“There’s another one?”

“Yes, but this one is just a regular necklace,” Shawn said.

“Remember there was a scratch on her neck? I thought that was from her snagging the chain on a tree. But what if whoever was following her got a little ahead of himself and tried to steal her necklace-only it was the wrong one?”

“So she sent us,” Gus said.

“Only they followed her to our office, and then they followed us the rest of the way,” Shawn said.

“Who is ‘they’?” Gus said. “Was the mime in league with Ellen Svaco or against her? And who or what is this Rushmore he claimed he was protecting?”

“Those are three of the questions we’re going to ask her.” Shawn drummed on the dashboard like Desi Arnaz with a bongo. The traffic in front of them moved forward, and Gus saw they’d reached Ellen’s street. He made a hard right turn onto a treelined residential boulevard and pressed the accelerator to the floor. Within seconds they’d reached Ellen Svaco’s address, a small bungalow a block from the ocean. The were three shallow steps leading up to a small porch in front of the door. And on the porch, facing the door, was a man.

If you had only one word to describe the man, it would be “average.” Average height. Average weight. Average suit. The only remarkable thing about him was his hair, which looked like it had been designed for the Romulan incarnation of Mr. Bean.

His hair and the gun he held in his right hand.

Chapter Nine

Shawn jumped out of the car and ran up to the house, with Gus following. The average-looking man tensed at the sound of the car door, but when he spun around to see who was coming, he dropped his gun to his side.

“Lassie!” Shawn called to Carlton Lassiter, head detective of the Santa Barbara Police Department. “What are you doing here?”