Page 15 of The Grave Artist

The Honeymoon Killer could be targeting another victim even as they spoke.

“Look, Carm. You’ve made yourself perfectly clear. You have more important things to do.”

“That’s not fair.”

The ground felt like it had shifted beneath her feet. For the past few years, Selina had been furious with her for forgiving their father and moving on. Now, she was angry that Carmen wouldn’t drop everything to vindicate him.

“I’ll do what I can when I have the time,” she said. “And listen to me, Selina. You are not to do any investigating on your own. You want to figure out what Dad meant by ‘my goddesses’ and check out those symbols, okay. But that’s it. Understood?”

Selina was a student in Perris, California, about ninety minutes from downtown LA. On summer break at the moment, though, she was in a temporary apartment in Fullerton, smack in the middle of Orange County—exactly the spot where she would be able to play amateur detective to investigate the murder.

And that was not going to happen.

“Whatever,” her sister said, flinging the word out like the verbal slap it was.

“Listen to me, Selina. He wasmurdered. And whoever did it isn’t going to appreciate somebody—”

The line went dead.

Carmen let out a few choice words in Spanish, then tapped the screen to close the digital file.

Frank Tandy disconnected from his phone call with his team at Robbery Homicide and glanced over at her. “You all right, Carmen?”

She cleared her throat. “Fine. Just some personal stuff.”

“I heard ‘Selina.’ Problem with your sister?”

Tandy had met her several times.

“It’ll get worked out.”

She hoped.

She glanced at the virtual murder board on the wall near the workstations, headedHK. The completed fields were pitifully sparse.

Eyes on the board, Tandy asked, “Where’d the software for that come from? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Filling in some information on his tablet, which immediately appeared on the wall, Heron said, “I wrote the script.”

“Where can we buy it?”

“Buy? I don’t charge. Give me your email. I’ll send you a copy.”

Tandy gave a disbelieving laugh. “You could make loads selling it.”

“I don’t sell software or code. I give it away.”

“Why?”

Carmen noted Heron blinking, as if the thought had never occurred to him.

“Don’t know,” he said. “I just do. Better to send it to your personal account. The LAPD firewall would probably stop script attachments.”

Carmen said, “I have Frank’s address.”

Heron glanced at her and nodded.

Then her thoughts returned to the prickly conversation she’d just had with her sister. “Hey, Heron. Didn’t you say that the worst kinds of intrusion happen within families?”