Page 68 of 2 Sisters Murder Investigations

“Are you Jarrod?” I asked.“Jarrod Maloof?”

The tired, world-weary, and emaciated version of Jarrod Maloof cocked his head, his jaw tight and mean. I recognized the shell of the bright-faced boy I’d seen in the article in the box Troy had given me. It was hard to believe that this skeletal and crazy-eyed man gripping the gun was the same teenage boy.

Jarrod bared his yellowed teeth at me.

“You know who I am, Rhonda Bird,” he said. “Don’t play dumb. You’re part of the organization.”

“What organization?”

“Well, guess what, bitch?” He wasn’t even listening now. “You’regoing back. You’re going back in a body bag. That’s what happens when they send agents after me.”

“Jarrod.” I put my hand out. It was covered in blood from my nose or my calf, I didn’t know which. “You’re unwell. You’re not thinking straight. I can explain everything.”

There was a noise, and his eyes lifted away from me. He flinched sharply. I thought it was a reaction to what I had said. Then my mind registered the blood on his shirt, dark purple and then red as it soaked through the fabric from a gunshot wound to his heart.

He fell against my car, then dropped, unmoving, onto the asphalt.

I looked up and saw Detective Will Brogan on the other side of the road. He holstered his gun and came running over. My breath caught in my throat as he helped me to my feet.

“Jesus,” I said. The shock was hitting me now, wrapping its warm, numbing arms around me. “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.”

“Come on, Rhonda,” Brogan said. “It’s okay. Let’s get you in my car.”

He helped me limp across the island and the north-traveling lanes to his vehicle. I got into the passenger seat, watching Brogan go back across the empty highway to retrieve my phone and gun from my car, then jog over and climb into the driver’s seat beside me.

But even as I sat and breathed, the rational part of my brain was telling me that this wasn’t right. That you didn’t shoot a man and leave him for dead in the middle of the highway without trying to render aid. Without even checking his pulse. Without even moving his body out of the middle of the road.

As Brogan tucked my phone and gun under his seat, my brain screamed that he was doing that because he didn’t want me to be able to reach them. And as he started the engine, I knew, with every piece of me, that he couldn’t have been in Los Angeles when I called him for help. He’d arrived at the scene of my attack far too quickly. Most likely, he’d been on his way to Ukiah to find me.

But I couldn’t react to any of that, not then. My body was frozen. I’d just seen a man murdered, coldly and brutally, in the bright light of the afternoon.

And I knew that was what I was going to have to do to Brogan if I was going to get out of this car alive.

CHAPTER78

DAVE SUMMERLY LEANED ONthe horn. When the minivan driver in front of them flipped them the bird, Baby moved over and hammered on the horn herself.

Los Angeles late-afternoon traffic was only slightly worse than Los Angeles traffic in general, which meant they’d struggled their way out of Skid Row as though driving through molasses. Summerly took the detachable emergency light from under his seat, reached out of his window, and smacked it onto the roof of the car. He rolled up his window and flicked it on. The wailing siren meant they both had to raise their voices on the separate phone calls they were making.

“I’m trying to find out thenameof thelast police officerordetectivewho came to your house to speak to you about your missing husband,” Summerly said, enunciating his words in order to be heard over the muffled wail of the siren. “If you can just ... oh, you don’t? Do you have a — a badge number or did he leave a business card? Even just a description of the guy ... yes. Yes. If you could ask her what she remembers and call me back ... ”

Baby was drumming her fingernails on the dashboard, fighting the crazy impulse to get out of the car and run through the traffic to the highway.

“I want to speak to Troy Hansen,” she growled into her phone. “Now. It’s a matter of life and death ... No, I don’t know his inmate number. You know who he is! The man has been all over the internet for the past week and a half!”

She threw the phone into her footwell at the same time Summerly threw his, and the two devices banged into each other on the floor.

“Fuck!”

“Goddamnit!”

They watched the traffic lazily clearing ahead of them, the cars making a gap wide enough for a person with a shopping cart to weave through and not much else.

“Where did Rhonda say she was?”

“About three hours from home.” Summerly sighed. “That was around three o’clock.”

Baby looked at the map app on her phone. “If she kept driving at the speed limit, that would put her” — she pointed — “about here.”

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