Page 133 of The Grave Artist

Jake said, “I need to talk to my source in private.”

Sanchez seemed like she was about to object but thought better of it.

He paused on his way to the door. “Deputy Director Reynolds is right.”

“Heron,” Sanchez said, frowning, as if she couldn’t believe what she’d heard.

“No. We need a tactical assault. How many people does Grange have?”

After a moment’s hesitation she said, “A half dozen.”

Heron said, “That’s not enough. We need another ten or fifteen.”

Drawing a satisfied smile from Reynolds.

Sanchez told him, “That’ll take a half hour to put together.”

“Do it,” Heron said.

As he walked from the Garage, Reynolds, beaming, turned back. “The majority wins, Agent Sanchez. Democracy at work. As soon as you get those reinforcements to Garr’s house, move in. And make sure there’s a Russian translator there.Spasibo!”

Chapter 64

As he drove Selina Sanchez into the hills near Corbin Canyon Park, south of Tarzana, Damon was considering what lay ahead.

Thank you,SeñorPicasso. I have come up with yet another variation on Serial Killing. I am on my way toGuernica!

He was captivated by the idea.

When it came to water lilies, Monet did the same painting over and over and over, 250 times. All the same, all different.

Variations on a theme was the bedrock of being an artist.

He pulled up into the driveway of an old house in need of paint, the yard overgrown. Small, though of two stories, with a gabled roof. In his youth he’d thought of it as resembling the house of the “Hansel and Gretel” witch.

Damon stepped out and looked around. There were no neighbors nearby and the few adjacent roads were empty. He opened the car door and led Selina out and up the front stairs, then punched the number into the padlock.

They stepped inside the dim place.

He smelled the familiar scent of laundry starch and clove (real clove, not chemicals from a spray bottle). Mold too, because this house had not been much occupied over the past few years. The single-family structure, on a scruffy one-acre lot, was fifty years old but, save forthe style, might have been built last year. That was one thing about California, at least in the regions where snow didn’t fall. Houses didn’t age as fast as in, say, the Midwest or New England.

Also Miss Spalding, who’d inherited the house in her thirties, had taken exceptionally good care of the place. Most of the chairs and couches were covered in yellowing plastic.

One that was uncovered was the divan where the two of them would sit together and watch TV—an early model flat screen and huge for the time: fifty inches.

Thinking of all the movies he’d seen on it.

What was the first?

Friday the 13th, he believed.

Or maybeMake Them Die Slowly. An Italian horror flick that was truly terrible but thatdidoffer up some delightfully gruesome death scenes.

Selina looked around. She was afraid, of course, but not as afraid as he would have liked.

That would change.

He was in the mood for a glass of milk, but he knew there was none fresh. That would have to wait until he was finished here. Two, three hours.