After a few miles, the Bonneville signaled and veered onto the exit for South San Francisco. It wound through the working-class part of town, then up a steep street that I knew to be South Hill. The streets grew dark, and I shut off my lights.
The Bonneville turned down a dark, isolated street.
Middle-class row houses badly in need of repair. At the end of the street, it pulled into the driveway of a white clapboard house perched on a hill overlooking the valley. The location was pretty enough, but the house was a shambles.
Coombs and his partner got out of their car, talking. They went into the house. I turned into a dark driveway three houses down. I'd never had such a chilling feeling of being alone. It was just that I couldn't let Coombs go, couldn't let him run on us.
I pulled the Glock out of my glove compartment and checked the clip. Full load. Jesus Christ, Lindsay. No vest, no backup, no cell phone that works.
I crept along the shadowy sidewalk toward the white house, the automatic at my side. I was good with the gun, but this good?
Several beat-up cars and pickups were parked in a random pattern at the top of the driveway. The downstairs lights were on. I could hear voices. Well, I'd come this far I made my way up the narrow driveway toward the garage. It was a two-car stand-alone, separated from the main house by a blacktop walkway. The voices grew louder. I tried to listen, but they were too far away. I took a breath and moved closer. Hugging the house, I looked inside a window.
If Coombs looked as if he was going to stay for a while, then I could get backup here.
Six outlaw types, beer bottles, smokes, huddled around a table. Coombs was one of them. On the arm of one man I spotted a tattoo that made it all so clear.
The head of a lion, the head of a goat, the tail of a reptile.
This was a meeting of Chimera.
I inched closer, trying to hear. Suddenly came the rumble of another car climbing South Hill. I froze. I clung to the house, hugging the space between the main house and the garage. I heard the car door slam, then voices and footsteps coming my way.
Womans Murder Club 2 - Second Chance
Chapter 88
I SAW TWO MEN coming, one with a blond beard and long ponytail, the other in a sleeveless denim vest with massive tattooed arms. I had absolutely nowhere to go.
They fixed on me. “Who the hell are you?”
Two possibilities: back away with my gun aimed at them, or make a stand and take Coombs in right now. The latter seemed the better idea to me.
“Police,” I shouted, freezing the two new arrivals. My automatic was extended with both hands. “San Francisco Homicide. Get your hands up.”
The two men had measured, unpanicked reactions. They glanced at each other calculatingly then back at me. I was sure they were armed, and so were the others inside. A terrifying thought flashed through me: I could die here.
Noise erupted from all over. Two other men arrived from the street. I spun around, jerking my gun at them.
Suddenly the lights inside the house went out. The driveway got dark, too. Where was Coombs? What was he doing now?
I jerked into a shooting crouch. This wasn't about Coombs anymore.
I heard a noise behind me. Someone coming fast. I spun in that direction - and then I was blindsided by somebody else. I was grabbed, taken down. I hit the ground hard under a couple of hundred pounds.
Then I was looking at a face I didn't want to see. A face I hated.
“Look what the tide rolled in.” Frank Coombs grinned.
He wagged a.38 at my eyes. “Marty Boxer's little girl.”
Womans Murder Club 2 - Second Chance
Chapter 89
COOMBS CROUCHED down close and leered at me with that haughty smirking grin I'd come to hate already. Chimera was right here. “Seems you're the one who's leaning to the left a little now,” he said.
I had just enough clear-headedness to realize what incredible trouble I was in. Everything that could have possibly gone wrong had.
“This is a murder investigation,” I said to the men around me. “Frank Coombs is wanted in connection with four killings, including two cops. You don't want a piece of that.” Coombs continued to grin. “You're wasting your breath if you think that bullshit carries any weight here. I heard you talked to Weiscz. Neat guy, huh? Friend of mine.”
I forced myself into a sitting position. How the hell did he know I'd been to Pelican Bay? “People know I'm here.”
Suddenly Coombs's fist flashed out. He caught me flush on the jaw. I felt a warm ooze fill my mouth, my own blood.
My mind flickered for some way to escape.
Coombs continued to smile down at me. “I'm gonna do what you bastards did to me. Take something precious from you. Take something you can never have back. You don't understand anything yet.”
“I understand enough. You killed four innocent people.”
Coombs laughed again. His coarse hand stroked my cheek. The venom in his stare, the coldness of his touch nearly made me retch.
I heard the gunshot, loud and close by, only it was Coombs who howled and grabbed his shoulder.
The others scattered. There was chaos in the darkness, and I was as confused as anyone. Another bullet whined through the air.
A skinny thug with tattoos yelped and grabbed his thigh.
Two more shots thudded into the garage wall.
“What the fuck is going on?” Coombs yelled. “Who's shooting?”
More shots rang out. They were coming from the shadows at the end of the driveway. I got up and ran in a crouch away from the house. No one stopped me.
“Here,” I heard someone shout up ahead. I churned my legs toward the sound. The shooter was crouched behind the mustard-colored Bonneville.
“Let's go,” he hollered.
Then all at once I saw; but I couldn't believe my eyes.
I reached out and fell into the arms of my father.
Womans Murder Club 2 - Second Chance
Chapter 90
WE SPED AWAY from the house, getting most of the way to San Francisco before we could even speak. Finally my father pulled his car into the busy parking lot of a 7-Eleven. I faced him, still breathing, my heart pounding.
“Are you okay?” he asked in the softest voice I could imagine.
I nodded, not quite sure, taking an inventory of where it hurt. My jaw... the back of my head... my pride.
Slowly the questions that needed to be answered crept through the daze.
“What were you doing there?” I asked.
“I've been worried about you. Especially after somebody came after your friend Claire.” The next thought hit me hard. “You've been following?”
He dabbed the corner of my mouth with his thumb to wipe away a trickle of blood. “I was a cop for twenty years. I followed you after you left work tonight. Okay?”
My head rung in disbelief, but somehow it didn't matter.
Then, as I stared at my father, something else flashed in my mind. Something that wasn't adding up. I remembered Coombs leering over me. “He knew who I was.”
“Of course he knew. You met him face-to-face. You're in charge of his case.”
“I don't mean from the case,” I said. “He knew about you.”
My father's eyes looked confused. “What do you mean?”
“That I was your daughter. He knew. He called me Marty Boxer's little girl.”
A light was blinking from a beer sign in the 7-Eleven window. It illuminated my father's face.
“I already told you,” he said, “Coombs and I were familiar. Everybody knew me back then.”
“That wasn't what he meant.” I shook my head. “He called me Marty Boxer's little girl. It was about you.”