Page 114 of The Grave Artist
A smile. “His name’s Sweeney. He told me he comes up here a lot. Drives a red Silverado pickup. You know where he lives, where I can find him?”
“Isn’t he a little old for you, hon?”
So shedidknow him.
Selina winked. “I like older men. He was nice to me. Not a lot of guys are nice.”
Wanda clearly heard that. After a brief pause, she pointed out the front window. “All I can tell you is, he sometimes goes up into the hills. That private drive to the houses up there.”
“Whose house?”
“I don’t know.”
“How many are there?”
“Six, seven, I think.”
“He drive up there recently?”
“I haven’t seen him. But I got more important things to do than sit and watch rich people coming and going.”
“Is Sweeney rich?”
She smiled. “I don’t mean him, honey.”
“Thanks, Wanda. You’ve been super helpful.”
The woman frowned. “You’re a good-looking girl. You’re polite. You can do better than him.” Then a shrug. “But that’s coming from four-times-married Wanda, so what do I know?”
Now it was Selina’s turn to smile ... and slide a twenty to the woman.
She strode out the door. Moments later, at her car, she chugged the Red Bull. Then was driving up the hill Wanda had indicated, which offered a view of the Stone Canyon Reservoirs—the one to the north being a weird football field kind of structure, while the big one to the south was more like a lake.
Situated south of Mulholland and west of Beverly Glen, this whole area was posh city. There was no way a hired hit man would live in a hood like this. She glanced from hilltop to hilltop, each mansion fancier than the last.
So this would be Sweeney’s client.
And, possibly, the man whose money-laundering operation her father had uncovered.
Twenty minutes later, so high in the hills her ears popped, she parked.
Where the hell do you go up here, Sweeney?
The cul-de-sac was surrounded by seven imposing gates. She could see several of the houses—mansions. Shit, look at the size of them. Where did people get this kind of wealth?
Well, money laundering was one answer.
Maybe. Of course there was no guarantee that the “client” Sweeney had gone to see was really their father’s killer, but what else did she have to go on?
That was how it was in her discipline—scientific research. You followed the most likely route in your experiments. A negative result was just as good as a positive one, a professor had said. It eliminated one possibility and let you pursue others.
But, please, she thought, in a very unscientific frame of mind, let this be the place where that fucker lived.
She drove in a circle.
No Silverados.
She climbed out and walked slowly past the gates to get a better look. No residents. No pit bulls either.
