THE RUSE HAD to be more elaborate than Abby expected or wanted. In fact, Woody spent most of Tuesday afternoon coordinating on the phone with Faye in Long Beach. Orson had joined them after lunch and he was also part of the powwow.

Since Ciara’s disappearance and murder had been such a big case in San Luis Obispo, they had to expect legitimate news inquiries. So Faye would field calls, pretending to be the DNA lab attempting to extract DNA from the sample they sent. It was also Faye who contacted Ciara’s mother, through an attorney, and relayed that the woman was behind the idea. Abby actually liked it that Faye talked to Ciara’s mother. Faye understood the kind of loss the woman felt. Faye’s husband had been murdered; she knew how to speak to a woman who had suffered such a loss.

As to the ruse, Abby knew that sometimes if you made a thing too complicated, it wouldn’t work. The story the reporter planned to run with was short and straightforward, and she hoped that would ensure success. Faye had a brief script and a dedicated phone line. Was this simple enough?

“All we can do is wait and see if Considine or Winnen takes the bait,” Abby said after the story appeared on the Internet news site.

“And I’ve been thinking about that,” Orson said. “I think Woody and I should conduct a little surveillance on Considine. It’s no use putting a tail on the cop, Winnen. But if we sit on Considine for a bit after the story runs, we might be able to tell if it’s rattled his cage.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Woody said. “Luke and Abby can start visiting wineries, and we’ll sit on Considine. I’ll have the tip phone with me, and I’ll call them if anything happens on either front.”

“Good idea,” Luke said.

“I agree, great idea. But I think we need a ruse for the vineyards as well,” Abby said. “I don’t think we can walk into a winery and tell them we’re looking for a wanted killer.”

“Woody and I talked about that,” Luke said. “We can be looking for something else.”

“Right,” Woody said. “My idea is that we create a witness to Ciara’s body dump. He can look like Napier, and since we’ve already been in the paper as looking for her, it’s not out of the ballpark.”

“Well, we’ve already made up a DNA test.” Abby stood, energized by the idea, a plan forming in her mind. “That is an idea. They employ a lot of seasonal workers in the vineyards. Why don’t we say we’re looking for a farmworker who possibly saw something?”

“New information comes to light,” Luke said. “We can describe Napier as our elusive witness.”

“An anonymous tip. It’s plausible someone would call the tip line with something like this. Our tip number is out there for anyone with information to call, so to say we got a call on that line is not too out of the ordinary. But I don’t think we should feed this fake witness search to the press. I think it should only go to the individual vineyards when we tell them who we are and what we’re trying to find —a witness, nothing more.” Abby wrote this down on the whiteboard.

“They are sure to have already seen the press coverage about the cold case and the new DNA test,” Woody said.

“Exactly. So this inquiry at their vineyards, in their minds, will not have anything to do with finding a suspect hiding there. We just want to talk to people, see if there is anyone around who may know the fictional worker we are going to invent.”

“All the while looking for Stuart Napier.”

“But we do have to be careful, mindful that Napier is dangerous,” Woody said.

“I agree, but he’s also hiding,” Luke said. “Nothing we’ve given to the press mentions the Napier case. Orson says we are unofficially looking into it, so I would think unless we tip our hand . . .” His voice trailed off.

“And the fugitive realizes we’re looking for him, we should be fine.”

Abby and Luke gave each other a high five. Then all of them moved to the map, setting pins down for the vineyards Victoria had listed. They drew up an orderly schedule for the vineyards. They also had to devise a strategy about what to do there, something that wouldn’t alert Napier, if they did find someone who might be him.

Anything they thought was a lead would mean they immediately notify Orson. He would forward the information to the proper authorities. It was not up to the cold case team to take down a wanted fugitive.