Private L.A. (Private 6)

Camilla Bronson said, “Where are Anita, the others?”

“In their quarters,” Justine said.

“I’m getting them out of here,” she said, turning. “They’re coming with me to L.A. I don’t want any of them talking to anyone.”

My cell phone rang. I glanced at the caller ID: LAPD Chief Mickey Fescoe.

I squinted, trying to think of what my fair-weather friend might want this time. I flashed for a second on my brother, Tommy, who was being investigated in the murder of Clay Harris, a surveillance expert who once worked for me. I’d been in the next room when the shooting went down, heard the shots but saw nothing. My brother told me it was self-defense. I’d left him at the crime scene to deal with his own mess. Had Tommy implicated me? It was all I could think of, unless Fescoe had gotten wind of the Harlows’ disappearance?

I turned away from the others, walked off the veranda out onto the lawn beneath the live oaks.

“Mickey,” I said, trying to sound even, nonchalant.

“Jack, how soon can you and Del Rio be in the mayor’s office?”

“What’s going on?”

“How long, Jack?”

I looked over at the helicopter parked on the Harlows’ front lawn. “Give me clearance to use the helipad?”

“Done.”

“Forty minutes, tops,” I said.

“We’ll be waiting,” Fescoe said.

“No clue, Mickey?”

“Turn on the radio, Jack. Turn on the TV. It’s on every goddamned station in L.A., and they don’t know the half of it.”

Chapter 18

“WELL DONE, MR. Hernandez,” Cobb said to the killer as he stripped off the No Prisoners disguise inside the rear of one of the white panel vans.

“Why didn’t I take her?” Hernandez grunted.

“Because by our letting her live, the terror will rise. It has a face now, a voice.”

“Could have been her and the kid lying there and not talking,” agreed Johnson, who was up front, driving them east toward the City of Commerce.

“Could have been anyone,” Hernandez said, humming again.

“People don’t like change, gentlemen,” Cobb observed. “I don’t care if you’re a Taliban in East-Jesus-Stan or a mom in Litchfield, Connecticut. People like their routines, their habits. When you threaten their habits and routines, they get upset, lash out, and do all sorts of things they would not normally do.”

“Like take sharp terms in a negotiation, Mr. Cobb?” Johnson asked, grinning in the rearview mirror.

“That too, Mr. Johnson,” Cobb agreed, allowing a rare smile that only deepened the lines of the spiderweb scar on the left side of his face.

“And now?” Hernandez asked.

Cobb’s smile disappeared. “We let Mr. Kelleher and Mr. Watson continue to execute their end of the plan. And we wait for contact.”

“You sure they’ll try now?” Johnson asked.

“Dead sure,” Cobb said. “Worms just can’t help themselves when they feel the soil all around them getting prickly and hot.”

Chapter 19