“I’m a cop. You’re under arrest.”
He dropped his gun and the clipboard, turned his back to her, and bolted across the bedroom toward the balcony. His reaction surprised her, because it was such a dumb thing to do, but she didn’t shoot him. Her life wasn’t in immediate danger and there was nowhere for him to go.
That’s when she remembered the pool.
“No!” She ran after him, but it was too late.
Manny vaulted over the wrought-iron railing and dropped from sight.
Eve heard a moist smack and a tiny splash before she reached the railing. She saw his broken body grotesquely bent over the edge of the pool, his face in the water.
At that same instant, there were two gunshots.
Moe crashed through the living room window in an explosion of glass shards and landed on his back on the patio, two bullet wounds in his chest, his wide, dead eyes staring up at the sky.
Duncan . . .
Eve dashed back inside to the bedroom door and peered cautiously around the edge of the open doorway to the staircase, looking for movement on the landing, stairs, and entryway below, in case Jack was waiting to take a shot.
She called out: “Duncan?”
“We’re clear,” he yelled. “The third guy scrammed through the back door in the kitchen.”
Eve rushed down the stairs, reaching the entry hall to see Duncan standing in the great room, the window shattered behind him, and the two bodies on the patio. Duncan was breathing hard, his gun held at his side, blood streaming from his cheek wound. She started toward him but he irritably waved her away.
“I’m fine. Go!”
She dashed out the front door just in time to see Jack yank a woman out of her Cadillac Escalade at gunpoint and take her seat behind the wheel. Eve raised her gun but couldn’t get a clear shot at Jack without endangering the woman, the gardeners next door, and a pool man walking to his truck across the street. The Escalade tore down the hill.
Even if the sheriff’s patrol cars arrived now, they’d pass the speeding Escalade on their way up to the house without realizing they were letting a gunman get away.
Shit!
That’s when Eve remembered she still had the Rolls-Royce key in her pocket.
This isn’t over yet.
She holstered her gun, jumped into the Cullinan, and backed out of the driveway fast, whipped the car around, shifted into drive, and floored it.
The Escalade was a block ahead of her, blasting through Vista Grande’s half-open front gate as it was rolling closed. She watched as Jack ran the red light and charged into the busy intersection. The Escalade T-boned a BMW 3 Series and kept going, turning the sedan into a makeshift bulldozer scoop that clipped a passing Mercedes C-Class. The two sedans spun off in opposite directions, freeing the Escalade to barrel on down Park Granada, its front end mangled, but leaving a snarl of wrecked cars in its wake.
Eve was speeding toward the rapidly closing exit gate. The open space between the center post on the left and the gate on the right was narrowing fast in front of her. But she didn’t stop.
The Rolls-Royce passed through the tight opening, the post shearing off the driver’s side mirror and the leading edge of the gate scraping the entire length of the SUV, shooting off a spray of sparks, each one a flaming hundred-dollar bill.
Eve dodged the clogged intersection by making a hard right and driving through the exit-side waterfall, plowing through the shallow pond and across Parkway Calabasas. She mowed over the landscaped median, crossed the opposite roadway, and turned left back onto Park Granada, heading north.
Through it all, the Rolls-Royce’s ride was almost supernaturally smooth and silent. It was like she was driving in a sensory deprivation chamber, which gave her an unsettling sense of detachment, as if she were watching the chase rather than participating in it.
Jack made a sharp, screeching left into the Commons shopping center, the Escalade fishtailing as he fought for control, shearing off his dangling front bumper and sending it cartwheeling into the air.
The bumper ricocheted off the Rolls-Royce’s massive chrome grill, and right over the Spirit of Ecstasy, as Eve followed the Escalade into the Commons.
Jack came to a tire-squealing stop in front of the supermarket, bailed out of the Escalade, and ran into the store.
Eve pulled up behind his Escalade, drew her weapon, and rushed into the supermarket after him. She was nearly mowed down by the rush of panicked customers fleeing the grocery store like a spooked herd of cattle, but she managed to catch a fleeting glimpse of Jack, on her far right, running toward the liquor section.
She stayed low, moving swiftly but methodically through the store, stopping to glance down each aisle before she crossed them and became an open target. People were still running for the exits and she was worried that Jack might double back on her or slip away in the crowd.