her.
“Please don’t hurt us.”
“Shut up.”
He looped the belt around her hands, a couple of times, then, dropping the flashlight on the bed, knotted it.
And that’s when Brian made his move; the kid was fast, up on his feet and running for the door.
Greer lunged for him, but missed. He caught just the end of the flapping robe, which burned through his fingers.
He grabbed the flashlight and raced after him, his bad leg juiced by all the adrenaline. The kid didn’t know the house any better than he did, and flew past the stairs, before having to whip around and tumble down them. Greer was just a couple of steps behind.
The kid wheeled at the bottom and made not for the front door but the back, down the hall, through the kitchen, into the addition. At the French doors he had to stop and fumble with the knobs, and just as he got them open, Greer was able to grab him by the collar, spin him around, and club him in the face with the heavy-duty flashlight.
The kid fell backward, into the yard, but he didn’t fall. There was blood all over his lips. He kept back- pedaling, toward the lap pool, and Greer smacked him again. The kid kept going.
Christ, Greer thought, wasn’t he ever gonna stay down?
The grass was slick, and the kid started to slip. Greer saw his chance and shoved him toward the pool. Just before he toppled over, Greer hit him again, hard, across the cheek.
The kid went in, with a huge splash, and Greer, panting, stood by the side of the lighted pool, waiting. The kid floated, a cloud of blood seeping into the water. Greer waited. Was he dead? Was he faking? The blood began to disperse in the water.
Christ almighty, was he going to have to get into the goddamned pool?
The girl was screaming now; he could hear her even out here.
Greer knelt down and snagged the kid by the collar of his robe, pulled him over to the side. With one huge tug, he had him levered onto the grass again… where he left him, sputtering but alive, before snapping off the rubber gloves in disgust, stashing them in his pocket, and heading back to his car.
Sadowski was going to hear about this.
And his leg, he just knew, was going to give him hell later that night.
CHAPTER FIVE
Beth was so deeply into her work, studying an ancient parchment page through a magnifying glass, that at first she didn’t even hear the phone ring. It didn’t help that she’d accidentally laid a sheaf of reports from the Getty conservation lab on top of it.
When she unearthed it, on the fifth or sixth ring, she was happy to hear it was Carter — until he said, “What are you doing there?”
“What do you mean?”
“Shouldn’t you be at the press party?”
She glanced up at the wall clock. He was right.
“I was just going to leave a message for you,” he said.
“Saying what?”
“That I’m stuck on Wilshire, going nowhere. Start drinking without me.”
“Okay, I will,” she said. “But you’re right — I’ve got to run.”
“Run,” he said, and she could hear several car horns honking in the background before she hung up.
She dropped the magnifying glass, replaced it with a hairbrush from her bottom drawer, and, using the mirror on the back of her office door, did a quick once-over. She pulled the clasp off her ponytail — it was easier to do close work with nothing hanging down in your eyes — and brushed her thick, dark hair out and onto her shoulders. Then she touched up her makeup, or what little of it she wore, grabbed the jacket that went with her skirt, slipped out of her flats and into her heels, and hurried out. Her boss, Berenice Cabot, would be livid if she was any later than she already was.
Especially as the reception was in honor of an exhibition—“The Genius of the Cloister: Illuminated Manuscripts of the Eleventh Century”—that Beth had been the chief curator on.
Tonight was the press reception, designed to introduce some of the local art critics, connoisseurs, and friends of the museum to the new exhibition, drawn from the voluminous holdings of the Getty Center. Beth had spent countless hours poring over the exquisite and rare manuscripts in the museum collections and culling the precise examples that would best illustrate her thesis and story. An exhibition couldn’t just be a random sampling of things, however related; it had to have a point of view, and a point. That was one of the first things they had taught her at the Courtauld Institute, where she’d done her graduate work after Barnard.
Beth stepped out of the elevator, pushed through the ponderous glass doors of the research institute, and then scurried across the outdoor court toward the gardens, where the party was being held; it was going to be a balmy and beautiful summer night. And the Central Garden, as it was known, was going to provide the perfect setting for the kickoff event. Entered through a circular walkway, shaded by London plane trees and traversing a running stream, the garden contained hundreds of different plants and flowers, from lavender to heliotrope, crape myrtle to floribunda roses, all gradually descending to a plaza with bougainvillea-covered arbors and an ornamental pool; the water in the pool sparkled blue, under a floating veil of azaleas.
Tables had been set up, covered with gold damask cloths, and waiters circulated with trays of champagne, Perrier, and whatever else anyone requested. About two dozen guests had already toured the exhibit in the museum, and were now, some of them still clutching a program, enjoying the artfully arranged hors d’oeuvres.
The first person who caught Beth’s eye was Mrs. Cabot — an older woman, she had no use for the Ms. business — and she did not look pleased. She was standing with the Critchleys, a prominent couple on the Los Angeles art scene. Beth grabbed a glass of champagne from one of the passing trays and went to join them.
“We were hoping you’d stop by,” Mrs. Cabot said, with a smile that only Beth knew wasn’t genuine.
“So sorry,” Beth murmured, nodding hello to the Critchleys. “I got immersed in something, and lost track of the time.”
“Oh, I do that all the time,” Mrs. Critchley said; she was a dithery sort of woman, but right now, Beth was glad to have her there. “I once forgot to go to my own birthday lunch because I was so busy planning my daughter’s.”
Mr. Critchley, an old-school gentleman in a seersucker suit, looked on, beaming. He never said much, but Beth always felt he radiated goodwill.
“The
“Oh, fine, I’ll be sure to speak to him.”
“I’m sure the Critchleys won’t mind if you do that now,” Mrs. Cabot said. “I believe he said something about having to go to a LACMA event after this.”
Beth knew when she had her marching orders, and left to go introduce herself to the red bow tie. This was the part of her job she didn’t relish. She loved doing her research, she loved studying the Old Master drawings, the antique manuscripts, the precious incunabala that the museum possessed in such abundance; she loved working with the expert conservators on preserving and protecting the invaluable works of art that time and tide had begun to decay.
But she didn’t love doing public relations work.
The
