Sometime before flight 345 to San Francisco took off from LAX, a small warehouse just outside of L.A. county caught fire unexpectedly. The owner counseled the fire department to use extreme caution given the inflammable nature of the materials being stored inside. It turned out not to matter as the location was sufficiently out of the way that no one noticed until it was too late to save much of the structure.
The owner, a ragged looking man--understandably so, thought the local sheriff, given the circumstances--came down to the station to give a statement. Given the number of different chemicals being stored in the warehouse, it was unlikely that much of an accelerant would have been needed to consume the whole building. It also meant that pinning down the cause would be extremely difficult. Still, the sheriff took one look at the pale, skinny, desolate fellow who showed up to fill out the necessary crime scene forms--they were treating it as a suspicious fire as a matter of protocol--and decided he was no arsonist. Arsonists came in all colors and attitudes, except this one: devastated.
"I'm very sorry about this, Mr. Talos."
"Not at all," the man sighed. "It's really our own fault, I suppose. We should have been more careful with our inventory. All those…things…" he drifted off.
"Were you up to date with the fire codes regarding storage of mass quantities of flammable materials?"
"Yes, we were inspected just last year," the man folded his head in his hands. "It's all on record, I assure you. This must just be…one of those things…"
The sheriff cleared his throat, attempting some pity. It took a lot to move the heart of a career officer who'd seen it all. He wouldn't appear weak, but he could still be compassionate. "Maybe you ought to contact you insurance company, Mr. Talos."
"Right this minute?" The man was on the verge of tears, the sheriff could see it.
"It's standard procedure in the case of catastrophic loss."
"I will, sheriff, I promise. I'm just so tired. This has taken a lot out of me."
"I understand, Mr. Talos." What the hell? What did one day matter? The guy had very likely just lost a substantial piece of his livelihood. And his hesitance to involve the insurance company crossed off arson-for-profit on the policeman's internal motive list. "Go home, get some sleep, sir. We have a number where we can reach you. We'll be in touch when we get the report back from CSU."
"Thank you, sir," Talos sounded pitifully grateful. "Oh, my sister's not going to like this."
The sheriff had a man get him a cab and turned his mind over to the rest of the day's business. The laboratory workup wouldn't be available for a while anyway.
A man in a suit held up a sign that read: PRESCOTT. Alyssa and Caulder approached him, and he graciously took their bags, escorting them to a car. Abby, Zoe, and King took no notice and kept up their new ruse, and, despite her instincts' screaming, no one paid any attention to them. They hadn't traveled together; Gidge hadn't traveled at all. The Prescotts, Henri and Alyssa, were high profile first-class flyers, and the Sommerfield family were just a harried man and wife taking their daughter on a trip up to enjoy the lousy Bay Area weather. The Prescotts were at the Ritz-Carlton on Stockton; the Sommerfields were over at the Comfort Inn.
No one could have noticed any lingering looks or secret codes passed between the two because there weren't any. The Prescotts departed for their hotel, and the Sommerfields for theirs. Only later would the two connect, once the identities were shed completely.