Mark dragged me away from the window, pulling me deeper into the dark hallway.

We backed into the living room, where the old leather furniture looked like crouching beasts in the gloom.

“She couldn’t have known,” Mark muttered, more to himself than to me. “Yasmin checked the files.”

“Yasmin only found what Abigail wanted her to find,” I said.

I needed to keep him talking.

I needed to buy time for Ana to guide the deputies through the back entrance.

“The original families from the Sacramento development,” I said. “Abigail kept every single name.”

Mark stopped near the fireplace.

“Those people were compensated,” he said defensively.

“They were ruined,” I said. “You took their land and left them with dry wells.”

He let go of my arm, but he stood directly between me and the hallway.

His hand went to his coat pocket, where the phone started vibrating again.

This time, he pulled it out.

The bright screen illuminated his sweating forehead and the deep lines around his mouth.

He pressed the phone to his ear.

“Vale?” he whispered.