Private Vegas (Private 9)

I said, “Everything is going to be okay. What’s your name? Can you tell me your name?”

Cops came through the back door, and one of them called for medical backup. Next, hotel management and two guests came in the front. Bungalow six was becoming a circus.

I ripped a cashmere throw from the sofa and covered the woman’s body. I helped her into a chair, put my jacket around her shoulders.

She opened her eyes and tears spilled down her cheeks. “My daughter,” the woman said to me. “Where is she? Is she—”

I heard the cop behind me say into the phone, “Two females; one in her forties, the other is late teens, maybe early twenties. She’s bleeding from a knife wound to her neck. Both of them are breathing.”

I said to the woman whose name I didn’t know, “Your daughter is just over there, in the bedroom. She’s going to be all right. Help is coming.”

Clasping the blanket to her body, the woman turned to see her daughter being assisted to her feet.

A siren wailed. The woman reached up and pressed her damp cheek to mine. She hugged me tight with her free arm.

“It’s my fault. I screwed up,” she said. “Thank you for helping us.”

PART ONE

90210

Chapter 1

I DRAFTED BEHIND the ambulance as it sped the two assault victims through traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard toward Ocean Memorial Hospital. When the bus turned inland, I headed north until I reached Pacific Coast Highway, the stretch of road that follows the curve of the coastline and links Malibu to Santa Monica.

My Lamborghini ca

n go from zero to ninety in ten seconds, but this car draws cops out of nowhere, even when it’s just quietly humming at a red light. So I kept to the speed limit, and within twenty minutes, I was within sight of home.

My house is white stucco and glass, shielded from the road by a high wall that is overgrown with vines and inset with a tall wrought-iron gate.

I stopped the car, opened my window, and palmed the new biometric recognition plate; the gate slid open. I pulled the Lambo into my short, tight parking spot and braked next to the blue Jag.

As the gates rolled closed behind me, I got out, locked up the car, checked behind the wall and within the landscaping for anything that didn’t belong. Then I went up the walk to the door.

I’d bought this place with Justine Smith about five years ago. Later, after we’d broken up for the third, impossibly painful time, I bought out Justine’s share of the house. It was comfortable, convenient to my office, just right—until a year ago last May.

On that night, I came back home from a business trip abroad to find another former girlfriend, Colleen Molloy, dead in my bed, her skin still warm. She’d been shot multiple times at close range, and the killer was a pro. The way he’d fixed it, all of the evidence pointed to me as the shooter.

I was charged with Colleen’s murder and jailed, but after some extraordinary work by Private investigators, I was free—if you could call it that. I still opened my door every night expecting that something horrible had happened while I was out.

I put my eye up to the iris reader beside the front door, and when the lock clacked open, I went inside.

A woman’s blue jacket and a sleek leather handbag were on a chair, and her fragrance scented the air as I walked through the main room. I followed the light coming through the house, crossed the tile floors in my gumshoes, then peered through the glass doors that opened out to the pool.

She was doing laps and didn’t see me. That was fine.

The door glided open under my hand and I went out again into the warm night. I took a chaise, and as the ocean roared at the beach below, I watched her swim.

Her lovely shape was up-lit by the pool lights. Her strong arms stroked confidently through the water, and her flip turns had both grace and power.

I knew this woman so well.

I trusted her with everything. I cared about her safety and her happiness. I truly loved her.

But I was unable to see my future with her—or anyone. And that was a problem for Justine. It was why we didn’t live together. And why we’d made no long-term plans. But we had decided a couple of months ago that we were happy seeing each other casually. And at least for now, it was working.

She reached the end of the pool and pulled herself up to the coping. Her skin glistened as light and shadow played over her taut body. She sat with her legs in the pool, leaned forward, and wrung out her long, dark brown hair.