O’Mara was missing, and her secretary didn’t know where she was. We’d already played fast and loose with exigent circumstances once today. I was going to chance it again.

“I smell gas,” I lied.

“Take it easy, Boxer. I’m too old to walk a beat.”

“Garza’s place looks like a slaughterhouse, Warren, and O’Mara’s car is there. It’s my ass if we screw up.”

I wrenched the doorknob, and it turned in my hand. I let the door swing open slowly, as if a breeze had given it a tap.

We took out our guns. Again.

“This is the police. We’re coming in.”

The entranceway opened into a bright, many-windowed living room with tropical printed furnishings and large, brilliant oil paintings. I was looking for trouble inside O’Mara’s house, but as far as I could see, nothing had been disturbed.

We swept the ground floor, calling out to each other.

“Clear!”

“Clear!”

“Clear!”

We found one bright room after another, empty and spotlessly clean.

As we climbed the stairs, a scent I’d thought was potpourri got stronger, leading us to the master bedroom.

The bedroom was painted peach. A life-size oil-on-canvas painting of an entwined couple doing the deed faced the king-size bed. I don’t get this kind of “art” in bedrooms, but obviously some people must like it. Apparently, Maureen O’Mara was one of them.

To the left of the bed was a wall of windows with a view to die for.

The opposite wall was made up entirely of closets. The mirrored bifold doors were open, all eight of them, and O’Mara’s clothes were strewn everywhere. What happened here? How long ago?

Shoes were scattered against the baseboards under black scuff marks where they’d been hurled at the walls.

Cosmetics had been swept off the dresser, and a perfume bottle was lying broken on the hardwood floor.

Inside the bathroom, a cordless phone had been hammered against the green marble counter, splintered into plastic shards and colored wire.

That explained the busy signal.

Had Maureen gotten a phone call she didn’t like?

My radio sputtered at my hip, Dispatch with a report from a squad car.

The patrol unit had been going north on the 101 when it spotted Garza’s Mercedes heading in the opposite direction. The cruiser had crossed the nearest break in the divider, tried to follow, but had lost him.

This much we knew: only minutes ago, Garza’s Mercedes was pointed toward the airport.

Chapter 129

Chapter 129

DENNIS GARZA GRIPPED the steering wheel, stared at the center line as the dull highway scenery blew past his windshield.

His mouth was hanging half open, and his reflexes were dull. He knew he was in some kind of shock, but the outrage was tangible, just below the feelings of vertigo and disbelief.

What had happened today still made no sense to him.