The Dirty Secrets Club (2 page)

She didn't hit him. He looked up. Her chest was heaving, her hair spilling from the French twist.

"My God, you actually want to be punished, don't you?" she said.

"Do it."

She swung the crop. It slashed him so hard he shouted in pain. She wanted to dish out punishment, all right, but not to him. She would use this to send a message to somebody else. The watch beeped.

"Christ, two minutes," she said. "Let's get the hell out of here."

His eyes were watering. "Not yet. Nobody's looking."

"Looking?
You're nuts. If there's an aftershock I'll lose my balance. We—"

A thumping sound echoed off skyscraper walls. A helicopter swooped over the top of the building.

It turned and hovered above Montgomery Street, rotors blaring. Everything on the terrace blew into the air. Dust, leaves, their clothes. The camera tipped over. Scott grabbed for it, but it fell off

the ledge.

She yelled, "No, the evidence—"

The camera dropped, hit the building, and sprang apart. He let out a cry. His penance, his memories—

The terrace was lit with a blinding white searchlight.

"Oh, no—it's a news chopper," she said.

She leaped from the ledge to the terrace. Landed like a gazelle on her stilettos. He scrambled after her, buttocks stinging. They grabbed their clothes and ran for the door. The chopper rotated in the air, searchlight sweeping after them.

She looked back, her eyes brimming with joy and fury. The searchlight lit her hair like a halo.

"Turn around," he shouted. "You want them to get a close-up?"

"The city knows your face, not mine."

"But it's about to know your glorious ass."

He ran into the conference room, stopped and wrangled his left leg into his jeans. The spotlight caught them. He bumbled for the door.

Fumbling her way into her skirt, she sprinted into the hallway. "It's chasing us like those things from the damned
War of the Worlds."

He urged her forward. "Take the service elevator. The lobby downstairs is full of cops."

She ran beside him, agile in the heels. His watch beeped.

"Oh, crap. No time."

In the lobby, the fire alarm wailed a high-pitched tone. The digital clock flashed red: :58, :57. The TV news was showing pictures from ^e chopper's camera.

"Two people are trapped on the roof," shouted the reporter. "A
^w
oman was signaling for help. If we swing around ..."

The alarm rose in pitch.

"How long to get down?" she said.

They ran to the service elevator and she pounded on the button. The searchlight panned along the windows. Like a white flare, it caught them in the eyes.

"I see them. They're attempting to escape from this deadly tower. ..."

She whacked the elevator button with the riding crop.
"Open."

With a
ping,
the elevator arrived. She dropped the crop and they lunged inside.

On the ground floor they burst out a back exit into an alley. The asphalt was wet and steaming. Scott clicked his stopwatch.

"Seven seconds. Time to spare."

"Maniac," she said.

They dashed through puddles toward the end of the alley. On the street a police car blew past, lights flashing. The helicopter thumped overhead, searchlight pinned on the roof.

Scott nodded at it. "They got it on tape. You have evidence."

"You're reckless. I think you actually want to get caught."

"I carried out the dare. Did I make the cut?"

She fought with her zipper. "We'll put it to a vote. No promises."

They rushed out of the alley. The street, lined with banks and swanky stores, was being cleared by the police. They slowed to a walk, trying to look normal. He buttoned his jacket. She smoothed down her hair.

Elation flooded him.

"Admit it—that was awesome."

"It was outrageous." She pointed at him. "And do not tell me it ended with a flourish."

"Really?" He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a baseball.

"What's that?"

He tossed it to her. She caught it.

"A Willie Mays autographed ball?" She looked up, surprised. "From the law firm's memorabilia collection? You stole it?"

"On our way out. And it's not just any baseball. It's
the
ball—from the 1954 World Series. The greatest catch of all time."

She gawped. "It's got to be worth—"

"Hundred thousand." He smiled broadly. "Right under
your
nose."

Anger flashed across her face. She shoved the ball back into his hands. "Okay, bonus points for chutzpah."

He laughed and tossed the baseball in his hand. "Fear not, it'll be returned. That's the next challenge."

"How? The building's locked down. And your fingerprints are all over it."

"So? I'm a star client. My lawyer let me hold it. It doesn't matter that my fingerprints are on it." He glanced at the police car down the block, and back at her. "How will you explain that yours are?"

She stopped dead on the sidewalk.

He held the ball up. "Return it without getting prosecuted. I dare you."

He turned, faced the jewelry store they were passing, and hurled the ball straight through its front window. Glass crashed. An alarm shrieked. He spun back around.

"Have fun, Hardgirl."

He took off down the street.

2

H
eadlights, that's the first thing Pablo Cruz saw, high beams that flared in his rearview mirror. Taillights followed a finger snap later as the car veered around him, streak, boom, gone. He made it a BMW, screaming through the intersection at Van Ness and California. He made the speed ninety plus. He made the infraction Driving While Stupid, because the traffic lights were cherry-red, and his police car was black and white. Cruz lit up his light bar and rolled.

Grabbing the radio, he raised the dispatcher. "In pursuit. Late-model BMW, dark blue or black."

One a.m., empty street. The BMW was already a block ahead. Cruz laid on the power. His Crown Vic accelerated to keep it in sight, lapping up the asphalt.

Why did the driver do it, blow straight past a police cruiser? Maybe high. Maybe throwing down a challenge. Maybe getting the hell out of town before another quake hit, like the one a few days back. Maybe fleeing the scene of a crime.

California Street ran bone straight between darkened businesses and Victorian apartment buildings. Cruz held tight to the wheel, trying to make out the shape of the BMW, keeping the side streets peripherally in his vision. Taillights, low-profile—it was an M5, and it was not slowing down. He gave the siren a yowl. No response.

The BMW skied up Nob Hill, slick as a hockey puck. Cruz roared after it, lifted over a ridge in the road at Leavenworth Street, and went high against the straps of his seat belt. Ahead, the M5 crested the rise
and
raced past Grace Cathedral at the top of Nob Hill. Cruz still had eighty yards to close on it.

The M5 blew past the Mark Hopkins Hotel and reached the far side of the hilltop. For a second it looked airborne, before dropping
out
of sight for the long descent toward the Financial District. Cruz followed. At the cusp of the hill the city lights accosted him. Downtown spread out below, glitter-gold, a spill of lights that stopped at the dark shore of San Francisco Bay.

Downhill the M5 slammed against the road, bottoming out. Sparks wheeled behind it. It raced toward another red light, ready to power straight through. From a side street a Volkswagen rolled into the intersection. The M5 slid into a left-hand turn, veered around the VW, and took the corner in a skid, brake lights tapping on and off, the driver keeping control and powering up again. Damn, the guy knew how to handle that car.

Cruz had himself a full-blown car chase. His first ever.

He turned on the siren and let it sing. He tightened his hands on the wheel. Ahead the BMW swung wide, onto the left side of the street past the cable car tracks, and its brake lights flashed. He was getting ready to turn right.

The passenger door swung open. Oh boy, Cruz thought, here we go.

What was he going to toss out, the cocaine or the slim jim he'd used to boost the car? Cruz kept the pedal down, eating up ground between them, teeth tight, breathing through his mouth. Hoping that
^wh
at emerged from the M5 wasn't the barrel of a sawed-off.

Hand on the door, a woman leaned out.

Her arm was pale and slim. Her blond hair batted in the wind. She stared at the pavement that fled beneath her.

"Jesus," Cruz said.

She was trying to jump.

Like yanking a chain, the driver jerked her back inside the car.
The BMW
skated around another corner, back end sliding out, driver
handling the oversteer. The momentum of the turn slammed the passenger's door shut. Cruz's pulse kicked up another notch. That BMW was quick and agile, but head down these streets and the blocks got narrow; drive into Chinatown and the restaurants would be emptying out. Lots of traffic, lots of obstacles to slow it down.

Like pedestrians.

He skidded around the corner, manhandling the patrol car, and saw the BMW swerve to the right.
Bam,
it racketed along cars parked at the curb, shredding against them like a can opener. Losing control, losing speed—no. Preventing the passenger from leaping out, if she wanted to keep her arms and legs from getting mangled. He felt how dry his mouth had become. The Crown Vic's headlights caught the rear window of the M5. Inside the vehicle Cruz saw a flurry of motion. The passenger was punching the driver.

And the driver kept the pedal flat. The car roared through narrowing streets rimmed in neon, red, and gold, with people flowing along the sidewalks. Cruz's siren boomed. Pedestrians stopped, stepped back, but he knew the odds were miserable. This was heading for disaster.

In his headlights, he saw the BMW's license plate. It was a vanity tag, and he was finally close enough to read it. HARDGRL.

Hard girl. Holy Mother, a woman was at the wheel, handling that big car like Jeff Gordon?

With a burst of power the BMW roared away from him. She rounded another corner in a power skid. He followed seventy yards behind, in time to see her line up again, turn east on Stockton, and race out of sight.

Goddamn. Stockton dead-ended a couple blocks that direction, directly above the tunnel. No way, Cruz thought—accelerating like that the M5 would never make the turn onto Bush. He lined up to round the corner and follow it, thinking: downhill, dead end, bridge railing. Beyond that was a fifty-foot drop to the street below. Even at this time of night, the cross street would be busy.

"Slow down," Cruz willed her.

He muscled the patrol car around the corner onto Stockton Street, and saw his wish granted. Oh, fuck.

Dead ahead the BMW had stopped in the middle of the street. He slammed on the brakes.

He saw her backup lights flash white as she put it in reverse. She floored it. Through plumes of tire smoke the BMW bore at him like a black missile.

He had time, barely, to remember. Home. The baby. Shelly, asleep in their bed.

Ten seconds later it was all over.

3

B
lue lights dazzled the night. From a block away, they told Jo Beckett she was headed into trouble.

Dancing against the red lights of the fire trucks and the spotlight Caltrans had erected, they erased the stars, turned the buildings and road and onlookers ice blue, threw Jo's shadow starkly behind her as she walked toward the scene. On the overpass above the tunnel, police officers milled near the bridge railing. A six-foot stretch was blown out of it. Even in the Halloween light she could see where the car had plowed through. A news helicopter circled overhead, grotesque emcee to the party. Two a.m., Bush Street at the Stockton Tunnel, tune in and feast your eyes, people. Last dance at the festival of carnage.

Jo nudged between a television news crew and a clot of bystanders, and approached the yellow police tape. Her breath frosted the air. It was bitter for October, and diamond-clear. The fog had shriveled away. Even the weather declined to lay its veil over this scene. This was bad, and she had a feeling it was going to be big.

She called to a uniformed officer standing inside the police tape. "Excuse me. I'm looking for Lieutenant Tang."

"Amy Tang?"

"She didn't give me her first name." Just a curt phone call, asking Jo to come to the scene.

"You the doc?"

Jo nodded. Though she focused on the cop, the scene behind him expanded to fill her horizon. Brightly lit, the tunnel was a shining
_m
aw that shrank like a snake to the far end. Noise echoed through it, horns and traffic. And dead center in front of it sat the wreck. Though she knew it had crashed down from the road above, for all the world it looked like a metal gob the tunnel had hawked up.