glare. She found the pair of jeans she had worn that day and pulled a shirt from the top layer in the suitcase. She took her sneakers to the bed to put them on.
At first it didn’t seem like Ray Hall to wake her up and make her go. Then she realized he must not feel comfortable leaving her alone.
She stood and snatched the hairbrush off Ray Hall’s dresser and brushed her hair with rapid, hard, painful strokes. She picked up her jacket and purse and hurried out of the room.
Ray was already standing at the foot of the stairs, tapping his keys against his thigh and looking up at her expectantly. As she descended the stairs, she caught herself thinking how good he looked for someone who had just dragged himself out of bed, and how horrible she must look with no makeup and her hair just raked straight.
She ducked past him out the door and hurried to his car. The air was cool now, and she was fully awake. As he started the car and pulled out of the driveway, she said, “You did say everybody was okay?”
“That’s what Dewey said on the phone.” He drove up the street and turned toward Vanowen Street, driving faster now that he was on bigger, wider streets. “Apparently, Billy got carried away and tried to cut the guy off in his car, and the guy opened up on him. Not too surprisingly, he hit the car, but missed Billy. He’s a much smaller target.” “Jesus,” she muttered. “He could be dead. And for what?”
“I don’t know what he’s after,” Hall said. “If we could just figure out what Phil had that this guy thinks is so important, we could-“
“I didn’t mean him, I meant us. I don’t think we’re going to accomplish anything that’s worth getting anybody killed. And Billy’s only twentytwo years old, barely old enough to drink.”
As they moved up the streets toward Emily’s house, there was the deep, gut-shaking throb of helicopters. Emily could see lights turned on in most of the houses in her neighborhood. She craned her neck to look at the clock on Ray Hall’s dashboard. It was two A.M.
Hall pulled up in front of her house, and they both walked up to the front door. When Hall turned the knob and pushed the door open, Emily could see Dewey Burns in the living room move his right hand toward his back, where she knew his gun was. Ray Hall said loudly, “Hi, guys.” He stepped inside and held the door so Dewey and Bill could see Emily step in. “I brought Emily with me.”
As she moved past Ray, she could see the big window at the back of the room had been blown out. “What a mess.” She turned to look directly at Dewey and then at Bill. “But you’re both okay?”
“Yeah,” Dewey said. “When he came in, we tried to get him to put up his hands. He turned and ran for that window. I lost him a block from here and called the cops. Meanwhile, Billy hopped in his car and tried to head him off that way. He fired a few rounds into the car. Billy’s lucky to still be with us.”
Emily stepped to Bill and hugged him. “I’m so glad you’re not hurt, Billy.” Then she hugged Dewey and released him. “You both could have died, and I feel terrible about this.”
“I’m sorry we didn’t get him, Emily,” Bill said.
Dewey frowned. “You knew he had a gun, and you had nothing. Going after him alone was stupid.”
“I didn’t expect to get shot. I was only trying to get a look at his license plate or his face, but he was moving too fast, and then he was shooting.” Bill looked at the empty frame of the living-room window and the spray of broken glass that extended out onto the patio. “He really is one crazy son of a bitch, though. Look at that.”
Emily didn’t know what to say. “The police have seen that?”
“Yes,” Dewey said. “A couple of them stopped by to radio the details to the others that were out looking for him.”
“I suppose I should get that boarded up, or I’m going to have rats in here.”
Ray said, “I can call in a couple of hours and have the glass replaced. There are services that replace glass for businesses. They can probably have it looking normal by noon.”
“I suppose.” Emily looked around the room, and felt the contrast between the way it used to be and the way it was now. This was her house-hers and Phil’s. They had moved in as a young couple, when Phil had just gotten out of the marines, the possibilities were still unlimited, and this typical L.A. bungalow had seemed like a palace to her. They had raised their son here, and after they had lost him, the house had become a retreat.
Now the house seemed to have been revealed as a fraud. The big window that had blown out let the breeze blow through, and reminded her that the house wasn’t even closed to the elements anymore, let alone safe. During any instant in all of the years while she had lived here, anything could have happened-how could glass keep it out?-but she had felt safe. She had been stupid. Now the house had made her a target and an easy victim.
“Are the police finished in here?” she asked.
Dewey said, “Yeah, they’re done. They dusted a couple of test spots by the door, but he was wearing gloves. They were hoping maybe he had cut himself going out through that window, but they couldn’t find any blood.”
Ray said, “We’d better figure out what to do next.”
Emily said, “I already have. I’m going to search this house completely. I’d like you to help me, if you’re willing.” She looked at the others. “I would like both of you to go and talk to April and ask her to help you search the office.”
Dewey and Bill looked at each other uneasily. Emily said, “I know about it. She told me. I don’t think she’ll feel comfortable if I talk to her right now, but I can’t let that get in the way because we need her help. She’ll want to find out who killed Phil, so please ask her.”
“Say we do get her to help,” Bill said. “What are we doing? What are we looking for?”
“You’re looking at everything. You and April and Dewey go to the office and check each piece of paper and then set it aside. When you have a pile, put it in a cardboard file box. I’m going to rent a selfstorage bay, and at the end of each day, we’ll take the boxes you’ve filled and move them there.”
He frowned. “But how do we know which things to put in which boxes?”
She tried to be patient with Bill because he was young and brave and had just had a hard night. “April knows the filing system, so she’ll help. But we’ll keep it simple, and use the three categories we already have. There are current cases, alphabetized by the last name of the client. That’s the smallest group. There are old cases arranged the same way, and internal business files, like phone bills and payrolls and leases.”
“Are you closing down Kramer Investigations?”
Emily looked at Dewey Burns. His expression was attentive, but she couldn’t tell whether he cared what the answer was. She said, “I’m just making the next move to fight off this guy. I’m trying to beat him to this piece of evidence he wants. I don’t know what happens when we have it. I suppose it depends on what it is.”
Dewey nodded. “Okay. But tell us again. What, as close as you can figure, is it going to look like?”
“I’m sorry, but I just don’t know. It’s something Phil had. I thought I knew him better than I did, so I can’t tell what form it’s in. It’s a piece of paper, a photograph, an audiotape, a videotape, a computer disk, or maybe a piece of film, or the memory card from a digital camera. All I know is that it would make some powerful man uncomfortable. That’s what the man who broke in said. He implied that it was what got Phil murdered, but that it’s still around, and he wants it.”
“Did the guy say it’s something Phil made, or something he just happened to get his hands on?” Bill asked.
“It could be either. It could be he got it in one form and put it into a different form, or even more than one form. Anything is possible. You knew Phil. He was clever, secretive.”
Dewey Burns was staring into Emily’s eyes with a fresh intensity, reminding her of Phil. She realized it had stopped being their secret now: Phil’s and Dewey’s. Now it was Dewey’s and hers, and it felt as though she had known it for a long time. He said, “We should go over there and get started, and get as far as we can right away.”
The two men began to move toward the door, and Emily followed them. “Thank you, guys. But you know, you could get some sleep first. The security company has men watching the office tonight, so you could start tomorrow.”
“No,” Dewey said. “The sooner we find it, the sooner this will be over.”
He and Bill went out, and Ray closed the door.
Emily said, “You can get some sleep. I’m going to get started here.”
“No. I’m up, so I might as well help. How do you want to search the house?”
“The same way I told them to search the office. We’ll start by moving everything out of the bedroom upstairs, and search the bare room. We’ll search each piece of furniture, too, and then move it down here. When we’re done
