The man with the accent said, “I hear someone. In the back.”

A shadow moved past, but Frank couldn’t see.

The leader appeared overhead, cradling his broken arm. Huge shimmering tears dripped from his eyes and fell in slow motion like rain from his braids.

He said, “I’m gonna get me that money.”

He turned away toward Cindy.

Frank’s world grew dark, and all he had left were feelings of failure and shame. He knew he was dying, exactly the way he had always thought he would die, only not here, and not now. All of that should have been behind him.

He tried to reach for his wife, but could not.

He wanted to touch her, but could not.

He wanted to protect her, but had not.

His index finger was the only part of him that moved.

Twitching as if with a life of its own.

His trigger finger.

Pulling at empty air.

OUTSIDE, with its shades drawn, the Meyer house appeared peaceful. Heavy walls muffled most of the sounds within, and traffic noise from nearby Wilshire Boulevard was loud enough to mask the rest. Those screams which could be heard might have been from a home theater, a nice Surround Sound system.

Cars passed, some leaving home to go out for the evening, others returning home after a long day at the office.

The dull thump of a gunshot within the house was muted and unnatural. A Lexus sedan passed, but with its windows up and an iPod playlist rocking the exquisitely engineered vehicle, the driver heard nothing. She did not slow.

Another thump pounded within the house a few moments later, accompanied by a flash like distant lightning behind the shades.

More flashes followed.

Then more.

You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.

—ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY, 1900-1944, Free French warrior and aviator who also typed

Part One - Professionals

Part One

Professionals

Chapter 1

1

AT TEN FOURTEEN THE following MORNING, approximately fifteen hours after the murders, helicopters were dark stars over the Meyer house when LAPD Detective-Sergeant Jack Terrio threaded his way through the tangle of marked and unmarked police vehicles, SID wagons, and vans from the Medical Examiner’s office. He phoned his task force partner, Louis Deets, as he approached the house. Deets had been at the scene for an hour.

“I’m here.”

“Meet you at the front door. You gotta see this.”

“Hang on—any word on the wit?”

A slim possibility existed for a witness—an Anglo female had been found alive by the first responders and identified as the Meyers’ nanny.

Deets said, “Not so hot. They brought her over to the Medical Center, but she’s circling the drain. In the face, Jackie. One in the face, one in the chest.”

“Hold a good thought. We need a break.”

“Maybe we got one. You gotta see.”