“Oh. Well,” Lauren stammered. “Thank you.”

She could feel Anne Leone’s eyes on her, but she didn’t meet them.

“Thanks for having her over,” she said. “I’m sure she’ll enjoy it.”

“It’ll be my pleasure,” Anne said.

If she thought Lauren’s behavior was strange, she didn’t mention it. She made no move to stop her from heading for the door.

Lauren let herself out of the exit at the end of the hallway. The sun blinded her. She fumbled for her sunglasses on top of her head. One of the nose pads was caught in her hair. Her hands were shaking as she struggled impatiently with the glasses.

“Fuck. Fuck!” she cursed half under her breath, flinging the sunglasses away from her as they came loose. They hit the pea gravel of the parking lot facedown, undoubtedly scratching the lenses.

Angry, Lauren kicked the glasses toward her car, then bent down and snatched them up and threw them at the passenger window of the BMW. They bounced off, fell to the ground, and she left them there, not caring that they were Gucci and had cost more than a hundred dollars.

She got in the car, started it, put it in reverse, hit the gas too hard, and spun the tires.

She kept her head down and didn’t look at the building as she pulled out of the parking lot. She didn’t have to look to know that Anne Leone was probably standing at the side door, watching her make a fool of herself.

She had to escape—not Anne, or Anne’s office, even though at the end there the walls had seemed to close in to make the space as small as a closet. What she needed to escape was herself and the tumult of her emotions.

The way she chose to do that was with a gun.

Chapter 14

14

The Scum Lord, as Mavis Whitaker called him, was a wide-framed, stooped man in his seventies in baggy green shorts that looked to have at one time been a pair of dress slacks. Below his knobby knees, dark dress socks came halfway up his calves and were anchored in place by a pair of black sock garters. His shoes were brown oxfords, polished to a shine.

“Mavis Whitaker,” the old man growled, scowling at a spark plug he held pinched between a thumb and forefinger. His thick, red lower lip curved into a horseshoe of disapproval. “Nosy old bat. It’s none of her damned business who I rent property to.”

They stood in a shed that reeked of gasoline and oil out behind Carl Eddard’s modest home, only a few blocks from the house he rented to Roland Ballencoa.

“The man’s money is as good as anyone’s,” he said.

“Were you aware of the problems Mr. Ballencoa had had in Santa Barbara?” Mendez asked.