The next morning, Cindy and Rich said good-bye on the street and got into their cars. Rich headed to the Hall, and Cindy set her course toward Seacliff.
She didn’t tell Rich where she was going. She knew what he would say. “You’re poking into a police investigation. It’s dangerous.” Or words to that effect. Either way, it wouldn’t be something she’d want to hear.
If she listened to Rich and some of her well-meaning friends, she’d be writing a fashion column. Or maybe pieces about local politics.
But she was a crime writer. Crime was not just her beat at the Chronicle, it was her passion. She’d written a bestselling true-crime book, sold two hundred fifty thousand copies in paperback, and had a standing offer from her publisher that he’d entertain any book ideas she might have. So, yeah.
And then she laughed out loud at the realization that she was justifying her job to herself.
She drove from her apartment through Golden Gate Park on Crossover Drive and then continued into the Richmond District toward Seacliff. She checked the house numbers on El Camino Del Mar, a street populated with mansions and set back from the road. She slowed the car and took in the gateposts bracketing a stucco wall. This was the house. The iron gates were closed.
Cindy cruised past the house, slowing as she saw another break in the wall. This gate was also made of wrought iron, but it wasn’t as wide. Only one car could fit through it at a time.
Cindy saw that there was a driveway beyond the gate. It seemed to be a service entrance, and it looked to her as though the gate had been left open.
Cindy drove farther down the road, parked her Acura on the verge, and got out. Since it was eight thirty in the morning, she had the street to herself, though she could hear the distant sound of a power tool up the road. It was either a chainsaw or blower. When one car came toward her, a Lexus with tinted windows, she busied herself on her phone until the car passed by.
Then, she crossed the road and walked directly to the service entrance gate.
Cindy pulled on the handle and the gate swung open. She slipped inside and carefully closed the gate behind her. She stopped in her tracks, looking around at the grassy lawns beyond the drive. There was a barnlike machine or tool shed to her left and beyond that a pathway of beckoning stone steps cut into a steep upward slope in the lawn.
Right now, she was “snooping,” as it was called in the trade. But once she’d climbed those steps, it would no longer be fun and games. She’d have no believable excuse. It would be trespassing, plain and simple.
She stopped for a moment and put her game face on. Then she climbed up every one of those thirty steps. Technically, she wasn’t breaking in. She was looking for someone to interview about a pretty interesting story that centered around a murder and the robbery of an impressive jewelry collection. If she got lucky, she’d run into Joan while she was wandering around the premises. And if she got really lucky, Joan would remember her from Claire’s office.
She set out toward the pool house. It was a darling cottage with French doors that faced the pool.
Cindy reflected on what she knew about Joan. Joan had always been rich. She had owned this magnificent house before she met and married Robert Murphy, who, after all, might actually love her. And maybe she loves him, too. But anyone could make a case that something had gone horribly wrong in their marriage. That something may have caused two people to die.
Who’d done what to whom and why?
If the answer to those questions didn’t make a good story, Cindy didn’t know what would.
She was about to check on the pool house when a door on the side of the house opened and a man came striding toward her. He was wearing his glasses on a cord around his neck, and they bounced against his bare chest with every step he took. He wore cargo shorts, but he wasn’t wearing any shoes.
And he was carrying a rifle.
A rifle that was pointed directly at Cindy’s chest.
He barked, “What do you want?”
She put up her hands with her palms facing out and said, “Hold on, okay? I’m with the Chronicle. Joan knows me. I’m just gathering some background material on a story about the murder. Look. I have identification.”
The guy looked crazy. She had opened her bag and started searching for her press pass when she heard the crack of a gunshot. Pieces of marble flew from the last stone steps in the pathway, and then with another crack, a sphere exploded at the top of a post.
Fear spiked through Cindy. She knew that words weren’t going to help with this guy. He wasn’t hearing her. He didn’t care that she was unarmed and no threat to him. Keeping an eye on the bare-chested gunman, Cindy backed away, careful not to lose her footing on the steps below her.
But then he raised his gun and fired twice more.
Holy shit. This could not be happening. He was going to kill her, or at least give it his very best try.
Cindy knew from her experiences shooting a gun that it’s a lot harder to hit a moving target than it seems on TV or in the movies. But that didn’t mean that she wouldn’t get shot.
As she ducked into a crouch and kept backing down the steps, her ankle turned—hard. She reached for something, anything, but she lost her balance. She made a last wild grab for another stone post, but it was too late.
Gravity was winning. She fell backward and wasn’t able to break her fall with her hands. Her head slammed against a step and her body kept rolling down, hitting stone tread after tread.
And as she completely lost consciousness before she stopped rolling on the ground, the shadow of the crazy man loomed over her.