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Tess took photos.

She kept her mind on the work, careful not to touch any blood, which was tracked all over the bomb shelter floor and bloomed on the wall like an iris where Corey had been hit. Blood spatter everywhere—plenty for an in-depth analysis.

“What do you think?” Pat asked.

Tess knew this time he was serious in his question. He often relied on her judgment. “Looks like a large caliber weapon, maybe a forty-five? They were shot from above.”

“Like fish in a barrel,” Pat said. “We got us a serious killer here.”

It was a large crime scene. The yard out front. The kitchen leading to the pantry leading to the entrance to the bomb shelter. The carport with the shot-up cars. The flurry of footprints and tire prints outside. The investigation would extend into the night and long into the next day.

AFTER THE BAJADA County Medical Examiner’s Office removed the bodies, after Tess and Pat had measured the scene and marked the evidence to be bagged, Tess went outside to breathe some clean air.

The cumulus clouds were building up over the mountains and it looked like there might be rain. Right now, though, it was just an electric feeling in the air. The air was heavy and waterlogged from the little bit of rain left over from last night, and the creosote bushes smelled heavenly. But it was hot. She lifted her ponytail off the back of her neck.

She’d seen Max Conroy walking on the road’s shoulder.

She’d seen his look of surprise when he saw them go by.

Now Tess pictured his face in the rearview, tried to peg the expression. He knew he was in deep trouble.

There’d been no weapon on him, but he had a duffel. The duffel looked heavy.

There was the truck too. Dan Jensen’s Ford F-250. Sitting by the road, approximately an eighth of a mile beyond the spot where she’d seen Max standing on the shoulder watching the parade of sheriff’s cars go by.

Max might have left the truck there.

Tess told Pat what she’d seen.

“You think he did it?”

“I think we should check him out. Even if he wasn’t the shooter, he could be a witness.”

“You think he stole the truck.”

She shrugged. “That would be an easy conclusion to jump to.”

They called the crime scene technicians, who were already on the road, and asked them to come back and process Dan Jensen’s truck.

“You going to check it out?” Pat asked Tess.

“Thought I would. You all right here?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

She nodded.

“I mean, seriously, why wouldn’t I be? I’ve been investigating homicides for twenty-three years.”

Red as a tomato, he brushed at the sweat on his face. His blue eyes angry.

Tess said, “You tell me what you want me to do.”

“Just…just do your job," he said. “Whatever that is.”

TESS WENT AND did her job. She’d need a warrant for the truck left abandoned on the road, since it might or might not be part of the crime scene. The judge was pretty good about these things, would OK it pretty quickly.

She peered into the truck, careful not to touch anything.

There was a Mexican serapelike throw covering the bench seat.

Tess guessed the truck had broken down or was out of gas. Or maybe just abandoned. As soon as the crime scene technicians arrived, she’d go pay Dan Jensen a visit. Just in case he had something to do with this. It was always good to surprise people.

But the dispatcher called her first, to tell her that Dan had reported his truck stolen.

Tess called Pat and asked him if he would take Dan Jensen’s statement.

“Why not?” he asked. “I happened to be as free as a bird today.” Then he hung up on her.

This was working out well.

It had been a couple of hours since she’d spotted Max walking along the roadside. He would have made it to town by now. Tess had the dispatcher send out an Attempt to Locate on the actor Max Conroy. In case there was a deputy or PD officer who didn’t know what Max Conroy looked like, she uploaded a photo of him from the film and television site IMDb.

She called Pat again. “How’s it going there?”

“About what you’d expect. Bloody and stinky.”

“I need to run down the lead we were talking about—Max Conroy. I think he might have made it to town. I need a deputy here until our property and evidence unit gets here.”

Bajada County’s property and evidence unit consisted of one part-time crime scene technician and a volunteer who had taken a community college course on gathering evidence. They would be responsible for delivering the evidence to the Arizona Department of Public Safety crime lab.

“We need everyone we got,” Pat said. “This is one massive fricking crime scene.”

“I’ll stay here, then.”

“Yeah, that’s the right call.” He added, “You put out the Attempt to Locate. Don’t need to go running around like you’re the Lone Ranger.”

“Roger,” she said, and clicked off.

She sat in the shade of a mesquite, waited for property and evidence, and monitored dispatch.

And waited.

And tried to picture Max. Max getting the jump on Luther, Sam, and Corey, and killing them all.

She wondered why he’d do that. Why a movie star would go to Sam’s house and get the three of them down into the bomb shelter and kill them?

She thought about the last she’d seen of him, at the diner. He’d seemed normal to her then. But what was normal?

Tess called the deputy who’d been first on the scene. “Do you know why you were dispatched to the house?”

“Somebody called it in. God, I lost my lunch. It was like something out of a horror movie. Never saw anything like it.” He sounded embarrassed.

Tess said, “Somebody called it in. What did the dispatcher say?”

“An unknown person was trying to break into Sam’s place.”

Tess needed to hear the recording. She made a note of it. “That was what they said? They saw somebody trying to break in. Was it a man or a woman?”

“Man. The dispatcher said ‘he.’ ”

“When you arrived, what did you see?”

“What you saw. The carport, all shot up. Broken glass everywhere. The door was open.”

“What led you to the bomb shelter?” she asked.

“There were drag marks on the floor. And blood. I already gave you guys my statement.”

“I know,” Tess said. “I was just hoping you’d think of something new this time around.”

“It was hard to think , after what I saw.”

“I know the feeling.”

She disconnected and called the dispatcher. Toni cued up the recording, which came from an anonymous source.

Tess closed her eyes and listened. “There are two people trying to break into a house on Ocotillo Road. It’s the last house on the left.”

Max Conroy’s voice.

“Could you repeat that?”

Toni cued it up again and played it.

There are two people. Trying to break in.

“Is there any way to trace the phone?”

“No. We could spend a day or two to pin down the location, but—”

“We already know the location.” Tess disconnected and stared out at the middle distance. The clouds were amassing; the air was hot and humid. But so far, no rain.

If Max killed those three people, why did he call it in?

Unbidden, the image of the woman and the boy at Joe’s Auto-Wash came to her. The woman who’d bought a truck for Sandstone Adventures and dressed up to do it.

The woman who had stared right through her. Whose presence made the hair stand up on Tess’s arms.