wanted to buy some yarn as a gift. A knitter,” Adele said, practically spitting out the word. “She wanted to see a knitted swatch, but there was nothing hanging on the bin. What’s up with the swatches?”
I was impressed that Adele had actually waited on a knitter. I was always afraid if any came in while I wasn’t there, Adele would ignore them until they left.
I explained that I wasn’t really back to work, that I’d just stopped in. Adele’s eye’s narrowed. “What are you two up to? Some detective thing, Jessica Nancy Fletcher Holmes?” I didn’t answer and she went on. “More about your neighbor?”
I said nothing and Adele stayed planted, saying she wanted to come with. She didn’t even ask where we were going, she just wanted to be part of the action.
“Remember, we’re musketeers,” she said, referring again to a title she’d come up with during our last adventure. She started to pout but then saw that William had joined us and we were suddenly old news. I don’t know what was harder to deal with, Adele trying to get in the middle of stuff or acting flirty with William as she explained to him the musketeer reference.
I told Adele there were some swatches in my tote bag in the office, hoping she heard among all the eye batting and touching the lapel of his sports jacket. “I’ll be back this evening,” I said as Dinah and I headed for the door. Dinah’s house was barely a block from the bookstore parking lot, and instead of going home, she’d suggested I come over. The area was called Walnut Acres because at one time it had been a walnut farm. One of the nutty trees still stood in Dinah’s yard.
We walked around the corner off Ventura onto the side street. Emily’s SUV was still parked where she’d left it. “Maybe I was wrong about everything,” I said as we walked down the block almost completely past the parking lot. “Besides, what am I going to do—I can’t keep trailing her.” Instinctively I looked back toward the parking lot and the greenmobile, but something else caught my attention. Something moving. I elbowed Dinah and she watched with me. The back door of Luxe had opened and someone’s head was sticking out and checking over the area.
“What the . . . My God, it’s her,” I said. Emily pulled the door shut behind her and sprinted across the parking lot. You didn’t have to be a Mensa member to figure out she was headed for her Element.
“Where’s your car?” I said. Dinah was already getting her keys out as we speed-walked across the small street toward her house.
Emily jumped in her SUV and made a sharp U-turn back toward us. Dinah’s car was parked in the direction Emily was now going and a moment later we were inside the Honda with the motor running. Emily was already down the block when we took off after her. Even with the commonness of the car, we kept our distance so as not to be made, as the PIs called “being seen.” I looked over at my friend as she hovered over the wheel, keeping the SUV in sight. Her smile was unmistakable. She was having a good time. I had to admit I was, too. Was it wrong to get caught up in the thrill of the chase when someone might be dead and lots of people had lost their money? I hoped not. We were on the side of good, I reminded myself.
The stop in the bookstore and Luxe must have been just to shake off anyone on her tail. I looked around to see if anyone was following us. There was just one car in the distance behind us that I figured was just traffic.
She had to be taking the crocheted piece to Bradley. I thought she would double back toward the freeway, thinking that she must have arranged to meet him in some crowded place again. Instead she zigzagged on side streets. When she got to the stop sign at Vanalden, I looked for her right turn signal to go on. Instead no turn signal flashed, but she turned anyway—onto Vanalden going left. She stayed on the street as it wound around and then began to go uphill. Ahead I could see the greenery on the side of the Santa Monica Mountains. The telephone poles marked the unpaved section of Mulholland that ran along the top.
She turned onto a side street that paralleled the mountain and zipped onto another steeper street. We stayed a safe distance behind her. The street was almost vertical and the houses were built on pads cut into the side of the hill. I knew where we were now.
“Park,” I said to Dinah. I knew from coming up here before that the street dead-ended ahead. We waited a moment to see if the SUV would make an abrupt U-turn and head down the hill, but a few moments passed and it didn’t drive by us. Dinah turned off the car and we got out and hid behind a bush. It was eerily quiet up here. For just a moment I looked back at the panoramic view of the Valley.
We peeked from behind the bush. The black SUV was parked with its wheel curbed and Emily was just getting out. She pulled out a backpack, and as she slipped it on, I saw something green sticking out. She pushed the door shut and I heard the chirp of the lock as she was already walking toward the metal bumper and closed gate that marked the end of the street. She walked around the barrier and started up the sandy road.
I grabbed Dinah and we followed in Emily’s footsteps. When my boys were young we came up here to walk and I was familiar with the area. The road Emily was on intersected with Dirt Mulholland, the name of the unpaved section of the road that ran from Encino to Woodland Hills. I knew once Emily reached Mulholland she could go left or right. The dirt road wound around the top of the mountains, and whichever way she chose, she’d disappear around a bend in moments and we’d have no idea which direction she’d gone.
The sky was overcast and the afternoon light was already beginning to fade. Damp cold air rose off the sandy road as we went up the hill. Emily neared the top and must have been confident she had eluded anyone following her because she never looked back. We’d stayed to the side of the road where we were less visible in case she turned around. Our clothes choices helped us blend in, too. We looked like the khaki twins in our slacks and similar-colored hoodies.
Emily paused a moment, probably to catch her breath after the steep walk.
“She went left,” I whispered. Dinah was bent over, breathing heavily and swatting at a swarm of black flies. I worried that this might be too much for her, but she straightened and followed along up the rest of the way to Mulholland. We followed in the direction she’d gone even though the dip in the road had obscured her. She came back into view when we got a short way down the road.
We stayed back, hoping if she looked back she’d just think we were two walkers. It was never crowded up here, but today it seemed absolutely desolate.
There was a meadow on one side of us, though thanks to the winter rain, the grass had grown so tall it blocked any view of the Valley. On the other side of the road there was a large concrete pad. The ground around it had a scattering of green and then big stone boulders. I’d seen a helicopter land there once. I thought it was probably a staging area for fire trucks in the event of a forest fire. Either way, it seemed out of place in this area where everything else had been left to go natural. Ahead the ground rose on either side of the road and was covered with tall grasses, reedy bushes and low trees with thick foliage. Emily’s footprints stood out in the damp sandy road.
When I looked around at all the wild growth, it was hard to imagine we were just minutes away from the traffic-clogged Ventura Boulevard. I heard a crunch behind us just before a mountain biker flew past.
“Usually, they at least call out some kind of warning, like ‘on your right,’”Isaid, looking ahead at the figure on the bike as it whizzed toward Emily. The biker flew past her without even slowing and she was startled just as we’d been. She stopped and looked around.
I took Dinah’s hand and pulled her into the growth on the side of the road before Emily saw us. When she started walking again, we went back on the road. My BlackBerry strained against my pocket and I took it out. It slithered from my hand and I made a fast save to grab it. There were so many gizmos on it, I knew I hit something by mistake.
When I looked up, Emily had turned off the road. We rushed ahead, trying to catch up.
We got to the spot where she’d disappeared, and an expanse of blacktop road ran up a steep hill next to a barbed-wire fence. Beyond it there was a huge water tank surrounded by a green lawn. The road looked like someone must have made plans that were long since forgotten. It ended abruptly at the edge of a cliff. Looking down, all you could see were mounds of green scrub and bushes that extended into the valley below. Beyond there were just more mountains. A white-tailed rabbit ran in front of us and disappeared in the brush. Where had Emily gone?
Some branches crackled and I turned toward the sound. In the distance, I saw that Emily had taken a path paralleling the cliff. We kept low as we followed her. The path was narrow and ran between bushes as tall as we were. She had picked up speed and we struggled to keep her in sight but not get too close.
She stopped next to a tree surrounded by a thicket of bushes. I pulled Dinah into the cover of a twiggy bush as someone stepped from inside the leafy tent.
