When he opened the door, he recognized cop in the eyes of the men, one of them with a fist raised to knock.

And he thought: That fucking kid.

Throughout the day, Red sent deputies out on calls, answered a couple himself. He tackled paperwork, had a burrito for lunch at his desk.

Until the lawyers finished hammering out what they hammered, he didn’t want to stray far.

He answered his phone, listened to a colleague with the state police. Nodding, he made notes. Then hung up and called Michaela into his office.

“Staties just picked up Frank Denby at a motel outside Santa Maria. He was watching porn, getting high. Just another genius.”

“Do we get him?”

“I have to admire your straight-down-the-channel focus, Mic. Happened in our jurisdiction. It’s going to be federal, so we’ll pass him on, but the state boys will transport him up here so we can have our swing.”

“Good.” She wanted the swing. “That’s fast work.”

“Well, genius. He had a nine-mil S&W on him. What?” Red reared back, blinked. “Wait, hold on! I believe that’s a smile I see. I believe I see the beginnings of a smile.”

“I can smile. I do smile.” Amused, she immediately sobered her face to rag on him. “See?”

“You’re a smiling fool, Mic. As we learned after Dupont started naming names, our friend Denby has another few months of parole on his previous conviction as a half-assed shakedown artist. I use ‘artist’ liberally in his case. The firearm’s a parole violation, which just adds some cream to the coffee.”

He held up a finger when his phone rang. “Hold on. Sheriff Buckman. Yes, sir, Detective.” A fresh grin spread over his face. “Well, isn’t that sweet news? We sure are grateful to you for your quick work on this. Is that so? Uh-huh. Well, hard to blame him. I’ll be here. And I’ll inform the family. This is going to be a big load off their minds. That’s good work.”

“They got Sparks.”

“Wrapped right up,” he agreed. “Just before he carted his belongings out of his apartment in L.A. He didn’t skedaddle fast enough.”

“They didn’t know we had Dupont, didn’t know we had the BOLOs.”

“The one good thing here, Mic, about the Sullivans not calling in law enforcement? No leaks. No media. You add the Coopers to that. They’re too decent to run out and call up reporters to brag out their story.”

He swung his Chucks off the desk, got up. “Do you want to take a ride with me out to the Sullivan enclave?”

“I absolutely do. First, I want to say it’s been an education watching how you pushed this through, every step of it.”

“It’s the job, Mic. Just a few things in this life I take seriously, that I figure you have to focus in and do right. Sex, surfing, and the job. Let’s go give the Sullivans the good news.”

The sun painted sky and sea with a symphony of color as it slid toward the horizon. Gulls wheeled and cried as the tide rolled out from the quiet strip of beach on the Sullivan peninsula, leaving bits of glittering sea glass, hunks of shells strewn on the verge of sand and foam.

On the rocks, sea lions lolled.

Under Lily’s watchful eye, Cate collected what interested her, plunking little treasures in a pink plastic bucket. They studied the small universes in tide pools between the rocks, left footprints in damp sand, watched sandpipers scurry.

All around them the land sprang abruptly, dramatically from the sea, creating the breathtaking cliffs. Waves rushed and slapped the rocky coastline, carved out whirling pools, small, stony arches, and made this small slice of beach a private haven.

The kick of wind had Lily taking the scarf she’d tossed on and wrapping it around her neck for more warmth.

She couldn’t claim a love of chilly beaches on a February evening, but anything that distracted the girl helped. For that matter, she wanted distraction herself.

God knew sunset over the Pacific provided a spectacular distraction, but with the brisk air whipping, she’d have preferred it from a seat by the fire with a cold, dry martini in her hand.

But her girl needed the air, the movement.

Regardless, now that the sun dipped closer to the sea, the light changing with the journey, they needed to start back.

As she started to call it, Cate looked up at her. Such big blue eyes, Lily thought.

“Do you miss Miranda and Keenan and all of them when they go home?”

“Sure I do. Especially now that Miranda’s home is all the way in New York. But . . . I’m happy they’ve made their own lives. It means I did a good job, I guess.”

She took Cate’s gritty-with-sand hand, began to cross the beach toward the rise of stone steps carved into the bluff.

“And I’m going to have you and your dad around.”

“We’re going to live in your guesthouse for a while.”

“That’s going to be fun. We can work on meeting our goal of finishing a million jigsaw puzzles.”

“Daddy said I could write down the things I want from the other house, and I don’t have to keep everything. When we get a new house, we can get new things. So it’s just ours.”

“What’s first on the list?”

“My stuffed animals. I can’t leave them. He said I can pick some of them to go to Ireland, too, because we’re going to go and help Nan be settled.”

“You’re going to be a big help to her.”

Lily saw the lights starting to glimmer, inside, along the paths, around the terraces. And tried not to think of the panic, the outright fear she’d felt at the same time the day before.

She gave the hand in hers a quick squeeze, just to feel it.

Then that hand tightened in hers. “Somebody’s coming. A car’s coming.”

Maybe she felt a flutter of fresh panic, too, but Lily only smiled. “Girl, you’ve got ears like a bat. There’s a gate,” she said in that same easy tone. “Your grandpa won’t let anybody in unless he knows them.”

Tugging her hand free, Cate ran up the stones until she could see. “It’s the sheriff’s car! It’s okay, G-Lil, it’s the sheriff.”

Was it okay? Lily wondered as she followed Cate up. Would it ever be okay again?

CHAPTER SEVEN

By the time Lily caught up with Cate—the kid could move!—Cate stood at the top sweep of the drive, waiting for the car. She put an arm around Cate’s shoulders, felt the trembling.

“Let’s go inside, sweets.”

“I want to know.” Trembling or not, the words came fierce. “I don’t want to get sent away again. I want to know.”

She pulled away, marched right up to the car as it parked, blurted out the question as Red got out. “Did you catch them?”

He gave her steady look for steady look. “They’re in police custody. We’ll talk about it.”

The sound escaping Lily’s iron will was half sob, half gasp. When Cate turned to her, eyes wide and worried, she could only shake her head. “It’s all right. I’m all right. I’m just relieved. Just relieved. Let’s all go inside. It’s turning cold.”

She called out when Aidan opened the front door. “Have somebody put some coffee on, will you? And for God’s sake, somebody mix me a martini. A big one.”