Chapters (46)
- COVER PAGE
- PRAISE
- DEDICATION
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- SNEAK PEEK: EXIT .45
He opened their website. Minimalist and uninformative. A home page with a PS logo, and a brief outline of the firm’s practice area. They specialised in real estate, apparently. The ‘Contact Us’ tab had a couple of headshot photos: Terry Page and John Swanson. White guys in their mid-forties, bright of tooth and rich of tan. Good Beverly Hills legal stock.
Terry Page.
That had been Sly’s lead: Ask Terry Page about it.
The only actual contact information was the number for their main line—the number he’d found in Freeman’s phone.
He dialled Wayne Forsyth’s cell phone, hoping the wife would pick up, but it went through to voicemail. Vincent asked her to call back, and then he phoned Beauden Ash.
‘Oh, man. I wondered how long it’d take.’
Vincent said, ‘Exactly this long.’
‘Where are you now?’
‘Parked at Rincon. I’m taking her down to LA. She’s booked in at the Beverly Hilton.’
‘She should be in a safe house.’
‘I told her that. She’s not interested.’
‘Christ. Look, we’ve got places in Brentwood, Westwood, Culver City. It’s not like we’re going to stash her in some shithole.’
‘I’ll pass it on.’
‘What’s your ETA? I can meet you down there.’
He checked the clock on the console. Six-fifteen. ‘Probably after nine, at this rate. And there’ve been a couple of developments, actually …’
He told him about the missing Wayne Forsyth and the thing with the lawyers. An attorney looking for Wayne, and someone at a law firm calling Freeman an hour before he was murdered.
Beauden said, ‘Do the police know all this?’
‘Not sure.’
‘Are you going to tell them?’
He saw Erin paddle hard for a wave and then launch into a steep take-off, dropping fast down the face as she came to her feet in a crouch. Body and board hidden briefly through a short barrel section, and then she was past the white water and standing upright, gliding easily.
He said, ‘I need to see what Erin wants to do.’
Beauden was quiet for a while. Then he said, ‘You feel that?’
‘What?’
‘I can feel us sliding very gently into obstruction. So let’s just be real careful. All right?’
Vincent said, ‘I’ll text you when we get down there. You want to do me a favour?’
‘Maybe. What?’
Vincent said, ‘I need you to bring me some clothes.’
SEVENTEEN
SEVENTEEN
The past couple of weeks, Sly had been in the Santa Barbara place—what he called his summer house. It was up in the hills, but farther west than Lamar’s pad. Nice set-up, actually: no view because of the surrounding trees, but it was all on one level, in an L-shape built around the swimming pool.