Page 130 of The Grave Artist

“What?” she whispered.

Heron was focusing on the right-side monitor, the one that showed the tac team’s video of Garr’s house.

He said one word. “Cinderella.”

Chapter 63

Jake nodded as Su Ling strode into the Garage with her tablet in hand.

“I’ve got what you asked for, Jake. You want it on the murder board?”

“Yes.” He resumed staring at the monitor.

A moment later some of her crisp evidence photos flashed onto the screen. Three electrostatic prints of shoe soles arranged top to bottom.

Su said, “The one on the top is HK’s. Garr’s. We know that from the shed at the cemetery where he rigged the booby trap with the hedge shears. The second and third are the same. The second was among those lifted from Garr’s front walk by one of my people. And the third, the one it matches?” She circled it with the cursor. “It’s from the case you two solved a month ago. It’s Tristan Kane’s.”

“Jesus,” Sanchez muttered, then looked at Jake. “Cinderella. The shoe. You suspected.”

“We had two epic hacks in the past couple of days. Getting into our system and diverting the emails and calls to Italy. And cracking the LA camera network.” He shrugged. “I could do it. Aruba could. And Kane.”

“But I don’t get how he became involved,” Mouse said.

Sanchez snapped her fingers. “Reynolds’s damned email. Kane must be constantly pinging us, searching for breaches and checking on ourinvestigation against him. He got in, saw the HK case and—with a shitload of hacking and a shitload of money—scored Garr’s identity and contacted him. He’s the silent partner we were speculating about.”

“For money?” Tandy asked. “Garr hired him?”

“No,” Sanchez said. “I doubt it. He’s using Garr to get to us. A weapon.”

Mouse asked, “But CERN? The internet hub in Switzerland.”

“Let me check.” Jake sent a text to the authorities there asking if they’d noticed any attempted intrusions into the facility’s web operations or other infrastructure.

None, the contact reported.

He told the others, “The leads to Switzerland were misdirection.” He said to Sanchez, “We’ve got info on Garr’s vehicle. Let’s get the SHIT detail on it, and the same camera network.”

Sanchez sat in the chair beside Jake and began to keyboard. She frowned.

Jake asked, “What?”

“There are no hits.”

Tandy asked, “Maybe he’s out of the surveillance zone.”

She turned to Heron and the detective’s monitor. “No. It’s not returning hits onanyMercedes. Anywhere.”

Tandy muttered, “Impossible. There are as many Benzes in LA as out-of-work actors.”

She lifted her palms. “Nothing.”

Jake said, “Frank, can you patch me through to the system admin?”

“Sure.”

In five minutes they had the answer. Jake pointed to his monitor. “Somebody hacked the system and loaded this script.”

import java.io.File;