BooksBarbecue
Back Lost Hills Save as PDF
Chapters (49)
  1. TITLE PAGE
  2. COPYRIGHT PAGE
  3. DEDICATION
  4. Contents
  5. CHAPTER ONE
  6. CHAPTER TWO
  7. CHAPTER THREE
  8. CHAPTER FOUR
  9. CHAPTER FIVE
  10. CHAPTER SIX
  11. CHAPTER SEVEN
  12. CHAPTER EIGHT
  13. CHAPTER NINE
  14. CHAPTER TEN
  15. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  16. CHAPTER TWELVE
  17. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  18. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  19. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  20. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  21. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  22. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  23. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  24. CHAPTER TWENTY
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  34. CHAPTER THIRTY
  35. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  44. CHAPTER FORTY
  45. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  46. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  47. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  48. Author’s Note and Acknowledgments
  49. About the Author

Eve and Duncan walked out, closed the door, and headed down the corridor toward the iron security gate, which was manned by a guard. She was troubled by the encounter with Coyle. She couldn’t get a sense of what he or his lawyer hoped to gain from it. Did they really think she’d drop the charges to save herself?

“That was a strange meeting,” Eve said.

“He wants out of jail, that’s all, and believes we don’t have the evidence to hold him.”

“So why not wait until tomorrow and have the pleasure of humiliating me and the entire department in court?” She had the nagging feeling that she was missing something important.

“He hates being cooped up and the more time he gives us, the better the odds are that we’ll get the evidence we need but don’t have yet. They had nothing to lose by taking the shot.”

Eve didn’t buy it. “If Stella Winters really believed we had nothing, she’d relish the opportunity to skin us alive in open court in front of the media. It would raise her public profile, bring her clients, maybe even get her a legal pundit gig on CNN. Something else is going on here.”

“Not everybody looks at the media angle first and how they can leverage it for personal gain.”

Eve ignored the swipe at her. They reached the security gate and were buzzed through by the guard on duty. They walked down another corridor toward the next gate.

“Where did Coyle find Winters?” Eve asked.

“He didn’t. His mother did. Stella Winters represented Coyle on those jerking-off-in-public cases when he was in high school and at Pierce College. Winters got the charges dropped in exchange for him going into counseling.”

“Winters must be good,” Eve said. “How did Coyle’s mother get so lucky?”

“Beatrice worked as a receptionist at a law firm in Woodland Hills and one of the lawyers there recommended Winters.”

“What happened to Lionel’s father?”

“I don’t know. Beatrice was a single parent, never married,” Duncan said. “Why did you ask Coyle about the DVD he bought at Walmart? Out of all the questions we have, that had to be the least important one.”

“It made his eyelid twitch. I wonder why that is.”

“Fatigue, dry eye, a nervous tick. Who cares? You wasted an opportunity on something insignificant.”

“Is imitating death by electric chair an effective interrogation technique for you?”

“It doesn’t get any answers,” Duncan said, “but it never fails to amuse me.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Eve and Duncan walked into a squad room that was packed with detectives and deputies talking on telephones and taking notes. It reminded Eve of a telethon phone bank. Biddle and Garvey were at their side-by-side cubicles, doing paperwork.

“What are all these people doing here?” Eve asked Duncan.