“Shhh,” he said. “It’s all over now. Don’t worry. I’ll take good careof your friends.”
Friends.
Detective Alan Trembley wanted to smile at the word but he was deadbefore he could.
*
It had been too long.
Ryan called Trembley’s cell phone again but still got no answer. Helooked at the time. It was 5:08 p.m., more than ten minutes since he’d enteredthe hostel. The guy was usually in and out in five, typically with a dejectedlook on his face.
He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was horribly wrong. He wasdebating whether to call for backup or just get out and hobble over himself,cane and all, when he saw him.
Staring at him from across the street was an old man with a scar on hisforehead. His flat expression slowly broke into a smile. Then the man pulledopen his windbreaker to reveal that the white shirt underneath was stained in adark liquid. Ryan reached for his gun as he kept his eyes on the man. To hissurprise, the sick bastard didn’t move at all. Instead he raised his indexfinger to his lips and mouthed shhh.
He was staring at the man he’d been after, the Night Hunter. This wasthe moment to take him out. And yet, as a wave of cold anxiety washed over him,he felt his whole body stiffen. It was as if he no longer had control over hislimbs. His chest seemed to be frozen. He felt as if he couldn’t breathe and yethe was panting.
“Stop,” he said out loud to himself, demanding that his body respond tohis commands. It seemed to help a little, as the sound of his voice snapped himout of his fearful trance.
He looked around the vehicle. Since he didn’t have the keys to Trembley’scar, Ryan couldn’t even roll down the window to take a shot. His handstrembling, he unlocked the door, shoved it open, and rested his arm in the “V”between the door and the car.
He was preparing to fire when he noticed that his gun hand was shakinguncontrollably. He re-gripped the weapon, trying to steady himself. Instead, itgot worse. Out of nowhere, a sharp pain in his chest, a sense memory from hisstabbing, returned, hard and fast. He gasped and the gun fell from his hand,landing on the ground next to the passenger door.
He gritted his teeth. With slow, methodical concentration, he leanedover and managed to grab the gun again. Pulling himself upright, he did hisbest to ignore the agony in his chest, his blurry vision, and the sweat thatwas pouring down his brow.
He reestablished his position in the “V” of the car, blinkingaggressively to clear his vision. The Night Hunter was still standing there. He’dbeen waiting all this time, watching, smiling.
As Ryan took aim, the old man finally turned away and fell into step nextto a family walking along the sidewalk in the opposite direction from the car.Ryan’s view was blocked by the wife, pushing a stroller, and the husband, hishands supporting the infant in the baby carrier strapped to his chest.
Despite his pronounced hobble as he walked, the old man kept perfect pacewith the father so that Ryan couldn’t get a clear shot at him. Eventually they allstopped at an intersection half a block away, waiting for the pedestrian lightto turn green. Others joined them and soon the old man was lost in a crowd ofover a dozen others.
Ryan cursed to himself, slammed the doorshut, and locked it. Then he pulled out his phone and called for backup. Heneeded to put out an APB on the man. He also needed to let them know thatsomewhere in the hostel across the street, Alan Trembley was dead.
CHAPTER THIRTY
It took forever to find the house.
This neighborhood, like the one where the Landers and Aldridges lived,wasn’t part of the section of Westwood where Jessie worked. She rarely hadcause to go far from campus, certainly not to such a high-brow area.
But unlike their friends, the Ferros were in an even more exclusive spot.The others lived just west of campus, off Veteran Avenue. But the Ferros lived inthe hills north of Sunset Boulevard, adjacent to the Bel-Air Country Club, on ahard-to-locate street ending in a cul-de-sac called Bellagio Terrace.
The actual house was even more challenging to find than the street.Jessie passed it twice before realizing that it was just off the road on along, unmarked, private driveway partially hidden by a large hedge. As shefinally made her way down the driveway, she checked the time: 5:02.
She’d called the Ferros about half an hour ago on the way over to letthem know that Ariana Aldridge was being questioned at the police station.
“I know you called your lawyer,” she said on speakerphone to them both.“But now that we have a suspect, I was hoping you might answer a few morequestions to help us lock down times.”
They’d agreed, though Melissa still sounded reticent.
“How could Ari have done this?” she wanted to know. “I thought she leftthe island that afternoon.”
“She came back again on a later ferry,” Jessie said. “I can update youwhen I arrive.”
She had scrupulously avoided mentioning that Aldridge hadn’t actuallybeen arrested and that she had doubts that she should be. There was no way theFerros would let her follow up on the Philip Blake angle if they knew that’swhy she was coming.
When she reached the end of the driveway, Jessie turned off the car andchecked her phone again. She’d missed a text from Peters responding to hervoicemail, saying that he was en route. It must have come in while she wastalking to the Ferros.
As a precaution, she called the Central Station switchboard and askedthem to have officers from West L.A. station come out to the house as backup. Justbecause Rich Ferro had lied about his sexuality didn’t mean he was a killer.But it didn’t help either his credibility or his wife’s.
Jessie had busted men who killed as part of affairs. She’d busted wiveswho killed after discovering those affairs. She’d even taken down a marriedcouple who
