to her now because she had no discernible link to me. No one knew that we knew each other, and thus no one would expect me to be with her. And her home, I felt certain, would be safe from close observation; every rich person I knew valued privacy and security.
So I’d given her directions to the Slaughterhouse—actually, to the intersection of two well-marked streets nearby, the neighborhood being somewhat confusing and forbidding to a newcomer, especially after dark. Then I’d collected my night’s pay from Jack, in fifties and twenties that I divided up between my gym bag and my wallet, and left. I had to resist the urge to hurry. No one in the crowd pointed at me or stared. These weren’t the kind of people who checked the news on their smartphones.
Outside, the temperature had dropped to the high sixties. The streets were mostly empty. The occasional car passed, but I was the only person on the sidewalk. A newspaper skated past my feet. At the corner I stopped, shifted the gym bag on my shoulder. Beyond Tess’s hospitality to depend on, I had six hundred in cash, two Vicodin, and the Browning. No change of clothes, but that was a minor annoyance. There were worse states of affairs.
Besides, wouldn’t this be over in a day or two? Somehow the police had to figure out that there was a mix-up, that Hailey Cain wasn’t their suspect. How could they not? I hadn’t shot a cop or anyone else. I’d been in L.A.
One problem with that: I’d been off the grid a long time. No rental contract. No utility bills. No real job with a W-4 or a time card. Come to think of it, who could even alibi me that the police would take seriously? Serena? Diana? I hadn’t even been hanging with CJ lately.
Oh, God, CJ. Had he seen the news yet? Would he possibly entertain the—
That was when I heard the sirens.
Don’t assume they’re for you, I told myself. This is L.A., after all. I looked around for flashing lights and movement and saw them. Two squad cars were heading my way.
I set the gym bag down, sat on my heels, and quickly retrieved the money from inside. I didn’t want to run with the bag. I didn’t want to run at all, because if there was any chance these squad cars were on an unrelated call, I didn’t want to give myself away. Nothing gets a cop’s attention like someone who runs away from the sight of him.
The two cars turned onto the street I was on.
Tess, dammit, I trusted you.
I abandoned the bag and sprinted, looking as I did so for an alleyway or any tight space I could disappear into. I didn’t want to stay in the open. If I turned this into a footrace, with obstacles, maybe I could win.
The sirens grew louder behind me. Ahead I saw a narrow driveway between buildings and headed for it. When I dived between the buildings, I was almost in full dark while I ran about twenty yards, and then I emerged into moonlight again.
Dead end. I was in a paved area where several buildings backed up to each other. There were two Dumpsters and about several dozen cigarette butts from a legion of workers taking breaks, so many that the ghost of nicotine hung in the air. The doors that I saw were solid windowless double doors, almost certainly all locked. There were no open windows.
“Damn,” I said. “Dammit.” The sirens were growing louder. What now? Climb up on a Dumpster and jump for a low-hanging rain gutter, try to make the roofline?
The cop cars were so close that I could hear the engine noise under the sirens. I turned, resigned, to look back at the driveway I’d run along, saw a brief flash of black-and-white as the cars swept past. Then the sound of the sirens began to lengthen, stretching out in that Doppler fade.
False alarm. I took a breath and began to walk back down the driveway. The sound of the cop cars was still receding. Broken glass crunched under my boots.
Out on the street again, I saw nothing but a dark gray Chrysler Crossfire, the little coupe with that funny, rounded European shape, parked at the curb. The driver’s door was open, and Tess D’Agostino was sitting on her heels outside, examining the gym bag I’d left pushed behind a trash can.
“Hey,” I said when I was close enough, my