“So this is about eliminating them?”

“This is about asking questions and seeing where the answers lead. Sometimes you flush out a suspect, sometimes you’re getting information you didn’t have that takes you somewhere else. Was that another member of the Jameson Rook fan club back there?”

Rook chuckled. “Bree? Oh, hell, no.”

They rode another block in silence. “Because she seemed like a big fan.”

“Bree Flax is a big fan, all right. Of Bree Flax. She’s a freelancer for the local glossy mags, always on the prowl for the true crime piece she can up-sell into an instant book. You know, ripped from the headlines. That operetta back there was all about getting me to cough up some inside stuff on Matthew Starr.”

“She seemed…focused.”

Rook smiled. “By the way, that’s F-l-a-x, just in case you want to run a check.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

Rook didn’t answer. He just gave her a smile that made her blush. She turned away and pretended to watch cross traffic out her side window, worried about what he saw on her face.

Up on the top floor of the Marlowe Building there was no heat wave. In the enveloping coolness of his corner office, Omar Lamb listened to the recording of his threatening phone call to Matthew Starr. He was placid, his palms rested flat and relaxed on his leather blotter as the tiny speaker on the digital recorder vibrated with an enraged version of him spouting expletives and graphic descriptions of what he would do to Starr, including where on his body he would insert an assortment of weapons, tools, and firearms. When it was over, he turned it off and said nothing. Nikki Heat studied the real estate developer, his gym-rat body, sunken cheeks, and you’re-dead-to-me eyes. A surplus of refrigerated air whispered from unseen vents to fill the silence. She was chilly for the first time in four days. It was a lot like the morgue.