Gated Prey (Eve Ronin #3)(5)

Are you seeing this?

“I won’t ask nicely next time,” Manny said.

“It’s upstairs, in the master bedroom,” Eve said, making eye contact with Duncan, who gave her a slight nod, letting her know he was okay. They only had to keep things under control for another minute or two before backup arrived. The station was only five miles away but there had to be a patrol car nearby that could immediately respond.

Manny smiled at her. “Do you know the combination?”

“Yes.”

“Lead the way.” Manny followed her up the stairs, his gun pressed into her back. He looked down at Moe and Jack. “Get to it. Shoot the old man if he gives you any trouble.”

Moe grabbed Duncan by the arm, dragged him to an easy chair in the great room, and pushed him into it. Jack started looking around the house for valuables.

Eve reached the second-floor landing and headed for the master bedroom, which had a four-poster bed, a vaulted ceiling, a fireplace, and a balcony that overlooked the pool. The sliding glass door to the balcony was open for the fresh air and as an invitation to burglars.

“Where’s the safe?” Manny asked.

“In the closet.”

His-and-hers walk-in closets were on either side of a short hallway that led to the master bathroom. Eve started to go into one of the closets, but Manny grabbed her arm and yanked her away from the door.

“Not so fast.” He pushed her toward the bathroom and turned to give the closet a quick glance, perhaps in case she had a weapon stashed there.

The closet was empty. There weren’t any clothes hanging inside. Just as he was registering that puzzling fact, Eve whipped out her Glock and aimed it at him.

“Drop the gun,” she said.

Manny’s eyes went wide. “What the fuck? Where did you get that?”

“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.