She flung herself sideways even as the car veered to mow her down.
A patch of scraggly weeds flew up into her face, and then she was rolling down a short incline while the car overshot its mark, screamed to a halt, and reversed.
At the bottom of the slope lay another office building, outwardly identical to the one she had just left. She tumbled up against the foundation as the car plowed down the slope. In the headlights’ dazzle she saw an opening between the foundation and the first floor.
Crawl space.
A shiver of fear eddied through her, but she fought it off and bellied inside. Fans of bright light wavered past her to illumine a low, claustrophobic passageway interspersed with lumber posts and knots of copper plumbing pipes.
She wriggled into the center of the crawl space and peered around in the glare of the headlights, looking for another way out.
There wasn’t any. The building, erected on uneven ground, allowed access to the crawl space only from one side. The other walls were flush against the foundation blocks.
The car eased to a stop. The headlights snapped off.
She was in total darkness now. Huddled, waiting, a hammer in her hand.
A child again.
Only back then she’d had a knife-a better weapon.
Maybe I was meant to die this way, C.J. thought. In a crawl space, in the dark.
She waited for whatever Adam would do next.
49
Adam Nolan resided in a two-bedroom condo in Brentwood, not far from the infamous spot where two of the most famous homicides in LA history had occurred a few years earlier. As the whole world knew, it was a neighborhood where, even after dark, people liked to go out for a stroll or walk their dogs.
Tonight, however, Brentwood seemed empty. There were no pedestrians on Nolan’s side street. No dogs barked. No traffic passed by.
Walsh found the stillness spooky. He glanced at Donna Cellini, riding beside him in his department-issue sedan, and wondered if she felt the same way.
Probably not. Cellini was remarkably levelheaded about most things. More levelheaded than Walsh himself. But then, she was young. She hadn’t seen as much.
He parked at the curb, making no effort to conceal the car, even though it screamed police with its boxy contours, its DARE bumper sticker, its outsized antenna protruding from the trunk.
There was no need for stealth. Nolan wasn’t home. The garage reserved for his unit had already been checked by two West LA cops, who found it empty. The same cops then buzzed Nolan’s condo for five minutes, getting no reply.
He was someplace else. And so, no doubt, was C.J. Osborn.
Another woman as the victim of an obsessed ex-husband. What the hell was it about this part of town?
“So how’d Nolan strike you in the interview?” Cellini asked as they got out.
“Very fucking sincere.”
“Good liar, then.”
“The best.”
“You do your Columbo impression?” Cellini knew his methods.
“Yeah.” Walsh grunted. “Thought I was so slick, and all the time he was playing me. The bastard.”
“He’s a lawyer,” Cellini said, as if that explained something-his slickness or his being a bastard. Maybe both.
Another unmarked car pulled up, and Boyle and Lopez got out. “This the place?” Boyle asked unnecessarily. Nobody answered.
A minute later a patrol car parked behind the two unmarked vehicles, and a pair of West LA officers emerged. Walsh asked if they were the ones who checked out the garage and buzzed the intercom.
“Yes, sir,” answered one cop, whose nametag read “JOHNSON.”
“Where the hell did you go? Doughnut run?” Sarcasm was unusual for Walsh, but he was peeved at having to wait.
Johnson was unruffled. “No, sir. Saw a BMW cruise past and thought it might be the suspect’s car. Followed it up to San Vicente and got a look at the tag. False alarm.”
“Lotta BMWs in this neighborhood,” his partner added pointlessly.
Walsh accepted the explanation. He wasn’t really angry at the patrol cops anyway, or even at Adam Nolan. He was angry at himself. He’d been in the same room with the son of a bitch and, good liar or not, the guy should not have been able to fool him.
“Okay,” he said, “let’s go in.”
“Wait.” Cellini held up her hand. “There’s one more in our party.”
Another sedan, clearly official, pulled up behind the patrol car. Its markings were obscured behind the glare of its headlights.
“I didn’t contact anybody else,” Walsh said.
Cellini looked away. “I did.”
The headlights switched off, and Walsh saw that the car was a Sheriff’s cruiser, and the man stepping out was Deputy Tanner.
“I called him at the hospital,” Cellini said. “He was looking after his men. I told him we had a lead. A chance to save her.”
Walsh didn’t like it. “This is LAPD jurisdiction.”
“He’s her friend, Morrie. He deserves to be part of this.”
“You should’ve cleared it with me.”
“You were busy. Besides, I knew you’d say yes.”
She was right, but Walsh didn’t say so. He glanced at Tanner, jogging up to the group, and snapped, “Fall in, Deputy. We’re entering unit four-nineteen.”
The two local cops had a master key to the building, which got them through the security gate and the lobby door. In the elevator Lopez asked about a warrant.
“Telephonic approval from Judge Lederer,” Walsh said. Lederer was known to be a soft touch for warrants, and once or twice Walsh had actually gone bowling-bowling!-with the man to cement their friendship.
Tanner spoke up. “You seem pretty sure Nolan is our guy.”
Walsh remembered the distraught young man cradling his head while he fretted about his ex-wife. “We’re sure,” he said curtly. “How’s your SWAT team doing?”
“Multiple bites, a lot of venom in their systems. Pain, swelling, fever-but they’ll live.”
“You okay?” Cellini asked.
“Not a scratch. Any word on Treat?”
“He’s disappeared,” Walsh said. “Like smoke.”
Then they were on the fourth floor and there was no more conversation, only a quick march down the hall to the door marked 419.
Officer Johnson and his partner paused outside the door, listening. “Don’t hear anything,” Johnson said after a moment.
Walsh rang the bell, then rapped on the door and yelled, “ Police!” When there was no response, he looked at the patrol cops. “Open it.”
Johnson used the master key. The door to 419 swung wide.
The patrolmen entered first, followed by Tanner. Walsh and the other task force members took up the rear.
The living room lights had been left on. Adam Nolan’s condo was small but neatly kept, with a view of the
