Free City of Echoes by Robert Ellis Page B

concealed, but not enough to lose sight of the car. The conditions were perfect. When Grace made a left onto Lakeside Drive, Matt closed the distance by half and followed him into the neighborhood. It looked like Grace was working his way around the gates and private roads of a nearby golf club. When he made a hard right onto Toluca Lake Avenue, Matt pulled to a stop and killed the headlights.
    He could see Grace making a U-turn and parking in front of a house five or six doors down on the left. The house was recessed from the street. He could see his supervisor hurrying toward the building and slipping out of view.
    Matt noted the time and waited. After a few minutes he idled forward and pulled to a stop in front of the house.
    It was clear to Matt that Grace didn’t live here. He had parked at the curb, not in front of the garage, which was attached to the house. But even more telling, the homes on this side of the street were set on the lake and way out of any cop’s price range. Most of them were outright mansions. The rest were big enough to probably qualify as mini-mansions. This one came with a wooden security gate, a six-foot wall, and a terra-cotta roof. From what Matt could see through the trees, every window in the place was lighted. Grace had gone without sleep for almost forty-eight hours, just as Cabrera and Matt had. So why a meeting at midnight? Why had he photographed the murder victim with his own camera when SID would have given him a complete set of images as soon as they were downloaded and entered into evidence?
    Matt opened the lock on his phone, called Central Dispatch, and identified himself to the woman who answered. After double-checking the house number, he gave her the address. Within a minute or two the dispatcher was back on the line.
    “George Baylor,” she said. “White male. Fifty-five years old. Five foot eleven inches tall, one hundred and eighty-five pounds. Blue eyes. Light brown hair. He’s an MD. He’s a doctor.”
    The name seemed familiar—but everything seemed familiar.
    “What have you got on him?”
    “Nothing,” the dispatcher said. “He’s clean. I can e-mail you the picture off his driver’s license if you like.”
    “Thanks.”
    Matt gave the dispatcher his e-mail address and got off the line. When his phone beeped a minute or so later, he checked his e-mail and gazed at the photograph of Baylor. He had hoped that seeing his face would jog his memory, but it didn’t. All he saw was a guy in his midfifties managing to pull off a smile at the DMV.
    Matt got out of the car, weighing the risks as he walked underneath the trees and approached the left side of the wall. Because it was so late, because of Grace’s odd behavior, Matt’s best guess was that his supervisor wouldn’t be here if he only intended to stay for ten minutes. Still, if Matt guessed wrong, if he was seen on the property, he wouldn’t be able to explain himself. Things would get tricky, or maybe worse.
    If he was seen . . .
    He gazed over the wall at the two-story Mediterranean. The side yard between Baylor’s house and his neighbor’s amounted to less than thirty feet but included a twenty-foot-high privacy hedge, running from here all the way down to the lake. Although he could hear a dog barking in the distance, he didn’t see any signs that Baylor owned one. No burned grass or land mines—the landscaping meticulous.
    Matt took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Then he pulled himself up over the wall and dropped down on the other side. Moving quickly through the side yard, he ducked as he passed a formal living room, then slowed and finally stopped when he spotted movement in the next set of windows. Baylor had installed shutters, and the slats were open. Matt stepped away from the light reflecting out of the room, found a place in the darkness, and became very still.
    It was Baylor’s study, and the two men were sitting before a desktop computer downloading files from Grace’s cell