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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

She got out of her car and looked at what was on her side of the street. A cyclone fence surrounded a dense wooded patch of oaks and brittle, parched brush that covered the hillside. There was a dry creek down below that she assumed weaved its way along the base of the hills to Topanga Canyon.

Eve jumped up on the cyclone fence, easily scaled it, and dropped down on the hard dirt on the other side. She followed the arid creek bed east, past the fenced boundary of Louisville High School, a Roman Catholic girls’ school, and then followed a deer path that cut through the weeds and brush, going up and across the steep hillside at an angle that made the ascent gradual and easy. She stopped and looked up to see what was at the top of the hill.

It was Coyle’s mobile home park.

And high behind that, looming ominously above the Santa Monica Mountains to the southeast, was a massive, billowing cloud of roiling dark smoke.

Eve knew exactly what was burning and that it was her fault.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Eve sat down on the hillside, closed her eyes, and tried to clear her head. It was as if every synapse in her brain was firing at once, a thousand firecrackers exploding, making her ears ring.

The discovery that the Realtor and her car were missing, and the proximity of the dead man in the truck to Coyle’s mobile home, gave Eve a new, terrifying perspective on the murders. It was forcing her to rethink her assumptions, the meaning of the evidence they’d collected, and the significance of what she’d seen in her last walk-through of the house before Jared set it ablaze.

She was still trying to make sense of it all when her phone rang.

It was Duncan. “There’s a huge fire in Topanga.”

“I can see it,” Eve said.

“You’ll never guess where it started.”

It pained her, but she knew. “Tanya’s house.”

She thought about what Jared told her: How am I supposed to live here now? How can anyone live here now?

“After you left, Jared soaked it in gasoline and set it on fire. He’s in custody, but by the time the fire department got up there, the wind had whipped the blaze into a firestorm. The blaze is moving like a tidal wave. They’ve closed Topanga State Park. Our search parties have been called in and all of our deputies have been reassigned to assist the fire department with evacuating homes and controlling traffic.”

“Jared was distraught when I saw him,” Eve said. “I should never have left him alone in the house. I should have seen this coming.”