She didn't see anyone, but there were places where intruders could hide, but not from the observation deck.

Katyusha hurried down the stairs into the shadows, searching for a dozen wind-blown shadows.

She stopped and moved slowly, her eyes on the path and the dog. The dog searched the yard, both keenly and vigilantly.

Their movements and the hairs standing up on Dylan's neck were unsettling.

She walked slowly into the corner of the yard, observing the movement and listening for footsteps. After hearing or seeing no signs of an intruder, she shone her flashlight towards the ground. It seemed to be a cross, but upon closer inspection, Katyusha was not sure if it had been deliberately placed there or had been formed by a fallen branch. It is not tied with thread and there are no flowers. It was just a few feet from the back door, which was locked, but a 17-year-old could easily jump over.

She remembered, Travis? Fiona knew her name and was able to find where she lived.

She slowly walked around the cross. Are there any footprints in the trampled grass next to it? She couldn't tell the difference.

The uncertainty of this situation is even more troubling than the cross that is placed there as a threat.

Katyusha returned to the house and put her pistol in its holster.

She locked the door and walked into the living room. The living room is full of furniture that is a little out of place like Fiona's furniture, but it is of better quality and more welcoming, without leather or chrome furnishings. Most of the furniture is stuffed to the brim. The furniture was purchased by her and her late husband during a shopping trip. Katyusha slumped on the couch and noticed a missed call. She eagerly flipped to the call record. It was Jon calling, not her mother.

Bolin reported that the "colleague" hadn't been lucky enough to crack the login password. The supercomputer would run one night, and the next morning he would tell Katyusha what was going on. Or, if she prefers, she can call and ask. He rested very late.

Katyusha hesitated to call—she had a sense of urgency—but it was better not to keep the phone busy, in case her mother called. She then called the Monterey County Police Department, where a senior officer was on duty, and ordered someone from the Crime Scene Investigation Section to take the cross. She told him the location of the cross. He said he sent someone there in the morning.

She went next to take a shower; Despite the steaming bath water, she shuddered as an ominous but persistent image lingered in her mind: the mask outside the window of Mira's house, her black eyes, her stitched mouth.

She climbed into bed, placed the Glock pistol on the bedside table, three feet away from her, unloaded in holster, and loaded a magazine of bullets, one of which was "in the bedroom"—that is, loaded.

She closed her eyes, and despite being tired, she couldn't sleep.

It wasn't tracking Travis that kept her from sleeping, it wasn't because of the fright she was just given, it wasn't because of the image of that damn mask.

Neither. The source of her anxiety was a simple sentence that swirled around her head.

It was her mother's answer to Hitty's question, about the eyewitness in the intensive care unit on the night Miliar was killed.

There were a few nurses in the side room, but only them, his family was gone, and there were no visitors.

Katyusha couldn't remember exactly, but she was almost sure that when she mentioned it to her mother shortly after the officer's death, Edie looked surprised at the news; She told her daughter that she was busy in her own ward that night and therefore did not go to the intensive care unit.

If, as Edie claimed, she wasn't in charge of intensive care that night, how was she sure there was no one in the intensive care unit?

Wednesday

8 a.m. Katyusha walked into the office and smiled when she saw Jon. He was typing on the keyboard of Travis' computer in plastic gloves.

"I know what I'm doing, I usually watch NCIS." He grinned, "I like this TV series more than CSI." ”

"Hey, boss, we can make a TV series too." Kevin's voice came from a table in the corner. The table he pulled over and used as a workstation to study the strange masks found from the crime scene of Mira's house.

"That's a good idea." Boleyn also picked up the joke, "Of course, it's a TV series about posture detection. You could call it Body Reader. Can you invite me to do a special friendship appearance?"

Despite her displeasure, she laughed.

Kevin said: "I want to play a young and dashing sidekick who can often flirt with beautiful female detectives. Can we hire a beautiful female agent, boss? It's not that you're not pretty. You know what I mean. ”

"How's we're doing?"

Bolin explained that the supercomputer connected to Travis's computer had not yet succeeded in cracking the boy's login password.

Either in an hour or in 300 years.

"There is no other way but to wait." He ripped off his gloves and continued to search for the identity of the poster who might be in danger.

"Ray, what about you?" Katyusha glanced at the silent Ray, who was still flipping through the notes and sketches he found in Travis's bedroom.

"There are many rambling and incomprehensible words, ma'am," said Caraño, the Anglo words that came out of the Latins' mouths, "languages I don't recognize, numbers, graffiti, spaceships, trees with faces, aliens." Pictures of disembowelmented bodies, hearts, organs. This kid is a mess. ”

"Did he mention anything?"

"Of course there is," said the officer, "and these places don't seem to be on Earth." ”

"There are many more names here." Bolin handed her a piece of paper with the names and addresses of the other six people who posted the posts.

Katyusha looked up their phone numbers from the state government's database and called to alert them that Travis was a threat.

At this moment, the computer beeped and an email appeared. She read it and was surprised to find that it was Hugh. He must have been very busy; He rarely emails her because he prefers to talk to her in person.

Katyusha:

I am very reluctant to say, but the situation in the container case is getting more and more serious. The Department of Defense's Transportation Standardization Agency and the Department of Homeland Security are getting more and more anxious.

I'm still going to help you with Travis's case, I'm in charge of the forensic side, and I'm going to get to you if I can, but this case will take up most of my time. Sorry – Hugh