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though Nora didn’t think Dr. Duncan was acting.
    “Dr. Payne’s body was found in his office. The fire started at approximately one-thirty this morning.”
    “Jonah is in Lake Tahoe,” she repeated emphatically. “He went up there Saturday afternoon. He’s driving back right now.” She picked up her cell phone, which was charging on a small secretary desk in the makeshift dining area.
    “Dr.—” Pete began, but Nora put her hand on his arm and shook her head once.
    It was clear after a few seconds that voice mail had picked up. With a catch in her throat, Duncan said into the phone, “Jonah, it’s Mel. Can you call me, please? It’s important.” She slowly closed her phone. “He’s coming back this morning. We have a ten a.m. staff meeting.”
    “Why did he go to Tahoe?” Nora asked.
    “He goes the last weekend of every month,” she said.
    “Every month?”
    “As long as I’ve been working for him. He has a cabin. It helps him think. He works seven days a week…” Her voice trailed off. “Are you certain? I mean, if there was a fire, maybe it’s not Jonah.” Her voice cracked.
    “Duke Rogan, security consultant, identified the body, which was discovered in Dr. Payne’s office.”
    The scientist sat heavily in a chair. Her bottom lip quivered and she bit it. Tears welled in her eyes but didn’t spill over.
    Nora glanced at her watch. It was just after eight in the morning. Gently, she asked, “When did you last talk to Dr. Payne?”
    “Friday when I left work. It was after seven. Told him to enjoy his weekend…” Her voice cracked again, and she looked at the wall beyond Nora.
    “Do you have the address for his cabin?”
    Duncan slowly rose and went to her desk. She flipped through a notebook, scribbled on a piece of paper, and handed it to Nora, then sat back down as if on autopilot.
    “And he always goes to the same place?” Nora glanced at the address, then put the paper in the back of her notepad.
    “It’s his second home. Why would he go anywhere else?”
    A regular schedule. Criminals loved habits. They were easy to monitor, giving stalkers and others valuable information about their prey.
    She quickly sent an email to the Lake Tahoe satellite office asking them to check out the address as a possible crime scene, giving them basic info on the case.
    “Do you know if he arrived in Tahoe?” Nora asked.
    She shook her head. “W-what happened?”
    There was no use sugar-coating the truth. “The fire was arson.”
    “Arson? You mean on purpose?” Suddenly her eyes flashed, anger layered over grief. “Is it the same people who burned down Langlier? And the lab at Sac State?”
    “On the surface, it appears to be a similar M.O.,” Nora admitted, “but we’re still in the early stages of our investigation. We have the best people gathering evidence—”
    “That didn’t do you any good with the other fires!” She jumped up and paced. “Langlier was nearly two years ago. What are you people doing? How could this happen? How could Jonah be dead?”
    Nora would forgive her outburst — this time. She herself was intensely frustrated with the slow pace of the biotech arson investigation. That Nora believed someone affiliated with Professor Leif Cole’s group was involved meant nothing. Until she could tie him to the crimes, she couldn’t compel him to turn over anything, or even force him to talk to her.
    But she would continue to push him. Homicide gave her a fraction more weight behind her. And if Cole was true to the anarchist’s creed, then he would be repulsed that someone died. Maybe — finally — he would talk to her.
    A small consolation to Jonah Payne.
    “What about security?” Dr. Duncan continued. “Duke was there? What happened to his fabulous, foolproof security system? Someone get in? The bastard. Jonah felt
safe.”
    Nora resisted the urge to defend Duke Rogan. She had no idea if his system had failed or was hacked or simply never turned on, but she’d