Matt charged forward, seizing Cabrera by the neck and face and slamming the back of his head against the wall. Cabrera let out a groan and tried to break Matt’s grip. When he couldn’t, Matt knocked him back again, holding him still and watching panic well up in his eyes. He could hear Grace shouting. He could feel his supervisor struggling to pull him away. Matt tightened his grip on Cabrera’s forehead, staring at him eyeball to eyeball, seething.

“It’s my case,” he said. “It’s my case.”

“Let go of him, Jones. Jesus Christ. Knock it off and let go.”

“My case,” Matt said through clenched teeth.

He gave Cabrera a final shove before releasing his hold on him. Once Cabrera regained his composure, he took a step toward Matt, but Grace pushed him out of the office and managed to get the door closed.

CHAPTER 7

“Take a seat, Jones. And that’s a goddamn order.”

Matt watched Grace move in behind his desk and sit down. Through the glass wall he could see Cabrera in the squad room, pacing and muttering and rubbing the back of his head. After several moments, Matt rolled a chair over to Grace’s desk and finally joined him.

“What the fuck is your problem, Jones? Your supervisor on the Westside told me you were smart. I need this like I need—it’s not even your first fucking day.”

“It’s my case,” he said quietly.

“It’s your case,” Grace repeated. “You keep saying that, and I keep telling you that we’ll talk about it later.”

He shook his head at Matt, then reached for his laptop and opened the lid. Once the computer woke up, he plugged in a portable drive and clicked open a short list of files.

“They finished canvassing the neighborhood about a half hour before I called you. No one saw anything, Jones.”

“What about the hotel?”

“The windows on that side of the building face the parking lot. On the other side you can almost see the Hollywood sign. Not many people want a room with a view of the parking lot. And even if they get stuck with one, most people keep the blinds closed. Besides, the place is famous. They shot the movie Pretty Woman there. Everybody wants the room Julia Roberts stayed in, and that’s in the front. Cabrera said that the guys who made the sweep spoke with everyone who was checked in. No one saw anything until after the last shot was fired.”

“Then what?”

“Then nothing, Jones. All they saw was a parking lot and a handful of cops who showed up too late.”

Matt thought about the apartments across the street. The twenty-five windows and balconies he’d counted before he left to notify Laura.

“What about that new apartment building?” he said.

“It just opened. They’ve only rented a couple of units. No one saw anything.”

Grace’s eyes kept dancing back to that list of files on his laptop. There was something odd about it.