“You’re delusional,” Eve said, her voice rising. “I raised Lisa and Kenny. I packed their lunches. I took them to school. I made their—”

“You love playing the martyr,” her mother interrupted, dismissing her grievance with her signature wave, which only pissed off Eve more. “But I’ve seen this performance a thousand times and I know all of your lines.”

Eve’s phone rang in her bathrobe pocket. She took out her phone and answered it without looking at the caller ID. “Hello?”

“We just got the warrant,” Duncan said. “We’re staging in the Gelson’s parking lot. I’ll pick you up in five minutes.”

Thank God, Eve thought, getting up from her seat.

“I’ll meet you outside.” Eve ended the call and faced her mom. “This has been a real treat but I have to go and search a man’s home for pieces of the family that he butchered.”

Jen smiled at her daughter. “Now that’s a new line but it’s still very much in character. You could play Joan of Arc.”

Eve went upstairs to get dressed without saying goodbye to her mother.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The Gelson’s parking lot was only a few yards north of the WELCOME TO CALABASAS boulder on Mulholland Highway. On their way there, Eve strapped on her Kevlar vest and Duncan told her Coyle hadn’t left the house.

“Why isn’t the Special Enforcement Detail handling this?” Eve asked, referring to the LASD’s SWAT unit, which was usually brought in on a warrant service when a suspect was likely to be armed and dangerous.

“They’re tied up raiding a big meth lab in Palmdale.”

Eve was glad they were busy. She wanted to be the first in the door on this one, not standing around outside waiting for SED to clear the place. But she frowned as if this development pissed her off, though she doubted that Duncan was fooled.

When they got to Gelson’s, she could see a half dozen patrol cars were in the parking lot and a dozen deputies were standing outside, waiting for action. The CSU van was there, too, Nan and her team milling around it, sipping coffees from Starbucks.

Eve was out of the car before it came to a complete stop and approached the deputies, who gathered around her. A couple of them sniffled, fighting allergies exacerbated by the Santa Anas that were blowing through the mountains, spreading pollen everywhere.

“Here’s the situation,” she began. “We’re serving a no-knock search warrant on Lionel Coyle. We believe he murdered and dismembered a woman, her two children, and their dog in a house up in Topanga but we haven’t found the bodies.”

“Jesus,” one of the deputies said.

“A guy capable of that kind of brutality probably won’t just smile and invite us in, especially if he has the bodies in his trailer,” Eve said. “He could put up a fight, which is why we’re authorized to do a dynamic entry.”

That meant they would be breaking in the door instead of knocking on it.