“That way. He ran up the middle of the street. The Mercedes went the other way.”

Cole stepped into the street for a better look.

“Did you see him turn off?”

“I wasn’t looking.”

“That time of night, all these cars would be gone, and it’s pretty well lit. Maybe he ducked into a building.”

“I don’t know. I had 911 on the phone. The Mercedes was gone. I was writing their license number on my arm and talking to the 911.”

Cole shrugged at Pike.

“There’s nothing down here, man. I walked eight blocks in each direction, all the way to the bridges. Two blocks east is the river, but I covered those streets, too, then three blocks to the west. The people I talked to say this area is abandoned, that time of night. There aren’t any gas stations-I couldn’t even find a pay phone. It’s nothing but commercial space and construction sites except for three or four loft conversions like Larkin’s. I’ll talk to them.”

Pike grunted, ready to let Cole get on with it. Pike wanted to keep moving, but something Cole said was bothering him.

…That time of night, all these cars would be gone, and it’s pretty well lit…

Pike looked back at the crowd of workers and the catering van, then at the cars lining both sides of the street. He opened the accident report again and studied the skid marks.

“Was the Mercedes backing out when you hit it or was it stopped?”

The girl shook her head.

“I don’t know.”

Cole frowned at her because now he was thinking about it, too.

“You told the police they backed out.”

“I don’t know what I told the police. I can’t even remember talking to them. Why does it matter?”

Cole said, “If they were parked, then what were they doing? Were they looking at something or someone in the alley? Had they just gotten into the car or were they getting out? You see how one thing leads to another?”

Pike glanced back at the street and realized what was bothering him. It didn’t have anything to do with why or why not Meesh and the Kings were here.

He said, “With the street empty, your sight line was clear. You hit them, which means they were in front of you. Seems like you would have seen them.”

Larkin widened her stance, revealing a tension in her shoulders.

“I’m not lying.”

The skid marks bore out her version of the accident, but Pike wondered why she hadn’t been able to avoid the collision. He thought she had probably been drunk or high, so he flipped to that page in the report. Nope. The tests had come back clean.

“Not saying that. Just trying to figure it out.”

“Well, it sounds like you’re accusing me. I can’t help I didn’t see them. Maybe they backed out really fast. Maybe I was looking at the radio. How much longer are we going to stay here? I’m scared and I don’t like it.”

Pike glanced at Cole and Cole shrugged.

“I have everything I need from here to go forward. I can take her back.”

Larkin squinted at Cole, still tense with irritation.

“Was there something here I missed?”

Pike said, “He’s taking you back to the house. He’ll stay with you until I get back.”

Pike started back to the Lexus, but the girl followed him.

“And when was all this decided?”

Pike didn’t answer. He didn’t see why it was necessary.

“You can’t come with me. You’ll be safer at the house.”

“I don’t want to stay with him. He’ll rape me as soon as you’re gone.”

Cole said, “In your dreams.”

She ignored him, staying with Pike.

“Listen to me, you-you’re being paid to protect me. You’re working for me. My father won’t like you dumping me off with the B-team.”

Cole spread his arms.

“B-team?”

Pike got into the Lexus, but Larkin stepped inside the door so he couldn’t close it. Her face seemed as brittle as a ceramic mask, and Pike suddenly remembered how she had looked up in the desert when she was unloading on her father. Only now she didn’t seem so much angry as betrayed.

Pike gentled his voice.

“I’m sorry if I should have discussed it with you. I didn’t think it would be an issue.”

She stood in the door, breathing.

“You can’t come with me, Larkin. I’ll see you this evening.”

Pike tugged at the door, nudging her. Time was still passing. It ran up his back with cleated boots, and here was this girl, blocking the door. Pike made his voice harder.

“Step away from the car.”

She didn’t move.

His voice hardened more.

“Step away.”

Cole said, “You want me to knock her out?”

The girl stepped back, uttering a final word as Pike pulled the door.

“Asshole.”

Pike drove away without looking back, heading for Culver City.

15

ONCE PIKE was alone, he felt the way you might feel when you float in a pool on a windless day, the sun hot on your skin, the sky overhead clean. He did not fear what he would find or think much about it. The men who set off his alarm would either be waiting for him or not, and you had to take such things as they came.

Twenty-five minutes later, Pike stopped under a sycamore tree on a residential street six blocks from his condo. Two girls and a boy scorched past on bikes. Three houses away, two older boys traded fastballs. A white dog bounced between them, barking when the ball flew overhead.

Pike got out of the car, took off the long-sleeved shirt, then went to the trunk. He looked through the things Ronnie had left. He drank half a bottle of Arrowhead water, then collected his SOG fighting knife, a pair of Zeiss binoculars, the little.25-caliber Beretta, and a box of hollowpoints for the.45. He wouldn’t need anything else.

Pike got back into his car, then drove to a Mobil station located on the other side of the wall outside his complex. He parked behind the station next to the wall. Pike bought gas there often and knew the staff, so they didn’t mind. Before he left his car, he fitted the.25 to his right ankle and the SOG to his left. He made sure the Kimber was loaded, then clipped it behind his back.

Pike went to the office and waved at the man behind the counter.

“I have to leave my car here for a while. That okay?”

“Whatever, bro. Long as you want.”

Pike moved quickly. He dropped into the condo grounds behind a flat building that faced an enormous communal swimming pool. A lush curtain of banana trees, birds-of-paradise, and canna plants hid a sound wall baffling the pool equipment, and continued around the pool and walkways. Pike slipped behind the greenery and made his way across the grounds.

People were still out and about, but Pike moved easily, twice covering almost two hundred yards to avoid an opening thirty feet wide. Pike didn’t mind. He enjoyed the freedom of not being seen.

Pike worked his way from pod to pod, around three parking areas, and finally to his condo. He did not approach his door, or try to enter. He took a position behind the rice paper plants at the corner of his building, and settled down to watch. It was a good spot with a clean view of the parking lot and the buildings that faced his own. If they were waiting, they would be inside his condo or positioned with a view of his door. It wouldn’t make sense for them to be anywhere else.

Pike studied the cars in the parking lot, and the curtains on the far windows, and the wall of plants that was exactly like the wall of plants in which he was hidden. Pike never moved, and for the first time that day did not feel the passing of time. He simply was; safe in his green world, watching. He watched until he knew the shadows between the branches and how the lowering light dappled through the leaves, and which residents were home across the way and which were not. Two hours later, Pike was finally satisfied no one was hiding, but he still didn’t move. If someone was waiting for him, they were inside his home.