Private L.A. (Private 6)

“My brother.”

“The guy in the papers?” Sanders asked in a groan. “The one implicated in that murder?”

“One and the same,” I said.

What was the likelihood of that? My brother designed and installed the system, a system that failed?

“You think he could be involved here?” Terry Graves asked.

I considered the producer’s question but then shook my head. “Tommy’s a wack job, but his specialty is security systems. How exactly did it fail?”

Del Rio ran a paw over his stubbled chin. “Logs say the computers ran diagnostic software upon rebooting at nine twenty-seven p.m. two nights ago. It detected a failure in the trip connection to the backup generators four seconds before the ranch’s main power line died.”

“You call Southern Cal Edison?” Sci asked.

Del Rio nodded. “A transformer blew about that time, cut power all over Ojai. Took three hours to bring electricity back online.”

“But you said the computer logs show the system was only down for two hours, not three,” I said.

“That’s right,” Del Rio said. “The logs say the generators kicked back to life at nine twenty-seven, main power came on about an hour later.”

“So someone inside cut the generator, and then what, reconnected it?”

He nodded again. “I figure coordinated attack, inside, outside. Takes a few minutes for the system to reboot. Enough time to vanish when you’re done.”

My mind raced through the people who were supposed to have been on the ranch that night. The Harlows. Their kids. The caretaker. The Harlows’ personal assistant.

“Cynthia Maines,” I said.

“What?” Camilla Bronson asked.

“Unless I’m out to lunch here, the only beds in the house I’ve seen used were the family’s. If Maines was here, where did she sleep?”

“Maybe she didn’t,” Terry Graves said.

“Or maybe she cleaned up after herself, made it look as if she hadn’t slept here,” Mo-bot said. “I mean, the Harlows’ bed was made, right?”

“Or Jennifer and Thom just hadn’t gone to bed yet,” I said, gesturing at the screen. “You find tapes from these feeds?”

Del Rio nodded, gave the keyboard several commands. The screen images jumped and now carried a time stamp four days prior.

Del Rio said, “The cameras are set up with motion detectors. They only record when there’s movement. Lights too. You can see the two days of activity leading up to the system failure in like five minutes.”

He speeded up the tapes. My focus jumped all over the split screen, seeing the Harlows arriving four nights ago, hauling gear from the Suburbans into the house, greeting a man wearing a straw cowboy hat, who I assumed was the caretaker, Héctor Ramón; and the three kids going in and out of the house multiple times during the days and into the evenings with the bulldog rambling behind them. The dog seemed never to leave their side.

Thom Harlow appeared infrequently. His wife was everywhere, a frenetic personality. On the second evening, however, Thom came to the back door to watch Jennifer leave on her run, which Sanders said was a daily ritual, along with yoga. The last recording took place moments before the system failed, roughly thirty-six hours after the Harlows had returned to the ranch. The back-door and deck view again, looking down at a steep angle: Jennifer returned from her run in the dark, sweating, chest heaving, and climbed onto the lit deck.

Del Rio typed, turned that frame full-screen. Jennifer slowed, stopped, turned to look behind her. The light beyond the deck was dim, shadowy, so I caught only a flicker of movement in the shadows, the hint of a human form before the screen blinked black.

“What—” Mo-bot began.

Del Rio held up his hand. “Wait, you’re gonna see the first thing the cameras picked up after the system rebooted two hours later.”

The screen jumped back to life.

Stella, the Harlows’ bulldog, was on the deck in much the same place where Jennifer had been when the screen went blank. The dog was frantic, howling and ripping at the screen door as if she’d seen something worse than a ghost.

Chapter 15