“Deputy Timms.” Ramrod posture, early thirties, dark hair short back and sides, but surprisingly long on top for a deputy sheriff. He followed Matt across the patio, along the deck by the side of the house into the candlelit kitchen.

Matt opened the door of the refrigerator. Except for a small bundle wrapped in a bright-blue polo shirt, the shelves were empty.

“What is this, some kind of joke?” Timms turned a darkening face toward Matt.

“No.” Matt gestured to the sink piled with jars and containers, orange juice, mayonnaise, olives, a carton of eggs. “In this heat, I couldn’t think of what else to do. And I thought if the house burned, she would be safer, maybe. I don’t know. I found her on the beach last night when I was coming home.”

“Jesus.” Timms reached into the refrigerator.

Matt turned away. Even in the flickering candlelight, he couldn’t bear to look again at the little face.

“There’s a lot of blood on this shirt,” Timms said.

“Must be mine. From when I cut my arm.”

“You say you found this baby, you weren’t there when it was born?”

“No, I wasn’t there when she was born. I found her, I told you. I took my shirt off and wrapped her in it because there wasn’t anything else to use. I didn’t realize there was blood on it. It wouldn’t have made any difference anyway, that’s all I had, my shirt.”

“I see. It’s a girl,” Timms said. “Where did you say you found it?”

“Her. I found her on the beach.”

Timms gave him another long, hard stare. “How long have you lived at this address, Mr. Lowell?”

“Most of my life, on and off. It belonged to my parents. We lived on Point Dume but we spent a lot of time here. They planned to tear this old place down and build a decent house, but my mother—” He stopped. Timms would think he was nuts, running on with his life’s story. “I’ve lived here permanently since I got out of college. Fourteen years.”

“I see. Well, I can’t get the M.E. out here now, they won’t get through. PCH is still closed in both directions. I’ll have to call this in. You wait here.”

The deputy hesitated as if uncertain what to do with a dead child, then put the tiny body back where he’d found her, and started across the kitchen. He stopped at the sound of a voice, and footsteps on the wooden deck.

“Hey, Matt. What’s going on? Everything okay?” Deputy sheriff Bobby Eckhart walked in without knocking. Lean and athletic, he was powerful through the shoulders from years of paddling out to meet the surf. Blond hair cropped close, tonight his usually clear gray eyes were swollen and bloodshot.

“Pete, what’s going on?” Bobby said to Timms. “I heard the 927D.”

“Mr. Lowell here says he found a dead baby on the beach.”

“What?” Bobby looked sharply at Matt. “Where?”

“I don’t know, exactly. Somewhere this side of the Edwards place. When I was trying to get home.”

“Oh, Matt. How old?”

“Maybe only hours. No more than a day.”

“That’s a rough one, buddy. You okay? You’re bleeding.”

“It’s nothing. Just a cut. I broke a window at Jimmy’s place to get some water.”

While they spoke, Timms had reopened the refrigerator, and unwrapped Matt’s shirt from around the tiny form.

“Oh, jeez, just look at this.”

“I’ve already seen her.” Matt went out onto the deck, leaving the two deputies alone. He heard Bobby’s calm voice.

“Pete, I think you’d better take it up to the courthouse. They’ve got the command post set up there.”

“You know this guy?” Timms asked.

“All my life. Those are my surfboards in his Range Rover. I keep them in his garage—saves me tracking them down from Las Flores. I catch a few waves after work sometimes.”

Timms grunted. “Yeah? Then better if you take the baby to the courthouse and I get his statement.”

Matt stared out over the ocean, one of the few remaining places in Los Angeles uncontaminated by city lights, where a star-filled night was visible. But tonight the sky was shrouded, the glow from the fire still coloring the smoke hanging low over the sea.

If he had the juice, he thought, he’d be pissed off at the doubt he could hear in Timms’s voice, the guy obviously thought he was lying—but suddenly the events of the last few punishing hours had come up and hit him in the face. He felt wrecked, and knew something in his life had shifted, although he had no idea what that could be.

He turned at the sound of Bobby’s voice asking, “Where’s Barney? Is he all right?”

“Yes, I’ve got him locked in the bedroom.”

“Timms has gone.” Bobby handed Matt a bottle of Evian, and leaned his belly against the railing. “I saw Margie Little. Your horses are over in Agoura. Be good if you could make arrangements for them, the animal shelter is pushed to the limit.”

“I’ll get them out of there as soon as I can. Your house okay?” Bobby and his wife Sylvie had a tiny place in Las Flores Canyon.

“Yeah, bit singed is all. Lost the big cedar in front, though. Okay, I’ve got to go, there’s a long night still ahead.” He patted Matt’s shoulder. “I’ll take care of the baby, Matt. Don’t worry about it. Maybe you’d better have someone take a look at that arm.”

“Sure,” Matt said. He did not turn to see Bobby leave with the child in his arms. He listened to retreating footsteps, the sirens racing along the highway. The wind had shifted and was blowing offshore again.

It would be days before this fire was contained.

CHAPTER 3

“Matt, did you hear what I said?” Ned Lowell leaned back from his desk to look out of the window of the office on San Vicente Boulevard in fashionable Brentwood. “What’s so interesting down there?”

The small plaza below the window was festive, elegant stores decorated for Halloween with piles of pumpkins and hay bales, kids and adults in costume, witches, dragons, fairies, a lot of Harry Potters. Matt had his eyes on a small pink rabbit with big floppy ears and white tail. Her mother was holding her on a large orange pumpkin while her father took pictures.

“Cute mom,” Ned said.

Matt spun his chair around, fitting his feet around Barney, asleep under his half of the partner’s desk he shared with his older brother. The office was large, the main decorative feature the display of architectural photographs of Lowell Brothers projects. “I’m listening. What did you say?”

“I said Mike Greffen called about that building downtown on San Julian and Pico. Did you look at it?”

“Not yet. I’d planned to go down on Monday before the fire. Used to be a dress factory. Been empty for years, price should be right.”

“What’s around there?”

“About what you’d expect in the garment district. Plus some light manufacturing, a few run-down apartment buildings. Pretty grim, but it might be good for studios or workshops.”

In fourteen years, they had created elegant offices in abandoned banks for those eccentric souls who found high-rise office buildings sterile, made luxurious pied-à-terre apartments out of crumbling warehouses, built low-cost housing in old railroad yards, for which the city loved them. They had turned deconsecrated churches into concert venues and restaurants, created artisans workshops, art studios and lofts throughout downtown. On the way, Lowell Brothers had received design awards, thanks from a grateful city, and made a lot of money.

Ned rose to his feet, stretched his six foot two plus frame—he had a couple of inches on Matt—rotated his hips, then shrugged into his jacket. Matt noticed how much his brother was looking like their dad as he grew older, the same thick rumpled head of dark hair streaked now with gray, the deepening lines around his eyes and mouth. He’d look like that, too, probably, when he was Ned’s age, another ten years. They’d always looked alike.

“I’ll call Mike in the morning then. Right now, I’ve got to get home for trick-or-treating or Julie will kill me. Are you coming?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Why not?” Ned stopped at Matt’s desk, and peered into his face. “Matt, you don’t look so good. I know it’s only been a couple of days, but are you okay? Sleeping, eating, that kind of stuff?”

“What are you, my mother all of a sudden? Get out of here.”

Ned lingered. “Listen, this dead baby. You want to talk about it?”

“Nothing to talk about. Get going.”

“I know it was a hell of a thing, but it’s not your business. You just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. You didn’t know that baby. You couldn’t have saved it. It happens, shit like this.”

“You’re right. It does. It just did.”

“Oh, come on, you know what I mean.”

“No, you’re right. It’s not my business.”

But it felt like his business. Yesterday, Matt had spent a couple of hours with sheriff’s deputies walking the beach trying to pinpoint the exact place where he’d found the baby’s body. They’d found nothing. No trace.

“So why don’t you come over tonight and hand out candy, while we take the boys out to plunder the neighborhood?”

“Not this year.” Last year, he and Ginn had still been together. It had been a blast just watching her laughing at the parade of kids, oohing and aahing over the costumes. She was good with kids.

“We’ve got people coming over later, costumes and some drinks. Julie asked Susan Dean, and I think she only said yes because Julie dangled you as bait. Susan’s a good architect, bright, and gorgeous. What she sees in you God only knows.” He thumped Matt’s shoulder affectionately.

“Now you’re my social director, too? I thought you said you were going home.”

“If it’s still about Ginn, Matt, that was your choice.”

“She’s the one who left, not me.”

“Come on, man. She’s thirty-five years old. She wants kids. You don’t even want to get married. You think you left her any option?”

“Knock it off, Ned, okay?”

Ned raised both hands. “Sorry I spoke. See you tomorrow.”

Matt waited until the door closed behind him. He looked down into the plaza, but the pink rabbit and her family had gone.

He reached for the phone. The deputy who answered said that Eckhart wasn’t in the station house. Matt left a message that he’d called.

Traffic was clogged on the Pacific Coast Highway. Fire equipment returning to home bases all over the state rumbled south to the I-10. Going north was a nightmare of backed-up traffic. At Topanga Canyon a young entrepreneur was doing a brisk business, running up and down the line of cars waiting to get through the sheriff’s department roadblock, taking money, handing out T-shirts that read “I Survived The Latest Greatest Malibu Topanga Fire.”

Matt showed his driver’s license to a deputy to prove he was a resident and was waved through. A few restaurants had reopened in time for Halloween but they’d be crowded with people wearing false noses and mustaches, partying and swapping war stories. He stopped at PC Greens to pick up food for dinner.

It was dark when he got home. Instead of the sweet smell of sumac and thyme that grew wild up on the hills, the heavy stink of wet ash pervaded the air, overpowering even the fresh salt spray from the Pacific.

The phone in the kitchen started to ring as he came down the walkway. Barney raced ahead and Matt hurried the last few steps—mad hope, but maybe Ginn was calling to find out whether the house had survived, if the horses were okay, how Barney had come through. She’d found Barns at some rescue outfit, a two-month-old pale yellow scrap with an unusual white star on his forehead, and brought him home, dumped him in Matt’s lap on his birthday a couple years ago. Matt let himself into the kitchen, dropped the groceries on the table and picked up the phone.

“Matt Lowell.”

“Hey, Matt. What have you been up to?” Jimmy McPhee’s voice was loud, jovial.

“Hi, Jim. Heard the restaurant made it okay. I’m glad.”

“Yeah, by the grace of the Almighty. Only damage was a broken window in the kitchen, can you beat that?”

“I’m afraid I did that.” Matt glanced down at the bandage on his arm. “I took some water from the big fridge, too.”

“You were down here? Hell on wheels, Matt, how did you manage that?”

“Dumb luck, I guess. Lost my pickup and trailer at the tunnel, though. They should be cleared out by now. Do you know if the wrecker turned up?”

“Yeah, they’re gone. They were a hell of a mess, just a tangle of burned-out metal.”

While he listened, Matt filled Barney’s dish with kibble, popped a can of Rolling Rock, turned on the television. Reception had been restored, electricity was back on. He hit the mute.

“St. Aidan’s is all right, too,” McPhee said. “Bit scorched is all. A service of thanksgiving is scheduled for Sunday.”

“Okay, I’ll try to make it.” His only church attendance nowadays was on the Sunday closest to the anniversary of his mother’s death twenty-six years earlier when he was ten. She’d gone out to get ice cream one Sunday afternoon, and he’d never seen her again. The drunk who’d killed her was sentenced to two years. So now, around June 20 every year his dad came up from Palm Springs, and the three of them, he and Ned and their father attended morning service at St. Aidan’s and had lunch afterward at Jimmy’s.

Matt clicked to the local news. The fire was no longer at the top of the hour. Life was returning to normal for the rest of Los Angeles. With hotspots still in the backcountry, it would be weeks for Malibu, months and even longer, if ever, for those who’d lost everything. He turned off the news and waited for Jimmy to get to the point.

“So, James, what’s up?” he said when Jimmy let a moment of silence linger.

“Had a couple of sheriff’s department detectives asking about you today.”

While listening, Matt walked outside to the deck and looked out over the Pacific. A sliver of moon was rising, stars blazed in a clear sky.

“What did they want?”

“Just had I seen you during the fire. I said I hadn’t, but they went on awhile, wanted to know if I was sure. You know, bunch of questions like that.” Jimmy gave a strained laugh. “What have you been up to? Raiding the old Edwards place while it burned?”

“Thought I might find a Princess Di mug or something.”

Blake Edwards, his famous wife Julie Andrews, and their brood of kids had lived in the house for years without raising comment. But after the Edwards’s moved, Harrods heir, Dodi Al-Fayed, bought the house and started a major remodel, and Malibu was giddy with the rumor that Princess Di was coming to town.

“They seemed pretty serious, Matt. You in trouble?”

“Not that I know of.”

“I’ve known your dad for thirty years, kiddo, and I loved your mother, God bless her. If you’re in trouble, you just have to say the word. I’ll help if I can, you know that.”

Matt nodded as if McPhee could see him. After his mother was gone, most family celebrations were held at Jimmy’s restaurant—birthdays, graduations. He’d had his first legal beer at Jimmy’s.

“During the fire after I left the Cove, I found the body of a baby,” he said. “Lying on the beach.”

“Holy Mother of God! Whose baby?”

“Well, I guess that’s what they’re trying to find out, Jim.”

“Oh, sure. Of course. Poor little soul. How old?”

“Newborn.” Matt reached for his beer. He couldn’t bring himself to say that the baby had been alive when he’d found her. “Jim, listen, thanks for calling, but I’ve got to go.”

“Yeah, sure. Well, if you need anything, let me know, okay?”

“Sure thing.” Matt put a finger on the disconnect, started to replace the phone, then found himself punching out the number he hadn’t used for almost a year. After she’d left, he’d ring just to listen to her voice on the machine, always hanging up if she answered in person. But one night, she’d said, “Matt, I know it’s you. Please don’t keep doing this. Don’t force me to get an unlisted number.”

It had been like breaking an addiction. Just for today, he’d tell himself, I won’t call her. Just for today. Ten months of one day at a time not calling Genevieve Chang.

After four rings, the familiar voice said, “This is Ginn Chang. If you leave your number I’ll call you back. If you don’t, I won’t.”

Matt hesitated. He wanted to tell her about the baby, about the cops asking questions about him. He wanted…What? Marriage? A family? He dropped the phone into the cradle, went into the bedroom, Barney at his heels.

The eight-by-ten was back on the table by his bed. Every line was etched in his mind, but he picked it up and studied it. Ginn in hipriding white shorts and a bikini top leaned her narrow back against his chest. He had both arms wrapped around her, his chin resting on top of her head, the half-grown Barney stretched at their feet, grinning as only a happy young Lab could. He remembered the day clearly. Ned and Julie and their boys had come over for the day, Ned with a new digital camera posing everyone until they finally rebelled.

Matt thought about his brother. Ned didn’t complicate life. He’d found the right girl when he was twenty-eight, he’d gotten married, settled down, had a couple of kids. No sweat.

Matt replaced the picture on the table. From the moment they met, he’d never doubted that Ginn was the right girl. It was the rest of the story that wouldn’t fall into place. The old family album was still on the dresser where he’d put it after the fire. Slowly he turned to a page—any page—as he did sometimes. They were all photographs taken by his dad of their mother and Ned and himself, with their horses at the ranch on Zumirez Drive on Point Dume; the three of them running on the beach outside this house, throwing sticks for their two Shepherd-type mutts, playing in the surf. His mother always seemed to be smiling. Something he could still remember about her, sometimes the only thing was that wide, sweet smile. He closed the album.

“Come on, Barney. Let’s get out of here.”

He changed into old jeans and running shoes, and opened the door to the deck. Barney pushed ahead of him, but instead of heading for the gate and the narrow stairs down to the beach, the dog dashed along the walkway toward the street, tail wagging furiously. The automatic patio lights, hanging by a wire from the garage but still working, flashed on as Bobby Eckhart stepped across the beam. He was wearing black jeans, leather jacket, heavy boots.

“Hey, Matthew, you coming or going?”

“Going. I was taking Barney for a run on the beach, but it can wait. Did you come on your bike?” He hadn’t heard the sound of the love of Bobby’s life, his Harley.

“What else?”

“What brings you here?”

“You called, master?”

Matt laughed. “Come on in. You want a beer?”

“Is the pope Catholic?” Bobby tussled with Barney until they both banged their way through the door into the kitchen. He looked down at his pants. “Look at this. I’m covered in yellow hair. Don’t you ever brush this mutt?”

“You know where the brush is kept, buddy. Be our guest.”

“Too late. Damage is done.” Bobby crossed the kitchen to the refrigerator, opened the door, looked in, stared at the empty interior. “You got something against food?”

“I picked up some stuff on the way home.” He didn’t explain that no way could he ever open that door without seeing the shirt-wrapped bundle resting on a steel rack. He’d already ordered a new refrigerator, different make, different configuration. “Sit down. I’ve got water, warm beer, or scotch. If you want cold, there’s a bottle of Stoli in the freezer.”

“A glass of your best red will do me fine. Gotta get my sweetie home in one piece.”

Matt grinned. “Would that be Sylvie or the Harley?” Bobby’s wife was also a deputy sheriff.

“Sylvie’s got late duty tonight, that’s why I’m here. So I don’t have to cook.” Bobby peered into the containers of braised beef, roasted vegetables, mashed potatoes.

“I don’t know how she puts up with playing second fiddle to that bike.”

“She knows she’s on to a good thing. She’s got us both.”

Matt opened a bottle of Merlot while Bobby decanted the food, put it into the microwave.

Matt leaned back in his chair, reached for a couple of glasses, poured the wine.

“So, what’s up?” Bobby asked.

“The sheriff’s department is asking questions about me,” Matt said. “Jimmy McPhee called tonight.” He repeated the conversation.

“Routine stuff, nothing to worry about.” The microwave beeped. Bobby placed the containers on the table.

“What will happen to her, Bob?”

“The baby? Well, if they can’t find the mother, she’ll either get a civil burial or transfer her body to a teaching hospital where pediatric surgeons get their training.”

The food in Matt’s mouth was suddenly a lump impossible to swallow. “You mean—” He wanted to gag. He thought of the delicate body he’d seen, the fragile limbs. “She shouldn’t be cut up.”

Bobby helped himself to more braised beef. “Yeah, turns your stomach, doesn’t it? You know, in one month last year…August, I think, three babies were found on the beach in Santa Monica, about a week apart. Remember that?”

“No.”

“Yeah, well. No one notices. Just the flotsam of a big city. Another little Jane Doe, no one to claim her.”

“Then I’ll claim this one. She should have someone, not end up on a surgical slab, alone.”

“You can’t just walk in and claim a body. It’s not that easy. Why would you want to do that?”

Because she died in his arms. Because maybe he could have saved her if he hadn’t been so hellbent on getting home to his house and his dog. Although he still didn’t know how.

“Because I found her, I guess. Why not?”

Bobby shook his head. “Matt, just think for a minute how this plays. Single guy finds a baby. She’s still alive. No one’s around as a witness. Baby dies. Then the guy claims the body, spends a fair amount of change to give this Baby Doe a funeral. What do you think that says?”

“That someone wants to do the right thing? What? You think like a cop, Bobby, you know that?”

“Twelve years on the job, Matt. It’ll do it to you every time.” After college, Bobby had bummed the world following the waves for a couple of years before he came home, met Sylvie and joined the sheriff’s department.

Matt pushed his chair back, got to his feet. He dumped the remains of the food into the trash. “So what’s the next step? Do I call the coroner’s office?”

“No. You sleep on it for a week, then you call.”

“That might be too late.”

“Yeah,” Bobby said. “You’re right.”

CHAPTER 4

“See what I mean? It’s a prime piece of property.” Mike Greffen of Downtown Realty Associates, was resplendent in a well tailored gray suit, white shirt, Hermes tie. He gestured toward the vast empty interior of the almost derelict building. In spite of the brilliant fall day outside, the late afternoon sunlight barely penetrated the second floor windows, multi-paned and washed with a thin film of brown paint. The place reeked of excrement, human and animal, rats, stray cats, the unwholesome stink of the transients who used the place to drink and vomit and crash. “Know what they say about location. Still can’t beat it, gentlemen.”

Ned stamped a foot tentatively on the splintered wooden planks of the uneven factory floor. A small cloud of dust coated his Nikes. He and Matt wore their usual working clothes, blue jeans, polo shirts, sneakers.

“Wow. Nearly went through there. What do you think anyone can do with this piece of industrial wasteland? Matt, you got any ideas?” Matt recognized Ned’s opening salvo for negotiation on the price. Ned managed their financial affairs, bank loans, mortgages. There wasn’t a real estate broker or a banker alive who could best Ned. He could wring the last penny out of any deal.

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