Page 128 of The Grave Artist

“That’s right. Thank you.”

Heron asked, “Detective, I’m working with Agent Sanchez. I want to see the security vids. Can you give me the gas station owner’s contact info?”

The man relayed it, and Heron called and worked his magic. No warrants required when the owner of the video cooperates. And a raspy-voiced woman named Wanda was more than happy to help.

Soon he was prowling through the file on his tablet.

“Look, Sanchez.”

He was scrubbing. “Red pickup goes up the hillside ...”

Sweeney’s wheels.

“Selina’s car follows a half hour later.”

“Shit,” Carmen muttered. “Scroll, Heron.”

He did.

Neither her car nor the pickup was coming down ...

“Wait, look,” Heron said.

They watched a silver Mercedes pause at the intersection, as if the driver were checking directions, then turn left and speed up the same hill. Ten minutes later, it drove back down.

“I don’t care about the Mercedes. Selina’s up there with the hit man. What’s the ETA of the LAPD cruiser DeSoto sent out?”

“She’s not up there anymore,” Jake said, his voice flat, as he stared at his tablet.

“What do you mean?”

“The tag number on the Benz?”

“Yes?”

“It’s registered to Damon Garr.”

Chapter 62

Two operations were occurring simultaneously.

Carmen, Heron and Mouse were monitoring them on the computers at his workstation.

The left screen showed body cams of LA County officers approaching and entering the house of Christopher Fisher, a wealthy venture capitalist, where the body of a big redheaded man nicknamed Sweeney was on the floor, shot to death.

What happened at the house was impossible to tell for certain. Selina had possibly made the connection that Fisher was the money-laundering client and had gone to investigate. Hit man Sweeney, who worked for Fisher, had nabbed her. Then Damon had arrived, killed Sweeney and left, taking Selina with him.

As for Fisher himself, Frank Tandy had ordered officers to surveil the venture capitalist in his office downtown, but to keep their distance and not let him know he was a suspect.

The Sweeney/Fisher case was represented on the left monitor.

The right one showed four separate screens—videos from Liam Grange’s tac teams’ surveillance of Damon Garr’s house in Malibu.

It was the logical place for Garr to go—ideally with Selina. They didn’t know Garr’s full story. He was the Honeymoon Killer, yes, butmaybe he also had other murderous tendencies and wanted to get Selina into his house and ...

No, she didn’t let those thoughts continue.

It was all right, she told herself. There were teams in place and Garr had no idea they were onto him. The tac teams were checking presently for—