“If you’re sure . . . ?”
The bike guy leashed Sophie and introduced himself. “Bob Hinton,” he said. “If you need a good lawyer, here’s my card. And I’m really sorry.”
“Lindsay Boxer,” I said, taking his card. “And I do need a good lawyer. Some guy with a baby rottie ran over me with his Cannondale.”
The guy smiled nervously. “I’ve never seen you around here before.”
“My sister, Catherine, lives there.” I pointed to the pretty blue house. Then, since we were headed the same way, we all trooped off together along the sandy footpath that bisected the dune grass.
I told Hinton that I was staying at my sister’s house while taking a few weeks off from my job with the SFPD.
“A cop, huh? You’ve come to the right place. All those murders that have happened around here.”
I went hot and cold at the same time. My cheeks flamed, but my insides turned to ice. I didn’t want to think about murders around here. I wanted to detox. Take my R&R. And I certainly didn’t want to talk anymore with this blindsiding lawyer, although he seemed nice enough.
“Listen, I’ve gotta go,” I said. I tightened Martha’s lead so that she was beside me and walked quickly on. “Take care,” I shot over my shoulder. “And try to watch where you’re going.”
I clambered down the sandy cliff to the beach, distancing myself from Bob Hinton as quickly as possible.
Out of sight. Out of mind.
Chapter 30
THE WATER WAS TOO cold for swimming, but I sat cross-legged near the surf’s edge and stared out at the horizon where the aqua blue bay met the great rolling Pacific.
Martha was running along the curve of the beach, the sand spraying out behind her feet, and I was enjoying the warmth of the sun on my face when I felt something hard jab the back of my neck.
I froze.
I didn’t even take a breath.
“You shot that girl,” a voice said. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
At first I didn’t recognize the voice. My mind spun, searching for a name, an explanation, the right words to say. I reached my arm behind me so that I could grab the gun and I saw his face for a split second.
I saw the hatred in his eyes. I saw his fear.
“Don’t you move,” the boy shouted, jabbing the gun muzzle hard against my vertebrae. Sweat trickled down my sides. “You killed my sister. You killed her for nothing!”
I remembered the empty look on Sara Cabot’s face when she fell.
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
“No, you’re not, but you will be. And guess what? Nobody cares.”
You’re not supposed to hear the bullet that gets you, but that must be a myth. The booming report of the shot that drilled through my spine sounded like a bomb.
I slumped over, paralyzed. I couldn’t speak and I couldn’t stop the flow of blood pulsing out of my body, ebbing into the cold water of the bay.
But how had it come to this? There was a reason that just eluded my grasp. Something I should have done.
Slap the cuffs on them. I should have done that.
That’s what I was thinking when my eyes flew open.
I was lying on my side, my fists full of sand. Martha was looking down at me, breathing on my face.
Somebody cared.