewarded the longer he stayed at this fine old firm.

As if that would bake his fucking cake. As if he cared what Franklin Dale thought about him or his work.

By the time Crocker got home, it was half past nine. The rest of the night was his, and this was going to be great.

He dressed for his run, and ten minutes later he was jogging around the Marina del Rey, his mind on the recent outing when his group had taken Co

Sweating and panting, Crocker slowed outside one of the slips in the marina. He put his hands on his knees and caught his breath.

When he was sure he was alone, he took a pint-sized ziplock bag out of his pocket and began to bury it under a heavy coil of rope.

When he was done, he calmly finished his run. He came through the entrance to his apartment building, waved to the doorman, and went upstairs.

After his shower he took a prepaid phone from the charger base.

He texted a message to LA's mayor, Thomas Hefferon, telling him where he could find Co

He signed it "Steemcleena."