Bone Music (Burning Girl #1)(103)

“I’m listening,” she says.

His house outside Temecula. It’s got no Internet. No smart networks. Nothing I can even knock on to get in. It’s a five-thousand-square-foot former vineyard. Does that sound normal for a guy who has five million sitting in savings?

“No,” she says.

The Bannings killed in the age before wireless Internet blanketed most of the country, but the isolation of their farm was a secret to their long-term success. Sloppy, escalating serial killers already planning their celebrity jailhouse interviews murder on roadsides in fits of sadistic sexual passion. Methodical, long-running monsters have special, secure workshops where they can do their terrible deeds in peace.

“Can you go deeper on him, Bailey?” she asks.

No answer.

Luke groans. “Don’t tell me you have to get permission from this hacktivist collective you’re working with?”

I don’t discuss procedure.

“So your friends think it’s fine to go after a police department, but not a guy who might be killing women?”

Suddenly the backspace bar starts devouring everything in the Word doc until there’s only whitespace left.

TTYL. After I send pictures of Luke showering to the LA Times.

Then the document closes, and the alarm system lets out that strange blip noise that sounds like a stopper being pulled from a drain.

“Maybe it’s a good thing he disappeared,” Charlotte says. “I’m not sure you two could handle being in the same country together right now.”

“I think you’re right.”



“How long has she been back?” Mona asks.

“A few days,” Luke says. When he closes the door to Mona’s office, Judy turns in her desk chair and gives them her version of a curious look: pursed lips, furrowed brow, flaring nostrils. Basically the way you’d look if you smelled shit. And maybe that’s prophetic because what Luke’s about to do inside Mona’s office is shovel some serious bullshit.

“Does this have anything to do with that crazy alarm at your house last night?” she asks.

“Possibly. That’s what I have to go to LA to check out,” he lies.

“So this stalker of hers, you don’t think he’s around here anymore?”

“She says the last time he called her, he told her he was down in Orange County staying with friends and that she should come and join them so they could have a great life together killing animals on his ranch.”

“Jesus. So he’s that kind of stalker.” She settles into her chair. He follows her lead, even though he’d rather stay standing so he can stare out her window and keep her from making direct contact with his lying eyes.

“All her stalkers are pretty choice.”

“How many she got?” Mona asks.

“An Internet full, apparently. It’s why she came back. Living out on her own was too dangerous, apparently.”

Aaaand that’s more than you needed to say.

“But she doesn’t have restraining orders out against any of them?” Mona asks.

One, but he’s dead. “What good would it do?”

“Trina Pierce. That’s certainly a blast from the past. What’s her new name again?”

“Charley. Charley Rowe. Short for Charlotte.”

“How many days you need?”

“I don’t know. Until I find something, if that’s OK. It’s not exactly like I’m that much use up here.”

“You are, actually. It’s just being useful here means doing things you hate.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“I know. Because you’re wanting me to let you head down to Orange County with your new friend Charley, so you’re being real nice. There’s no overtime here. You realize that, right?”

“I do. She wants to make a home here again, Mona. I’d like to play a part in making sure she’s safe. Or at least feels that way.”

“And let me guess. She’s filled out real nice in the chest department.”

“Mona, that’s no way to talk about a woman.”

“I’m talking about how men talk about women. There’s a big difference.”

“What happened to rehabbing my reputation?”

“In Orange County?”

“I don’t know if you remember, but it’s not like I was real nice to this girl in high school.”

“And that’s why you’re making the effort now? That’s the only reason?”

“Yes.”

Mona clears her throat, folds her hands on the desk in front of her. Studies Luke like she’s trying to figure out if he lied about his age or needs hair replacement treatment. Or both. Luke, on the other hand, is feeling surprisingly relaxed. Funny, he thinks, how the events of the past few days have made it so much easier to lie.

About what matters anyway.

“I remember,” she finally says. “I remember your mother being none too happy about all the Burning Girl crap you pulled at school.”

“Why didn’t she say anything?”

“’Cause you were so agreeable back then.”

Just take the hit, he thinks. It means she’s giving in.

“Check in every day,” she says. “Take your own car. You’re not in uniform, obviously, ’cause it’s way out of your jurisdiction. Whole thing is purely exploratory. And if you do find anything that requires a response, you bring it to me. I bring it to this county; they bring it to the relevant department in Orange County. It won’t be a huge headache at all, which is why I’m so glad you’re pursuing this, by the way. Point is, you’re on an information-gathering mission only. Think college newspaper reporter. With social anxiety.”