Novak spotted her and waved. Lena nodded back, then pulled forward and found a place to park three doors down the road.

Cops in uniforms were already knocking on doors and working the neighborhood for possible leads. Lena finished off her coffee, felt the buzz light up her head, then climbed out of the car into the heavy mist. Stretching her legs, she took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. The air was genuinely clean and appeared free of jet fumes and bus exhaust. The slight breeze had an earthy scent, peppered with a faint edge of eucalyptus. But even more striking was the stillness. She couldn’t hear a freeway or traffic rolling up and down PCH. Other than the birds, the only sound seemed to be coming from the water spilling over the polished rocks in the stream. As she popped the trunk open and reached for her briefcase, she glanced down the block. The houses were two to three times the size of her own, some even bigger, but stood within twenty feet of the road. In typical California fashion, privacy was reserved for the backyard, the narrow lanes between the houses blocked by fences or stone walls with iron gates.

Paradise looked as if it lasted longer than fifteen minutes here. Unless, of course, you were unlucky enough to live in the house three doors down the road.

She slammed the trunk and heard a dog start barking in the house before her. As she turned away, a door opened and she glanced back. A small, white terrier on a leash was rushing toward the gate with a middle-aged man wearing a bathrobe in tow.

“Excuse me,” the man called out. “I was hoping you might tell me what’s happened?”

Lena slung her briefcase over her shoulder. “Have the officers stopped by?”

The man shook his head and appeared frightened. “My neighbor called and said that someone was murdered. That it might be Nikki.”

“Then you know as much as I do.”

It hung there, the man visibly shaken. Ordinarily, Lena would have cut the conversation short. But when she noticed the outdoor thermometer attached to the house, she glanced at her watch and stepped toward the fence. At 6:55 a.m. it was still only forty-nine degrees. She took another step forward. The dog started barking again, wagging his tail and trying to pull through the gate. The man tugged on the leash—gently, Lena noticed.

“How’d he sleep last night?” she asked.

“Not very well. He woke us up.”

“What time was that?”

The man thought it over, beginning to relax. “About one-thirty. Then he started barking again around two.”

“How did he do after that?”

“Slept like a baby, while me and my wife tossed and turned.”

The man shot her a look and smiled. He obviously loved his dog.

“Does he bark a lot at night?” she asked.

“Only when someone leaves the gate open and the coyotes wander into the backyard.