The driver of the black BMW took Bird Rock Road, a narrow and winding road that passed through a forested stretch of yet another golf course, and he did it at seventy. Then he broke from the road and cut across the links.
We followed into chaos and panic as golf carts tipped and golfers scattered. Flags were mown down and sand sprayed out from under tires before the BMW got back onto Bird Rock Road, taking a wide loop toward 17 Mile Drive again.
We lost ground on the links.
Our well-used Ford was a repurposed drug dealer’s ride that had been ridden hard for three hundred thousand miles. It was no match for the spanking-new four-wheel-drive crossover. By the time we got out to the drive, there were dozens of cars between us, but I spotted our BMW stuck in the same traffic up ahead.
My partner focused on the road and the BMW buried inside a pack of other vehicles a hundred fifty feet in front of us. We passed Pebble Beach at a crawl, then merged onto Highway 1 heading north.
And now the traffic was so thick that our bleating sirens couldn’t budge it.
Where were the patrol cars we needed to assist us?
Where was the roadblock? The choppers?
Was the driver of the BMW a deadbeat dad or a dope dealer? Or was he one of the men who had attacked me? My gut said he was one of my attackers—and not to let him get away.
I counted three black SUVs in the near distance, any of which could have been the BMW we were chasing, but I couldn’t make out the plates.
We stopped and started and gained ground where we could, but after we passed the Highway 68 exit toward Salinas, I recognized the long gash in the passenger-side door of a BMW crossover cruising at high speed down the off-ramp.
“Ah, shit, Richie, we lost him.”
“Christ,” Conklin said. “Sorry about that, Linds.”
Just then, a couple of cherry-lit Highway Patrol cruisers came up from behind. They weren’t after the BMW. They were signaling us to pull over.
My partner said, “What now?” and cursed as he braked the car on the verge.
We buzzed down our windows, put our hands where they could be clearly seen, and waited for the cops. Gravel crunched under hard-soled boots. A pair of uniformed Sheriff’s Department officers approached our windows.
“We’re on the job,” I said to the one who appeared two yards off my right shoulder. “I’m opening my jacket to show you my badge.”
PART THREE
CHAPTER 47
MONDAY MORNING, I cracked my eyes open around 3 a.m.
Joe’s side of the bed was stone cold and I heard Julie crying from her room next door. I rolled gingerly out of bed, trying not to press hard on my full-body bruises, and within a couple of minutes, I was cuddling with my daughter in our favorite rocker. I even sang her back to sleep with one of my mother’s Irish lullabies.
Mission accomplished, Martha and I grabbed another couple of hours in the big bed before our nanny rang the bell.
I left Mrs. Godsend in charge of the baby and the border collie, and at 8 a.m., I was having breakfast with Conklin.
The crummy break room looks its best on Monday mornings. It wasn’t Muller-Khan clean, but at least it didn’t look like potbellied pigs had had a party in there.
I made a fresh pot of French Vanilla roast to go with the bag of churros my partner had brought with him. We were soaking up the relative calm while waiting for Brady to get out of a meeting with the brass and the NTSB on the WW 888 disaster.
Conklin had the morning paper and opened it to Cindy’s column on page eight. She’d run the pictures again of the young snoops in room 1418, asking for anyone who recognized either of them to please come forward.
“They’re from out of state,” I said. “Or out of the country. Could be tourists, right? Any other time, we’d have an ID, but…” I didn’t have to say the obvious. The city’s agonized attention was focused on the crash and the ongoing search for answers. Of which there were none.
Richie closed the paper, straightened out the sections, and said, “I’m just going to float something. Blue sky. Don’t jump all over me.”
I said, “Go ahead.”
“It’s about Joe.”
“OK.”
“He’s an airport security consultant, right? He’s working on something related to the crash. That’s what he said in the message he left you.”
“Right.”
“So we see him on the hotel security tape. We see him outside the Chan house. Why? What if Joe had high-level intel that a Michael Chan was involved in terrorism? He finds out that there’s a Michael Chan in Palo Alto. He goes out there and follows Chan back here to the hotel, OK?”
“OK, OK, I’m with you.”
“So Joe’s waiting in the lobby for Chan to leave, say, but instead, we arrive with CSI and Claire, et cetera, heading up to the fourteenth floor. Joe can’t get involved in that, but he drives out to the house in Palo Alto the next day—”
“Why does he do that?”
“He doesn’t know Chan is dead. He’s waiting for him to come home.”
“OK.”