Her heart rate was going up again.
“I believe you.” Max did—she believed that Dru didn’t know whether J. C. or Rebecca killed Jason. But Max could see a possible scenario unfolding, where Jason found out his friend Dru was doing something illegal and confronted her ex-boyfriend. It was something an overprotective big brother might do, and from all the e-mails she’d read between Dru and Jason, that fit their relationship. She wanted to ask about the documents Dru had sent Jason before he graduated, but Dru was fading, and Max didn’t want to jeopardize her recovery. Still, she needed to find out what Jason meant about the trees.
“You said that Jason was obsessed with the trees at Atherton Prep. That something was odd, holes in the trees.”
“Trees? I said that?”
“Yes, Saturday night when I found you.”
Dru took a moment to collect her thoughts. The machine that monitored her heart and breathing also seemed to slow down. Good.
“Jason was acting weird all week,” Dru said slowly, her voice scratchy. “He spent hours at ACP, walking the campus, doing nothing.”
“You know this how?”
“I heard Brian and Roger talking about Jason’s strange behavior. And I saw it myself. Brian said he thought Jason was on drugs, but I think he was just mad at Jason.”
“Because Jason went behind Brian’s back to bid on this project with Jasper Pierce and Gordon Chu?”
Dru stared at her as if she were a mind-reader. “How did you know?”
“Research.” No sense telling Dru she’d broken into her house.
“So Brian said to Roger that Jason was talking about the trees, or something that was happening under the trees. Holes in the ground.”
“Do you know which trees?”
“Not then, but later, when I moved my desk to the site, Roger told me it was the trees along the west fence, Jason would walk through them then ask Roger if anyone from his crew had messed with them. Roger said no. He didn’t really even have a crew then.”
That confirmed what Jasper had told her the night before.
“Do you think that’s why Jason was at ACP the night he was killed?”
Dru thought for a long minute. “Yes. He was waiting for something. He said something like … I’ll figure out who’s messing with my site. I think that was it. But that was days before Thanksgiving. I didn’t think about it.”
“And you never told the police this.”
“I didn’t really remember, or I didn’t think it was important.” She looked pained. “Believe me, I cared about Jason. I wish I’d fallen for him instead of J. C. Jason wanted to get together, but…” Her voice trailed off. Max knew exactly what she’d been thinking. Jason was the good boy, the college grad, the straight-and-narrow boyfriend who was marriage material. J. C. Potrero was the bad boy who excited her and made her feel powerful and on the edge.
Max had been there, done that. She completely understood.
“One more thing. How did J. C. and Rebecca find out Nick Santini came to talk to you?”
Dru closed her eyes. At first Max thought she’d fallen to sleep. Then she said, “Whitney and Amy. All of us were getting paid by DLE.”
*
Max loved spring in the Bay Area. Seventy-five degrees, light breeze, blue skies. While she loved living in New York City, nothing beat the California climate. The drive up to Phleger Road reminded her that sometimes, she needed a break. Even if it was a short drive into the mountains.
She looked around for the white Mercedes, but she hadn’t seen it in the hospital parking lot, and it wasn’t following her now. She debated telling David about it, and decided she would—when they talked or when he returned, whichever came first. If she saw it again, she’d reconsider.
She realized that the college where Cross taught was only fifteen minutes from her property. To get to her home in San Mateo was less than thirty minutes in the other direction. If they had a pot farm up here, it was bold—though the mountain wasn’t extensively populated, there were plenty of homes and weekend cabins, bikers and hikers.
As soon as she turned onto Phleger from Ca?ada Road, she realized she had a problem. It was not only a private road, but gated as well.
The road itself was about three miles from Ca?ada to Skyline Boulevard, but completely uphill from where she was. The property in question was one mile east of Skyline, and from there had a more or less even terrain.
She drove to a strip mall and found a sporting goods store. She had sneakers in her bag, but no clean running clothes. She bought a fanny pack, sweatpants, T-shirt, and windbreaker, changed in the bathroom, and drove up to Skyline Boulevard. There was no place to park on the edge of the road, but less than two hundred feet from the private road was a high-end restaurant. She’d eaten here before—delicious food and an amazing view. That it was both remote but close to the city made it doubly attractive for special nights.
It was closed on Mondays, which was good for Max, so she parked in their lot and stretched.
She jogged down Skyline until she reached the private road. Based on the parcel map she’d downloaded to her phone, there were only six property owners off Phleger. Like she suspected, most of the mountainside was owned by the county or state, and the owners maintained the road because it was gated. Cross’s property, which had been gifted to her by her grandparents years ago, was less than a mile down the road. Max tucked her phone into her fanny pack, along with a water bottle, Taser, and identification, glanced around for any nosy observers, then quickly hopped the metal gate.