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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

Sawhorse barricades at Agoura Road prevented vehicles from heading south on Kanan and two deputies stood in the intersection, directing all the traffic onto the freeway. But the deputies saw her coming in fast and furious. One deputy held up traffic for her while another moved a sawhorse aside so she could pass.

She waved her thanks to the deputies and hugged the southbound shoulder because both lanes on Kanan were filled with cars fleeing the fire zone. Water-dumping helicopters streaked overhead to the front line of the fire, only a few miles southeast.

A quarter mile south of Agoura Road, she cut across Kanan to Cornell Road, forcing the cars full of desperate evacuees to let her slip through with insistent blurts of her siren.

Eve sped down the narrow rural residential street and plowed through the curtain of smoke. Day suddenly became night, the sun almost entirely blotted out by the clouds of ash and swirling embers.

Twenty yards ahead, at the far edge of her diminishing field of visibility, an LASD patrol car was parked across the road as a barricade. A deputy, his face covered with a bandana, got out of the car and held up his hand for her to stop.

Eve rolled down the window just enough so she could hear him talk. Smoke seeped into the Explorer.

“You have to turn around,” the deputy said. “The whole area south of here is under mandatory evacuation.”

“I know,” she said. “I’ve been sent to check for stragglers and convince them to get the hell out, forcibly if necessary.”

“They’d be insane to stay. The fire is vast and out of control here. Even the firefighters are retreating in a few minutes to make their stand down at Malibu Lake and further west on Mulholland.”

“I’ll be right behind you with anybody I’ve found,” she said.

He stepped out of her way and she drove past, slower now, moving through the dense fog of ash and embers, toward Mulholland Highway. She was in a race against time but she didn’t want to mow down any firefighters in her haste.

The road was awash in a flurry of blazing embers that was igniting the dry brush all around her. To her right, a meadow in Paramount Ranch looked like it was alight with dozens of campfires. To her left, on a slight rise, an entire house was ablaze, abandoned by firefighters who were now in full retreat, rolling up their water lines and piling into their trucks. The house was a lost cause and there was nothing they could do now to prevent the firestorm from advancing. They’d have to make their stand farther west.

The firefighters were leaving, but she was going in. She knew it was dangerous, but she didn’t have a choice. Caitlin was out there and Eve wasn’t leaving without her.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO