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The Special Agent in Charge had forbidden him from doing anything related to his sister at work, but thankfully, Dwight Dozier gave him the perfect cover.

The man who had written about The Sandman just happened to also cover the entertainment sector.

There had been a time when reporters had scruples, when you wouldn’t have caught any self-respecting investigative journalist going anywhere near the Hollywood elite, talking about pop culture and whatever Kim Kardashian wore on the red carpet, but those days were long past.

With the AC pumping, Con drove across the city to the Orange County Post’s head office. It reminded him of his own office, gray, drab, the quintessential opposite of the Imperial Production building.

Stepping out of the car, he was overwhelmed by the heat. Sweat broke out on his back and he shrugged his shoulders, trying to get the dress shirt beneath his thin linen blazer to stop sticking to his skin.

But he’d lived in OC for most of his life, and he knew this was a losing battle.

There was no secretary in sight, and while the building had air-conditioning—it was practically a crime not to have air-conditioning in LA in the summer—it was either malfunctioning or had been turned off for cost-saving measures. At least Con was no longer forced to contend with the blazing sun.

Instead of a secretary, there was a list sitting on the front desk that contained the names of the in-house reporters. Beside those were desk numbers. Using his finger, Con scanned the names.

He found Dwight Dozier near the top and noted that the man’s desk was on the ground floor—number 17. Con raised his eyes from the page and surveyed the layout beyond the unmanned secretary’s desk.

There were dozens of computer terminals all separated by cheap portable partitions. They were identical, down to the used coffee mugs and stacks of old OC Post newspapers lying on the laminate desktops. Only about half appeared occupied.

Desk 17…

There were no numbers that Con could see.

Fuck this.

“Dwight?” he said loudly. Several heads turned, but most reporters kept their eyes locked on their glowing computer monitors. “Dwight Dozier?”

One man in particular, with a drastically receding hairline and thin gold-framed glasses who appeared to be in his mid-40s, glanced in Con’s direction.

“You Dwight?”

The man had small eyes, but they were magnified by his lenses.

It was Dwight all right.

Con strode over to the man, weaving through the partitions, and as he neared, Dwight placed both hands on the armrests of his chair. For a moment, Con had the notion that the man was going to bolt.

“Who’s asking?” Dwight’s voice was young and light, and Con considered that maybe his estimate of the man’s age was wrong. Could he be younger than forty? Thirty-five, perhaps? Like law enforcement officers, news reporters tended to age prematurely. Before Con could answer, or so much as pull his badge out, the man’s eyes narrowed. “Wait, your Constantine Striker, aren’t you?”

Con nodded and showed the reporter his badge anyway. Then he asked, “How do you know who I am?”

Dwight shrugged.

“I did an article on The Sandman. Your photograph came up a lot. A younger version of you, but…”

Yeah, I’ve aged prematurely, too.

“I saw the article.” Con had intended on asking about movies first before transitioning into questions about Matthew Nelson Neil but, hell, Dwight had brought him up. Better not to disappoint. “Why now? Why write that article now, eleven years after Matthew was arrested?”

Dwight had a habit of continuously licking his lips, which Con found annoying.

“Oh, because of this,” the man said simply. He grabbed his phone off his desk, scrolled, then aimed the screen in Con’s direction.

Con craned his neck forward and then frowned.

On Dwight’s phone was what appeared to be an audiobook. The Great California Gold Rush: A History of the Largest Migration in US History.

“I… don’t follow.”

Dwight flipped his phone around and looked at it. Con thought that he’d made a mistake, that the reporter meant to show him something else, but then the man nodded.

“You’ve never seen this before?”

Con made no effort to hide his annoyance. It was too hot for this.

“Seen what? ”

He grabbed the phone and inspected it more closely. The cover of the book showed a man in a wide-brimmed hat driving a pickax into desert soil. It was written by someone by the name of JD Sebastian.

None of this meant anything to him.

“You’re going to have to—”

Con stopped speaking.

There, in tiny text at the bottom of the square image, was another attribution.

Narrated by Matthew Nelson Neil.

“You’ve got to be shitting me.”

His hand trembled a little.

“Nope. They used to do this a lot in the eighties, have convicts narrate audiobooks. The most famous one was probably Edmund Kemper, who ended up recording—”

“I don’t care about Edmund Kemper,” Con interrupted. “What the hell is Matthew Nelson Neil doing narrating audiobooks?”

His throat suddenly felt parched.

“Right, I, uhh , reached out to a contact at San Quentin,” Dwight paused to lick his lips again. “He said this is a new pilot project. Getting some of the convicts to record books instead of sweeping floors, you know?

No, I do not know.

The man cautiously reached for his phone but Con had the device in a death grip. Just seeing The Sandman’s name was enough to cause his blood pressure to spike. The same thing had happened when Google alerted him about Dwight’s article.

“My phone? Can I have my phone back?”

Con reluctantly handed it over.

“So, yeah,” Dwight said cautiously, “I picked up the audiobook and it inspired me to write that article. I left you out, though. I wasn’t sure if—”

Con was in a bit of a haze when he said, “You know anything about Imperial Productions and stolen movies?”

He figured he had to ask just in case Marcus Allen decided to check up on his activities. Unlikely, but you never know with that guy.

“ Uhh , Imperial Productions?” Dwight was caught off guard by the sudden change in topic.

“Yeah, they made…” Con tried to remember the titles of the movies that had Agent Hale fanboying.

Quantum Titans? Rise of the New Dawn?

Nothing seemed to fit.

All Con could think about was the fucking gold rush now. And, of course, Matthew Nelson Neil.

“You mean Shadowstrike ?” Dwight offered.

Maybe…

Con suddenly felt fresh sweat break out all over his body. He just wanted to be out of there now, to be back in his car blasting the AC.

“Sure,” he answered dryly.

“I think it comes out in a few weeks. What about it?”

“I’m investigating some pirated movies.”

“Okay…”

Dwight waited for Con to elaborate, but he simply couldn’t do it.

It was too hot, stiflingly hot, hard to breathe, impossible to think.

With Dwight Dozier staring at him, Con slowly backed away.

He was nearly running by the time he reached his car.