4th of July (Women's Murder Club 4)

A lot of the kids snickered, but four of them, including Ali, volunteered. I told the “sheep” to scatter and run down the beach and then I unleashed Martha.

“Martha. Walk up,” I called to her, and she ran toward the little group of five. They squealed and tried to evade her, but they couldn’t outdo Martha. She was fast and agile, and with her head down, eyes focused on them, she barked at their heels, and the kids kept together and streamed forward in pretty tight formation.

“Come-bye,” I shouted, and Martha herded the kids clockwise toward the bay. “Away,” I called out, and Martha looped them back around toward the cliff, the children giggling gleefully.

“That’ll do,” I called out, and my little black-and-white doggy kept the kids in a clump by running circles around their legs, shepherding them, breathless and giddy, back to the blankets.

“Stand, Martha,” I said. “Good job. Excellent, sweetie.”

Martha barked in self-congratulation beside me. The kids clapped and whistled, and Carolee handed out cups of orange juice and toasted us. When the attention had gone off me and Martha, I huddled with Carolee and told her about my conversation with Yuki.

“I need a favor,” I said.

“Anything,” said Carolee Brown. And then she felt compelled to say, “Lindsay, you would be a great mom.”

Chapter 79

MINUTES AFTER SAYING GOOD-BYE to Carolee and the kids, Martha and I climbed the cliff and crossed the grassy field toward Miramontes Street. My feet had just touched the sidewalk when I saw a man maybe a hundred yards away pointing a smallish camera in my direction.

He was so far away, all I could see was the glint of the lens, his orange sweatshirt, and a baseball cap pulled down low over his eyes. And he didn’t let me get any closer. Once he saw that I had noticed him, he turned and walked quickly away.

Maybe the guy was just taking pictures of the view, or maybe the tabloid press had found me at last, or maybe that pinging in my chest was just paranoia, but I felt kind of uneasy as I headed home.

Someone was watching me.

Someone who didn’t want me to see him.

Back at Cat’s, I stripped my bed and packed my things. Then I fed Penelope and changed her water.

“Good news, Penny,” I told the wonder pig. “Carolee and Allison promised that they’ll come over later. I see apples in your future, babe.”

I put Joe’s sweet good-bye-for-now note into my handbag and, after a thorough look around, made for the front door.

“Home we go,” I said to Martha.

We scrambled up into the Explorer and headed back to San Francisco.

Chapter 80

AT SEVEN THAT NIGHT, I opened the door to Indigo, a brand-new restaurant on McAllister, two blocks from the courthouse, which ought to have taken my appetite away. I passed through the wood-paneled bar into the high-ceilinged restaurant proper. There, the maître d’ checked me off his list and escorted me to a blue velvet banquette where Yuki was leafing through a sheaf of papers.

Yuki stood to hug me, and as I hugged her back, I realized how very glad I was to see my lawyer.

“How’s it going, Lindsay?”

“Just fabulous, except for the part when I remember that my trial starts Monday.”

“We’re going to win,” she said. “So you can stop worrying about that.”

“Silly me for fretting,” I said.

I cracked a smile, but I was more shaken than I wanted her to know. Mickey Sherman had convinced the powers that be that we would all be best served if I was represented by a woman attorney and that Yuki Castellano was “a great gal for the job.”

I wished I felt as sure.

Although I was catching her at the end of a long workday, Yuki looked fresh and upbeat. But most of all, she looked young. I reflexively clutched my Kokopelli as my twenty-eight-year-old attorney and I ordered dinner.

“So, what have I missed since I skipped town?” I asked Yuki. I pushed chef Larry Piaskowy’s pan-seared sea bass with a parsnip purée to the far side of my plate and nibbled at the fennel salad with pine nuts and a carrot-tarragon vinaigrette.