Private Vegas (Private 9)

LORI KIMBALL WAS in a black mood.

She pulled her SUV up to the 7-Eleven, parallel-parked it between a large motorcycle and a Chevy Volt.

What had put her in a bad state was the road repair work outside her office on South Hope Street, which had forced a detour around the block, where a red light had effectively canceled her death race home.

She couldn’t blame herself. There was no need to take a point penalty, but it was depressing to lose that excellent bridge between her go-nowhere job and the terminal tedium of house-wifery.

She knew that the adrenaline from the race was like rocket fuel, that it was probably keeping her brain from shorting out forty years before its time.

Damn it. She really hated being shut down.

Lori picked up her purse from the passenger seat and marched inside the convenience store, then sidled over to the cooler and selected an iced coffee, a pitiful consolation prize. She brought the plastic cup up to the line at the cash register, taking her place behind a shirtless, hairy biker and his sunburned girlfriend.

She was eavesdropping on their inane, mumbly, pothead conversation when she became aware that someone was speaking to her.

“Hey there. Ms. Kimball, right?”

She turned. It was a California Highway Patrol officer in the customary tan uniform: short-sleeved shirt with buttoned pockets and a brimmed hat. His bushy eyebrows looked familiar to her. She glanced at the gold-star badge above his pocket, saw the name Schmidt.

“Yes, I’m Lori Kimball.”

Then she remembered him.

He said, “I recognized your car. You’re not still speeding all to hell on the Five, are you, Ms. Kimball? Not still smoking up the freeway for the fun of it?”

“Absolutely not. You got through to me, Officer,” Lori said, managing to throw in a merry laugh. She touched her hair, twinkled her eyes. “I don’t want to lose my license. I’ve been very well behaved since you gave me that ticket, believe me.”

“Happy to hear it.”

Fuckin’ power tripper.

Lori paid for her coffee, said good-bye to the highway cop, and went outside to her car. She pulled out of the lot carefully, and when she got onto the street she noticed that the officer’s black-and-white Ford Crown Victoria was following behind her.

She kept well within the speed limit as she approached and then took the ramp to the 110 North. The trooper didn’t follow her, but regardless, he’d definitely brought her down.

Lori got into the right lane and gradually moved into the center, other cars passing her on both sides. She was the only person on the freeway driving the speed limit, for God’s sake.

The only one.

So, fuck it.

Two antique American cars were just ahead of her, one to the left, the other to the right. Lori jammed down the gas and pierced the opening between them like she was flying a silver bullet.

Whoo-hoo. This was better. Way better.

She motored through the Figueroa tunnels at a cool eighty-three, covering most of the death race at record speed. She was so high in the zone that she almost missed her exit. She still had time to make her move, but in overco

mpensating for her overshot, she jerked the wheel too hard. Her wheels screamed as she took the right onto West Doran Street, the left side of her vehicle lifting off the asphalt, then dropping back down as she made a sharp right onto San Fernando Road.

Lori was panting from sheer exhilaration. She was in the homestretch now, turning onto Grandview, passing Pelanconi Park on the right, trees on both sides lining her up with the Verdugo Mountains straight ahead. Traffic was light, no one challenging her or getting in her face, so Lori gave the engine some gas and took the car up to a very sweet seventy-two.

But it was over too soon.

Lori sighed as she slowed, then took the left onto West Mountain Street, a boring block in the boring neighborhood where she spent two-thirds of every day of her boring life. She pulled into the driveway of a small, white cinder-block-and-stucco house with blue awnings over the front windows.

Lori sat in the car for another minute, feeling her heart rate slow, thinking things over. Today had been a setback. But there was always tomorrow.

Tomorrow was another day entirely.