Interesting game, this: analysis, factoring out variables.
Two more circuits convinced her the coast was clear. She drove to Sunset, turned north on Laurel Canyon, and made it to the Valley by nine a.m.
Breakfast was pancakes and eggs at a coffee shop in Encino. Sometimes she treated herself to the flaps of sugar and starch when she wanted to feel enlarged.
Or, maybe, it dawned on her for the first time, she went for pancakes because the first time she’d met Malcolm that’s what he’d been eating.
All at once, she was thinking of colors — green water, red rooms, then Malcolm’s brown bearish presence and her eyes burned.
Appetite faded, she left cash on the table and exited.
Checking the coffee shop parking lot, more for practice than out of worry, she drove west on Ventura Boulevard, caught the 101 West at Reseda Boulevard, got off in Calabasas, and checked into a Hilton Garden Inn with a special deal on king-bed rooms.
Fourteen miles from the beach, far enough for comfort.
Working out in the hotel gym, she showered in her room, dressed in one of two robes hanging in the lav, plugged in her laptop, and connected with Hilton WiFi.
Trying to identify Andrew under his alias was most likely a waste of time but just when you thought you were smart, life could make you feel stupid, so she had to try.
Keywording andrew toner turned out to be half an hour of futility as she came up with precisely the useless information Elaine Henke had reported.
Next step: Use roger, the name he’d given Grace at the Opus, grouped with civil engineer and various Texas cities beginning with San Antonio. That created a list of eighteen names. Eleven came with Facebook or LinkedIn listings and photos that eliminated their owners. An hour later, she’d fished up phone numbers for the remaining seven, on business link sites. Using one of the three prepaid cells, she began calling.
Four men answered their own phones. Three secretaries offered variants of “Hold on, I’ll see if Mr. [fill in the blank] is available.”
Dead ends.
She paired the name with homicide, murder, and rape. A staggering number of Rogers had committed serious felonies and it took Grace nearly two hours to eliminate them.
The final iteration was roger paired with brother and murderer. That pulled up a Catholic priest who’d stabbed a nun to death eighteen years ago in Cleveland.
So much for background research. Her best bet was to pursue her pursuers. If they came for her again, it would be at the cottage, probably under cover of darkness. Checking the double-bolt on her door, she slipped on eyeshades and fell promptly asleep. Waking at five p.m., she dressed, exited the Hilton through a rear door that led to the parking lot, and had a look around the immediate neighborhood.
Commercial blocks relieved by industrial parks. A nearby strip mall provided admirable diversity of cuisine and dinner was forgettable pad Thai at a storefront café named Bangkok Benny, chased by iced tea and lots of water.
Returning to her room, she waited until an hour after sunset, retrieved the Jeep from the garage, and repeated the same Malibu-WeHo cycle she’d completed twelve hours ago. Kept doing it, covering the sixty-mile round-trip four times and having to stop for a gas fill-up.
Adding as much variety to her route as possible but no matter what you did you ended up on the coast highway.
She made one more circuit.
No sign of anything irregular.
Not good; this couldn’t go on interminably.
Chapter 22
Then everything changed.
Fifth pass, two fifty-three a.m., and there it was, the familiar blocky bulk of the sedan — indeed a 300, dark gray with blackened windows — parked half a block east of the cottage.
Bent front bumper but otherwise intact.
Using the same vehicle seemed breathtakingly careless.
Or arrogant. If so, all the better.
Grace drove by, regrouped mentally. She’d just driven by the cottage, seen the lights still out, no sign of forcing at either gate. So what was the plan tonight? Break in, rummage for records, and leave? Or lie in wait for Grace.
Or both.
Assuming the worst, Grace circled well east of the cottage and parked two blocks to the Chrysler’s rear. Taking what she needed from the Jeep, she got out and stretched. Continued a block on rubber-soled running shoes, concealing herself as best she could in the shadows.
Twenty-three minutes later, a man-sized shape exited the sedan. The door closed. Loudly. No attempt at concealment. Grace was definitely being underestimated but she wouldn’t make the same mistake.
She watched as the man walked — swaggered — toward the cottage. A bit taller than average but not huge or particularly wide.
Definitely two of them.
He, too, pressed himself into the shadows.
Grace began the stalk.
He reached the garage side of her property, looked around briefly, took something out of his pocket, and proceeded to her garden gate. Kneeling, he went to work.
Nothing like the movies, it took a while but finally he was in.
The gate shut silently. Now he was being careful.
Hunter’s instincts honed as he neared his goal?
Making sure she wasn’t being tailed herself, she padded toward the gate, stopped a few feet short. No sounds from the other side of the cedar fence. He was probably inside — how had he managed to avoid tripping the alarm?
Someone with experience. She stood there, listened, checked up and down the block, finally used her key and cracked the gate an inch. Waited. Spread the wood another inch. Waited again.
Not a peep, not a ruffle of grass.
Definitely inside. She waited for lights to go on, a sound, anything.
Nothing but silence. So maybe he was skulking around in the dark as she had, using a narrow-beam like her Maglite.
She pushed the door wide enough to slip through.
An arm, polyester-sleeved and steel-rigid, shot out from the left and hooked around her neck.
Grace brought her heel down hard on where she guessed an instep would be.
The man trying to drag her back by her neck grunted and paused for an instant. But Grace’s rubber-soled shoes lacked the weapon-value of a spiked heel and he said, “Stupid bitch,” and Grace felt his other arm leave the small of her back and heard a snick and knew he’d be stabbing her.
Reaching up and behind, she clawed her hands and went for his eyes but lacked the reach. Still, the very fact that she’d attacked threw his timing off and he grunted and lost balance and her second claw at his face made contact with flesh.
She dug her nails in deeply, raked down viciously, doing her best to flay him. Felt dermis and stubble give way, then a warm wet rush.
He cried out in pain and loosened his grip and Grace spun out of reach and they were facing each other in the dark garden.
His features were barely limned by skimpy starlight. Forty or so, angular face, heavy features contorted in pain and rage as his left hand pressed down on the bloody tracks Grace had inflicted on his right cheek.
His right hand held a knife, double-edged, some sort of sling-blade or push-dagger.
“Fucking bitch,” he said, and charged her.
The garden — small, concealed from neighborly eyes — must’ve seemed an ideal kill-spot and he was smiling through his pain as he continued his advance. Moving slowly and steadily.
Grace purposely fulfilled his expectations by mewling, “Don’t hurt me, please,” and backing away.