Chapter 1
June 22nd, 4:48 PM PST; Café Molto Espresso; Los Angeles, California.
Paul Renner looked across the street at the woman he'd come to Beverly Hills to kill. He blended in with the throng of thirtysomethings crowding up Rodeo Drive: six feet tall, short black hair, a decent tan, and a business suit that cost more than his first car. He pretended to people-watch, his soft brown eyes scanning the crowd sweating in the summer heat, debutantes and nouveau riche Hollywooders spending thousands of dollars on outfits they'd wear once and never think about again.
The blaring TV behind him was difficult to ignore. Some talking-head CNN anchor blathered on about a mass shooting in Des Moines. Who kills a bunch of people at the mall? What a waste of life.
He took a sip of his caramel macchiato. Across the street, Jenny Sykes screamed at a shoe-store employee. Paul typed a text message while the beleaguered clerk rang up the purchase and bustled Ms. Sykes out the door. He held his thumb over the "send" button.
Ms. Sykes lugged two full bags of Guccis and Manolo Blahniks to her car. Her body was tight and firm, thanks to Botox and a personal trainer, and she walked like a high school cheerleader. Her shoe collection probably cost more than my house. He looked up from the phone and caught her eye. She smiled tightly, averted her gaze, and headed to her car.
Jenny Sykes was too old to be called Jenny and wasn't remotely hip in spite of the hundreds of thousands of dollars she spent to appear to be. She probably thinks her daughter's ten-thousand-dollar-a-week cocaine habit is her biggest problem.
Jenny slid behind the wheel of her chrome-silver Mercedes Benz, flashing far too much leg for her age. Paul stood, dropped a ten-dollar bill on the table, and walked away. When she closed the car door, Paul pressed "send" on his pre-paid NetPhone I-590 cellular phone. No annual contract, WiFi digital compatible, and, best of all, paid with cash. Totally anonymous.
Two things happened simultaneously. First, the text message fired off to a familiar number. It read, Jenny Sykes, Rodeo Drive, Los Angeles, California. Second, the phone sent another text to an identical phone in the trunk of Jenny Sykes' Mercedes.
The Benz erupted into a fireball, sending Jenny Sykes to whatever heaven or hell shallow socialites go. Shattered glass fell from storefront windows, but most of the shrapnel blew straight up, just as Paul had intended. Like cattle, the herd of shoppers screamed and cried as they stampeded away from the carnage. Paul joined them.
Hurrying along with the crowd, he felt none of the feigned panic he projected for the inevitable YouTube videos. Some people are too dumb to run. Several blocks away, he ducked into an alley between a Thai tapas restaurant and a place called Tie World.
He tossed the phone into the restaurant's dumpster. His fingerprints weren't on record, so the G-men who'd been trying to catch him for the past decade would know it was the D Street Killer, but not his identity. Leaving little clues for Special Agent Gene Palomini and his boys was part of what made these operations fun.
* * *
June 22nd, 5:16 PM PST; Jenny Sykes murder scene; Los Angeles, California.
Special Agent in Charge Giancarlo "Gene" Palomini held on as the two black SUVs screamed onto the sidewalk across the street from the smoking mess of what was left of the silver Mercedes Benz. The red-and-blue police lights flickered off the yellow CRIME SCENE: DO NOT CROSS tape that two uniformed locals wrapped around a hundred yards of Rodeo Drive.
Gene looked at the damage as he hopped out of the driver's seat of the front vehicle. Just over six feet tall, in his early forties, with a medium, muscular frame and thinning, military-short blond hair, he exuded confidence and frustration in equal measure as he surveyed the wreckage scattered across the street. His older brother Marty got out behind him.
"Whoa," said his technical specialist as he emerged from the second car. "A car bomb? Are you kidding me, Gene?" Agent Carl Brent was short, black, in his mid-thirties, and looked like a kid playing dress-up. The hair was pure businessman, but his navy suit was a little too big, and Gene was sure he didn't have to shave more than twice a week. Carl was never one to avoid pointing out the obvious.
The last thing Gene's smog-choked sinuses needed was a Carl-induced headache. "Stow it, Carl. Let's make nice with the locals."
Agent Doug Goldman took point, blazing the way with his fierce gray eyes. Barrel-chested and bald, Doug was so tall that his FBI badge was at eye level for Gene. Doug was a wall with a badge and a gun, and Gene used that fact to their advantage. Gene walked at his heels, eclipsed by the large man's presence.
Gene's brother walked next to him. They looked like twins except for Marty's full head of hair and the ridiculous porn-star moustache he grew in the Navy and had refused to shave since. Behind them came Carl Brent, with Jerri Bates to his left. Agent Bates was a small, pretty woman in her early thirties with an angular face, short red hair, green eyes, and curves in places that Marty said made her standard, uptight FBI suit look naughty. Gene had never seen the appeal, no matter what she wore.