.

grandes dames of Old Hollywood. Scuttlebutt had it that she had burrowed herself into a bungalow on the spa’s acreage. Once Decker had spotted her at a local mom-and-pop market. Her features had been hidden by sunglasses and a black turban that wrapped around her cheeks and tied under her chin. It had been her getup that had attracted his attention. Who dressed like that at night except someone wanting to be noticed? But only he had given her a second glance. To the rest of the shoppers, she had been just another L.A. eccentric.

      Decker was barely old enough to remember the latter part of her long film career—the last three or four movies where she’d been thrown some bones—courtesy parts. Then came the talk-show circuit promoting the autobiography. The book had been a best seller. That had been about fifteen years ago and nothing public since. Still, the name Eversong conjured up images of studio Movie Queens and Hollywood glamour. Eversong’s daughter was certainly not inhibited about using the connection. Maybe she was genuinely proud of Mama. Or maybe it just made good business sense.

      Scoring the base of the spa’s mountain was a single file of multicolored sweatsuits; the ladies coming back from their morning aerobic hike. From Decker’s perspective, they looked like Day-Glo ants encircling a giant hill.

      He reached inside one of the paper bags, broke off a piece of warm cherry Danish, and stuffed it into his mouth. Chewing, he called Rina on his radio, telling her why he wouldn’t make it for breakfast. She sounded disappointed but he couldn’t tell what bothered her more—his absence or the absence of her morning kaiser roll.

      Not that she didn’t enjoy his company, but she was more preoccupied than usual. That was to be expected. Though he kept hoping her self-absorption would pass, he’d come to realize it was wishful thinking.

      El honeymoon was finito. Time to get down to the business of living.

      He remembered the physical exhaustion that accompanied a newborn—long nights of interrupted sleep, the bickering, the tension. His ex-wife had looked like a zombie in the morning. Acted like one, too. He also remembered the joy of Cynthia’s first smile, her first steps and words. He supposed it would be easier the second time around because he knew what to expect. But damned if he wasn’t going to miss being the center of Rina’s attention.

      He bit off another piece of Danish, wiped crumbs off his ginger-colored mustache.

      Well, that’s just life in the big city, bud.

      He pushed the pedal of the unmarked, the car chugalugging its way up the curvy mountain road. The address on the computer screen corresponded to a ranch adjacent to the spa. The pink blob and its next-door neighbor were separated by ten acres of undeveloped scrubland, but he couldn’t find any definitive line dividing the two properties.

      He found the numbers posted on a freestanding mailbox at the driveway’s entrance. Turning left down a winding strip of blacktop, he parked the unmarked in front of the ranch house. It was a white, wood-sided, one-story structure sitting on a patch of newly planted rye grass. Bordering the house were rows of fruit trees—citrus on the left, apricot, plum, and peach on the right. Between the trees, he could make out crabgrass and scrub, the foliage gradually thickening to gray-green shrubs and chaparral as the land bled into the base of the mountains.

      He punched his arrival into the computer—a whopping two minutes, twenty-two seconds response time. Nothing like being blocks away to skew the stats in LAPD’s favor. He stepped out of the unmarked and gave the place a quick glance. Although the house was modest in size, there was something off about it.

      The wood siding sparkled like sun-drenched snow—not a flake of paint dared to mar the surface. The flagstone walkway held nary a crack, and the wood shingles on the roof were ruler aligned. The porch was also freshly painted. It didn’t creak and held a caned rocking chair decorated with crocheted doilies draped over curved arms. The place was a perfect ranch house. Too perfect. It looked like a movie set.

      Decker banged on the door and identified himself in Spanish as a police officer. The woman who let him in was frazzled and babbling incoherently, evoking Dios between hysterical sobs. She was around forty, her soft plumpish body squeezed into a starched-white servant’s uniform. Her dark eyes were full of fear and her fingers were clutching the roots of her hair. She led him into a trashed bedroom. The bed was a heap of jumbled sheets and broken glass. Drawers had been opened and emptied of their contents. But Decker’s eyes focused on the center of the floor.

      She lay crumpled like a discarded article of clothing, blindfolded, partially nude, her skin bruised and clay-cold. Immediately, he knelt beside her, checked her pulse and respiration. Though her breathing was shallow, her heartbeat was palpable. Quickly, Decker eyeballed the body for hemorrhage—nothing overt. Though the floor was hard and chilled, Decker didn’t dare move her in case there were spinal injuries. He ordered the maid to bring him a blanket, then carefully removed the blindfold and gasped when he saw who it was.

      Davida Eversong’s daughter—VULCAN’s owner. He’d seen her picture dozens of times in the local throwaways. Human Interest stories: the spa hosting a Save the Whales weekend extravaganza or a special two-for-one rate to benefit the homeless. Her stunning face gracing the front page of The Deep Canyon, Bellringer, arm in arm with a different star every week.

      What the hell was her name? Everybody always called her Davida’s daughter. Even the local papers constantly referred to her as so-and-so, daughter of Davida Eversong. Her name was something exotic. Lara? Not Lara, Lilah. That was it. Lilah. Lilah B-something. So she lived next door to her spa. That made sense.

      He could make out her beauty even in her current state. Her eyelids were puffy, her lower lip swollen and cracked. Her neck was imprinted with red indentations, but there were no deep ligature marks around her throat. She had welts over her upper torso as if someone had whipped her.

      Decker took out his pocket spiral and started noting the injuries he saw. If she remained unconscious, unable to give consent to be photographed, his record of specific marks would be valuable evidence of the crime.

      The poor woman. Her nightdress had been hiked over her pelvis. Some sexual activity had occurred. Decker smelled the musky odor of semen in the room. He finished some cursory notes, then lowered her gown and covered her as soon as the maid returned with the comforter. Smoothing blond wisps off her clammy forehead, he gently touched her cheeks, hoping the heat from his hands would warm her face. Streams of gentle breath flowed across his hands.

      He whispered “Lilah,” but got no response. As the seconds passed, her cheeks seemed to take on color. Decker turned to the maid, told her not to touch anything, asked her to wait outside and direct the paramedics. In the background, he could hear approaching sirens.

      Brecht! That was her name. Lilah Brecht. Her father had been an artsy German director, his name often bandied about in magazine and newspaper articles dealing with foreign films. With an actress mother and a director father, Decker briefly wondered why she hadn’t pursued a career in the performing arts.

      His eyes went back to Lilah’s visage. At least the injuries seemed superficial, her facial bones appeared to be intact. Lucky, because her features were delicate and would have easily shattered under a well-placed blow. She had an oval face, a thin straight nose, high cheekbones leading to an angular jawline that tapered to a soft mound of chin. Making allowances for the swelling, Decker imagined her eyes to be deep-set and almond-shaped.

      He heard footsteps approaching, pivoted around, and saw the paramedics cross the threshold. Two of them—a man and a woman, both wearing short-sleeved blue doctor’s jackets. Decker started to rise, but something immediately jerked him back down. A hand. Her hand! It had shot out of nowhere, clutching his arm with surprising strength. Grimacing in pain, he knelt down again, trying to ease the pressure. She was grasping his left arm—the one still recovering from a gunshot wound. As he tried to gently pry the fingers off, she increased her vise grip, forcing him to use some muscle to pull her hand away. Then he took it and cradled it in his own.

      “Do you hear me, Lilah?” he whispered.

      There was no response.

      The female paramedic knelt beside Decker. She was