Dim light and memory brought the image into focus. Him. Sheila. Sunshine. Day off. Years ago, when he’d turned in her direction and found her waiting with open arms.
She was still waiting, he knew. She was endlessly patient. He didn’t know if that made her a fool or a paragon. Or merely a woman in love.
The photo pained him. To this day he didn’t know whether he’d been fair to Sheila. He just knew what he felt and what he didn’t. He also knew that a few short hours ago he’d taken advantage of what she’d always felt for him. He told himself he did what he did for a greater good but he doubted she’d take it the same way.
He returned the photo to the drawer. Now was not the time to revisit the past or analyze good versus bad behavior. He resumed his search for the key and this time was rewarded. He beat a hasty exit from the building and was back in the truck within minutes.
It was nearing sunset. The sun was flirting with Hollywood’s roofline; the sky above the tawdry environs glowed orange and purple and pink. Reid turned right onto a residential street that climbed into the Hollywood Hills. He drove with care in the fading light, keeping an eye out for a lone woman making her way downhill. He crested the hill disappointed, and reversed. Still no Annie.
Into the flats of Hollywood then, the commercial district, where there was lots more traffic. It was tough to drive slowly and to try to distinguish Annie from all the other unaccompanied bottle blondes walking the streets, several of whom perked up at the sight of his slowly cruising truck. He made a few passes up and down the route that he’d instructed Annie to travel.
No sign of her.
After half an hour he was flat-out worried and bordering on angry. Had she again ignored what he told her to do? Or maybe she’d gotten lost. Or maybe …
He switched on news radio. If she’d been arrested, it would be a top story. With the jarring audio in his ears and unease in his gut, he headed for the motel. She didn’t get arrested, he told himself. Either she’d headed for the motel earlier than they’d anticipated or she’d simply made it there in good time. She was probably scared when he failed to show up at the overlook. No doubt she assumed that Sheila had decided to blow their cover and that SWAT teams would soon be combing the LA basin searching for her.
The one-story Palm Tree Inn didn’t have much to recommend itself. Its flickering neon sign boasted about the cable TV and telephone in every room but Reid doubted most patrons checked in to watch CNN or call friends and family.
Reid walked into the small reception room. He was less than thrilled about asking after Annie but couldn’t think of any other way to find out whether she’d checked in. He eyed the clerk who manned the desk, a fiftyish turbaned fellow in glasses. It took the man a beat or two to turn away from the small TV set across the room. When he did, his eyes behind his bifocal lenses did the REID GARDNER! double take. That was unfortunate but nothing could be done about it. “May I help you?” the man asked. His accented voice was smooth and polite.
No way to be subtle about it. Reid cleared his throat and leaned his elbows on the counter. “I’m meeting someone here. She would have checked in within the last hour.”
The man spread his hands. “I am sorry, sir, but there is no one like that.”
“You’re sure?” Reid kept his voice casual. “Blond? About—” He raised his hand to just below his shoulder, indicating the five feet two inch height that Annie stood. “Wearing jeans and a tan windbreaker?”
The clerk shook his head. “I am sorry. No one like that has checked in all day. Maybe she went to the wrong motel?”
“I doubt she would have made that mistake.”
“Well …” He threw up his hands in the international gesture of resignation. “Women! What can I tell you?” As if on cue, a door opened behind him to reveal a plump, petite female in a sari and cardigan. A delectable aroma of curry and spices wafted into the check-in room behind her. She cocked her chin at the clerk, no doubt her husband, and said a few words in a language Reid couldn’t identify. The man turned again to Reid. “I am very sorry I cannot help you,” he declared, then followed the woman into the other room and shut the door behind them.
Reid waited only a moment before hoisting himself soundlessly over the counter and searching for the guest register. He found it quickly and ran his eyes down the day’s list—a dozen or so names carefully written in cursive script, next to the time of their arrival, room number, and cash paid.
No DEBBY DUDLEY, the name he and Annie had concocted for this purpose. And apparently the clerk had been telling the truth, for there were no women’s names at all. And no check-ins within the last hour.
Reid didn’t let himself think until he was outside the motel. Then he stood on the curb, his heart in his throat, and watched the world go by.
A world full of hordes of people. But not the only one he wanted to see.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The neighborhood of Hancock Park was just as Annie remembered, an oasis of civility in LA’s funky landscape. Here the homes were large and elegant and set back from the street behind wide lawns and sweeping driveways. Here the trees weren’t the tall showy palms of Beverly Hills, but the grand oaks and pines and sycamores of an older, more mature enclave. Here you could almost fool yourself into believing you were in an affluent part of Philadelphia or Chicago—until a resident stepped out his front door and you found yourself staring at the face of a primetime TV star.
Under nighttime skies and a thickening mass of marine layer, Annie forced herself to walk at a leisurely pace along June Street. She tried to look like she belonged, like she was merely out and about on an evening stroll. That was tricky given that it was more night than evening and that she had no prop—no man, no dog, nothing to make her look less obviously like an interloper out to wreak havoc.
Of course, most people would put breaking and entering in that category.
Several houses ahead she recognized Frankie’s property. Even in this neighborhood, it was flashy—a massive salmon-colored Spanish-style hacienda nestled behind a tropical garden of hibiscus, bougainvillea, birds of paradise, and frond-like shrubbery Annie couldn’t begin to name.
She walked past, pretending not to give it a second glance. One thing was clear: Frankie wasn’t hosting a party. In fact, it looked like Frankie wasn’t home. No light spilled from any window, no music system poured forth a jazzy melody, and no red Porsche waited in the driveway for its pony-tailed owner. She knew Frankie never parked in his garage: he’d converted it into a workout room.
The truth was that she hadn’t expected Frankie to be home. That was in part what had propelled her in this direction. She knew her agent was a party animal who liked his women and his drinking, two carryovers from his wrestling days. He wasn’t the type to spend Saturday night curled up with a client’s manuscript in his lap.
Annie walked on, remembering Reid’s reaction when she’d broached breaking into Frankie’s home to search for evidence. She knew it was dangerous and didn’t doubt it was foolhardy. But desperation cast foolhardiness in a new light.
Something had happened to Reid. Either he’d betrayed her or Sheila had betrayed him. Maybe the cops had found the rental car and linked it to him. Then he couldn’t risk coming to get her, at the overlook or the motel or anywhere else, for he’d know the cops would be on his tail.
Nor did she want to risk calling him to find out what had gone down. In her trusty carryall was a slip of paper bearing Reid’s cell number. But if he was under surveillance and she called him from a land line like a pay phone, she’d be pinpointing her location. She knew her own cell was being monitored, so she couldn’t use that. And in the rush earlier that day, they had not managed to acquire disposable phones.
She was choosing to believe that Reid wasn’t plotting to turn her in. Whatever made him hold back his heart from her—and she had a pretty good idea what that was—by this point she would stake her life on his integrity. She believed him when he said he would protect her to t
he best of his ability. But maybe that ability had been ripped away from him. Where did that leave her?
She kept coming back to the same thing. She was on her own again. She couldn’t rely on Reid or anyone else. She had to save herself. And fate had placed her on an overlook, walking distance from a place where she might do exactly that. For what if Frankie was the killer and she found proof? She could dig herself out of the pit into which she’d fallen.
As she’d told Reid, it wasn’t unusual for a killer to hold on to incriminating evidence. She might find plans in Frankie’s computer, the same caliber of gun that killed Seamus O’Neill, left-over curare. It was possible.
At the corner she did a 180 and headed back toward Frankie’s property. Now that she’d finalized the decision, for good or ill, her adrenaline kicked in. In her books, she told herself, characters made big, bold moves like this all the time. Tonight was her turn.
*
Officer Lloyd Cutter, one year out of the police academy and assigned to the LAPD Hollywood division, drove his black-and-white past the Paramount Studios lot on Melrose Avenue. It was one of the more recognizable local landmarks, and surprisingly vast—nearly the size of Disneyland. Its elaborate entry—wrought-iron gates set in arched white stucco—drew tourists by day and by night, who poked their noses between the iron bars hoping for a glimpse of some star, any star, anybody they could brag about to their Aunt Gladys or Uncle Freddie when they got back home.
Cutter’s partner, Officer Manuel Guerra, stared out the cruiser’s passenger window, no doubt performing the same crowd assessment that Cutter was. Cutter concluded that none of the tourists huddled at the gates posed a security risk, though he knew he wasn’t concentrating as well as usual. In fact, he was more than ready for his noon-to-9 shift to end. He had a date that night, and though the lady in question didn’t boast movie-star looks, she was as close as he was going to get. He was hoping to discover that she possessed the alley-cat morals of many of Hollywood’s starlet wannabes.
He turned right from Melrose onto a narrow side street chock full of tightly parked cars in both directions. The atmosphere abruptly shifted from Hollywood glamour to gritty urban reality. Rundown apartment buildings lined the block, all of them distinguished by peeling paint and security bars. The cruiser’s headlights bored twin beams of light onto the pot-holed asphalt. After a year or so of working this beat, Cutter did little more than keep on the lookout for the unusual—strange levels of activity or inactivity, knots of males in unexpected places, Dumpsters moved into odd positions.
“Hey!” Guerra shouted and Cutter slammed on the brakes just as a boy chasing a soccer ball darted out into the street from between two parked cars just a few yards ahead. The kid, no more than seven, barely gave the cruiser a glance as he scooped up his ball and kept going. The cops needed a second or two longer before they were ready to continue on.
Cutter had barely put his foot back on the gas when the rear license on a white compact car a few vehicles ahead caught his eye. 2ORN846. He frowned and braked.
Guerra glanced at him. “What is it?”
Cutter cocked his chin at the car. “The plate on that Kia Sephia doesn’t look right.”
Guerra leaned forward. Both men narrowed their gazes at the California license plate, seven dark blue letters and numerals on a white background.
“It’s been altered,” Cutter said, just as Guerra opened the passenger door to get out.
Cutter had started keeping a spiral-bound notebook with him on duty, filled with all manner of things he wanted to remember. He pulled it out and searched for a particular memorandum he’d jotted days before. Quickly he found what he was looking for: ANNETTE ROWELL, APB, 2009 KIA SEPHIA, WHITE, 2CPN316.
He glanced up to see Guerra crouching by the Sephia’s rear plate, peering at it under the bright beam of a mini flashlight. Cutter watched his partner lick his index finger and rub on the 8, which morphed as if by magic into a 3. Immediately Cutter pulled the police radio to his mouth.
He was filled with a mixture of elation and disappointment. He’d have an exciting night, all right. Just not the way he’d wanted.
*
Annie realized it was helpful to be familiar with a man’s quirks if you wanted to break into his house.
For example, she knew that Frankie was haphazard about using his alarm system. His security system of choice was male, a hundred ten pounds, of German extraction, and to Annie’s knowledge had never undergone training as a police dog. Fortunately she had met Luto the German Shepherd numerous times and prided herself on having a way with canines. She hoped that would continue to hold true even when she suddenly invaded Luto’s territory.
Annie did a quick glance around before she scampered up Frankie’s shadowy driveway to the rear of the house. Here a 6-foot-high wooden fence stood between the house’s southeast corner and the garage’s northwest wall, blocking entry to the garden that sloped gently toward the chain-link fence that separated Frankie’s property from the Wilshire Country Club golf course. She’d previously decided that this would be the best place to get inside the house. Thanks to the long driveway and the placement of trees, back here she wasn’t visible either from the street or to the neighbors. And she seriously doubted that at this hour there would be anybody on the golf course to see her.
Annie paused outside the fence to survey her options. There was good news on two fronts: the rear of the house was as unlit as the front and no noise emanated from inside. If Frankie was home, he was being quiet as a mouse. That didn’t exactly describe Frankie.
On the other hand, just the other side of the fence in the garden, she could hear Luto making noisy sniffing sounds. So Frankie had left the dog outside. Clearly Luto was patrolling the perimeter, notably the ten yards of wooden fence between the rear of the house and the garage, where Annie stood. She could hear the dog halt directly across from her and give a low growl.
“Shhh, Luto,” Annie whispered. “Nice doggie,” she added, then lowered her hand to the narrow gap between the bottom of the fence and the ground, carefully keeping her fingers away from any snapping jaws. She could just see Luto’s shiny black nose and could feel tiny gusts of air as he vigorously sniffed her hand. Have a good memory, she begged him silently, remember all those hors d’oeuvres I slipped you over the years at your master’s parties, and maybe he did, for the next sound he made was a short bark that might even have been construed as a welcome.
Not wanting to risk accidentally leaving her carryall in the house, she hid it behind a shrub, then stood back and eyed the fence, which rose eight or nine inches above her head. This was yet another of those times when she was grateful she worked out. She took a deep breath, made a silent plea to the heavens, and jumped, latching on to the top of the fence and scrabbling her feet crab-like against the wood in an effort to gain height. A few seconds later, with a mighty heave, she managed to swing her right leg over the top and mount the fence, leaving one leg dangling on each side.
She stilled and waited for the fence to stop shuddering beneath her weight. Luto eyed her and she eyed Luto—a woman/dog standoff. He didn’t growl, though, nor did he bare his teeth. “Nice dog,” she whispered again, then swung her left leg over the fence and balanced at the top for an instant before dropping with a thud to the lawn below.
*
Lionel Simpson emerged from his rental car with the taste of his half-eaten dinner—a platter of KFC’s original recipe—still on his lips. The fried chicken sat cooling in his downtown hotel room next to a warming bottle of Dos Equis and a television still blasting the Lakers playoffs. When he got the call that the car rented to Annette Rowell had at long last been found, and only a few miles from his location to boot, he didn’t take the time to switch off the tube or finish his dinner. He got his ass out the goddamn door.
“Officer Cutter. Officer Guerra.” Simpson shook the men’s hands in turn and watched them eye him with the peculiar mix of curiosity, nervousness, and resentment that colored mo
st interactions between local law-enforcement officers and their federal brethren. “Good work tonight,” he added. He didn’t say Why the hell didn’t you find the vehicle sooner, since it’s right here in your own frigging backyard? though he had a hard time keeping the words from pouring from his mouth.
Under the yellow glow of a streetlamp he regarded the car, its white chassis covered with nearly a week’s worth of grime. Within minutes the vehicle would be towed to a secure location and pored over by gloved investigators seeking evidence. He shook his head at the doctored license plate, now partially smeared. Annette Rowell was no fool, though he’d known that before tonight.
Why had she driven the car to Los Angeles and abandoned it here? Why hadn’t she headed east? Or, for that matter, why hadn’t she gone south to Mexico, only an hour’s drive from Corona del Mar? He turned back toward Cutter and Guerra. “What’s around here?” he asked.
Cutter spoke. He was a short blond guy with a bodybuilder physique, as if he thought bulking up would make up for what he lacked in height. “Paramount Studio’s nearby and Hancock Park’s a little southwest. But what you should know, sir, is there’s a Greyhound bus station about fifteen blocks north, at Hollywood and Cahuenga.” The young officer puffed up, clearly proud of his deductive abilities and eager to show them off to the high-ranking federal agent. “It’s my guess that’s why the suspect left her vehicle here. It’s far enough from the station so as not to tip us off, yet easy walking distance for someone Rowell’s age.”
Simpson set his hands on his hips. “Son, you want to tell me why Rowell would drive fifty miles just to board the bus? How many other Greyhound stations do you think there are between Corona del Mar and here?”
Cutter deflated like the Wicked Witch of the West when hit by H2O. Simpson shook his head and looked around. “I’m gonna take a drive,” he said, “I’ll be back,” and he returned to his car to cruise the area in the hope inspiration would strike.
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