55

55

THE FRONT DOOR was open. Ballard pulled into the driveway, not worried about announcing her arrival. She had already locked her holstered pistol and badge in the glove compartment. She got out and locked the car.

The house did not fit with the architecture of the neighborhood. It was an adobe-style construction with a flat roof and brown clay walls rounded at the corners. It said desert, not beach . Ballard entered through the open door into a hallway that stretched straight through the house to a rear deck with a view of the Pacific.

"Hello?" she called.

She stepped farther in. The Spanish-tiled hallway branched off to the right into a step-down living room with an adobe-style fireplace and an open wood-beam ceiling. There were no sharp corners, just blunt angles.

The furnishings of the room didn't match the architectural style. The couch and chairs were thickly upholstered in bright blues, yellows, and whites. The coffee table was glass-topped with chrome legs, and beside the couch was a standing lamp with a chrome base and stem. The wall hangings were modern rip-offs of Rothko, not O'Keeffe. Ballard guessed that the owners or prior tenants had moved out and Bennett had staged the house using furniture that didn't quite fit. There probably wasn't a lot of call for staging adobe houses in Laguna, and he had made do with what he had.

She moved farther down the hall.

"Anyone here for the open house?" she called.

The hall led past a staircase going down, and Ballard understood that it was what she called an upside-down house. It had been built into a hillside, and the communal spaces were on the entry floor on top and the bedrooms were down below.

Ballard came to the end of the hall, which gave onto a large living space with a den on the right and the kitchen and dining area on the left. The rear wall was all glass sliders leading to a deck that ran the width of the house. Out there was a built-in grill and plenty of space for outdoor furniture and tables. Every house had a special spot, and this deck with its unblocked view of the ocean was what would sell this place.

On a kitchen counter was a stack of fliers for the property and a sign-in sheet on a clipboard with a pen attached by a string. The box she had seen Bennett pick up earlier was open on the opposite counter. Next to the pastries were paper plates and napkins. Bennett's briefcase and Yeti were on a kitchen island, but there was no sign of Bennett.

"Hello?" Ballard said loudly. "I'm here for the open house."

No response. Ballard looked around and realized the opportunity she had. She quickly went to the briefcase, unzipped it, and opened it to check its contents. What she saw changed the trajectory of her plan. As she reached in, the house started to vibrate, and she knew that someone—Bennett—was opening the garage door. She quickly finished with the briefcase, zipped it closed, and headed for the deck.

Ballard unlocked one of the doors and slid it open. As she stepped out, she heard a door slam and guessed that the ocean breeze she'd allowed into the house had pushed the front door closed. She knew that should get Bennett's attention, wherever he was.

She kept her eyes on the ocean as she stepped all the way out to the deck's railing. She then looked down and saw a sub-deck with similar views that extended from the bedrooms below.

"Uh, we're not open yet."

The voice came from behind her. Ballard turned to see Andrew Bennett standing in the doorway.

"The signs all say twelve to four," he said. "We still have forty minutes till we open."

"I know, I'm sorry," Ballard said. "I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd just sneak in for a quick look. I mean, if you don't mind."

"Well, since you're already here… could you come sign in first?"

"Sure."

She followed him into the house.

"You're down from Los Angeles?" he asked.

"How do you know that?" Ballard asked.

"I was in the garage, tidying up, and I thought I heard a car pull in. When I opened the door, I saw you have a Galpin frame on your license plate. That's the dealership up in Van Nuys, right?"

"Oh, yes, right."

"I'm from up that way. I remember Galpin ads on TV from when I was a kid."

They went into the kitchen and Ballard picked up the pen next to the sign-in sheet on the counter.

"How long have you been down here?" she asked. She wrote Ronnie Mars on the clipboard, a nod to a fictional detective hero of hers.

"A long time," Bennett said.

She added the number of a burner phone she used on occasion for personal as well as police reasons.

"Ever go back?" she asked.

"No, not really," Bennett said. "Unless I have to fly out of LAX, but that's a nightmare I try to avoid."

"I hear you on that."

"So, I'm Andrew."

"Ronnie."

Ballard turned from the counter to face him. He was on the other side of the kitchen island, his briefcase on the counter between them. He smiled, and she recognized the expression from the website photo—the wide, practiced, and insincere smile of a salesman.

"So, Ronnie, tell me," he said. "Are you looking for a full-time home or a getaway place?"

"Uh, I'm undecided," Ballard said. "I work from home, so I could have a full-time place down here and the getaway could be up in L.A."

"That would be perfect. What do you do?"

"I'm a writer. TV, mostly."

"Anything I might know?"

"Probably not. It's mostly soft-crime stuff."

"Soft crime? What does that mean?"

"Geared toward women. Female endangerment. Unfaithful husbands. More romance than mystery."

"Interesting. But not believable."

"Yeah, that about covers it."

"No, I mean you, Ronnie. Not believable."

He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a handgun. It was a blue-steel Glock.

"Your friend warned me there would be others," he said.

"Whoa, wait a minute," Ballard said. "I don't know what you're talking about. I—"

"Colleen Hatteras. You housewife sleuths think you're all Nancy Drew, and look what it gets you—a date with the devil."

"I don't—"

"Save it, Ronnie. If that's even your real name."

Ballard raised her hands as she thought about Colleen. At the end, she had apparently not revealed all to Bennett. No matter how badly he'd hurt her or scared her, she had been able to hold back and leave Bennett thinking the threat to his existence was from the amateur ranks of the internet.

"You killed Colleen," she said.

"No, she killed herself," he said. "She got too close to the fire and there was no choice. Blame her, not me. And now I need to know who else you've told about me."

"No one. I swear."

Bennett used his free hand to reach back into the briefcase. He pulled out a plastic bag containing coiled snap ties.

"You expect me to believe you came down here without telling another soul?"

"I had to."

Bennett laughed.

"You had to? Why would you have to?"

"Because I came down here to kill you. For Colleen."

Bennett's laugh rose sharply.

"And how's that working out for you?"

"Pretty well, actually… except all of a sudden, I've changed my mind. I don't want you dead, Bennett. I want you to rot in the living hell of prison. For Colleen and all the women you've killed and hurt."

"Well, there's one problem with that plan."

He waggled the gun he held and smiled. Ballard saw the flat, dead eyes then. She thought about him calling himself the devil a few minutes before. If the devil was a psychopath who had no empathy or other emotions, then Bennett had nailed it.

"No, that's your problem," she said. "Because…"

As she spoke, she casually reached down to the left cuff of her pants, pulled the Ruger from her ankle holster, and straightened up with it pointed at Bennett's chest.

"My gun has bullets," she continued. "And yours does not."

Bennett immediately pulled the trigger on the Glock. It snapped on an empty chamber. His eyes widened, and he pulled three more times, all with the same result. Ballard read his expression as he realized the mistake he had made leaving the briefcase unattended in the kitchen while he prepared the house for showing. He focused on the Ruger, and Ballard read him again.

"It's small but it carries seven rounds and I'm good with it," she said. "You make a move and I'll put both your eyes out."

Bennett made an odd sound as if giving voice to the fight-or-flight impulse taking over his brain. He then calmed himself and offered a half smile of surrender.

"I want you to put the gun down on the counter and slide it across to me," Ballard said.

Bennett complied, shoving the gun hard enough that it would have flown off the counter if Ballard hadn't reached with her free hand to catch it.

"Now get down on your knees, hands flat on the counter," she ordered.

"This will never work," Bennett said. "No one's going to—"

"Do it, Bennett, or we go back to plan A. Is that what you want?"

"Okay, okay, I'm doing it."

He started to sink down behind the counter, his hands holding the edge for balance. Ballard moved quickly past the island to his left, grabbing the bag of snap ties.

"Okay, hands behind your head," she ordered. "Now."

Bennett did as instructed. Ballard opened the baggie and grabbed a handful of ties, regretting her decision to leave her handcuffs in the Defender. She moved in behind Bennett and put the muzzle of the Ruger against the skin behind his right ear.

"Do not move or you're going to have a lead slug bouncing around inside your skull. If it doesn't kill you, it'll scramble your brain. You'll need somebody to wipe your ass for the rest of your life."

"Not moving. Just do your thing."

He said it in a tone that suggested he was bored. A few of the plastic ties had already been looped for quick use by Bennett. Ballard now used them the same way.

"Hold your left hand up. Slowly."

Bennett complied, and Ballard looped a tie over it and pulled it tight at the wrist. She followed the same procedure with the right hand, then stepped back and ordered Bennett to get facedown on the floor with his hands behind his back. After he did, she quickly wove one of the open ties through the loops on his wrists and then pulled the free end through the snap-lock.

Bennett was now secure.

"Don't move," she said. "You move and I'll use the rest of these to hog-tie you like you did to all the women you raped."

Bennett turned his head on the floor so he could look up at her.

"Who the fuck are you?"

"LAPD. And you are under arrest for the murder of Colleen Hatteras, with many more charges to come."

"Bullshit."

"No, you're bullshit, Bennett. You're done. And you know what? She led me right to you. Colleen got you."

Ballard stepped back behind his feet and pulled out her phone. She called Charlotte Goring's cell and the detective answered with an accusation.

"You lied to me, Ballard."

"Don't worry about it. I just—"

"No, I'm worried about it. I just got a call from Chuck Pell and he said Hatteras's computer was accessed yesterday at three fifty-five p.-fucking-m. You were in the office then, Ballard, and you told me you didn't know the password."

"Charlotte, listen to me. I just arrested Andrew Bennett. I've got the Glock and he literally just confessed. I need to transport him from Laguna to L.A. Do you want to come down and get him, or do you want to worry about what I said and did yesterday?"

There was no response at first. Ballard could tell Goring had covered the phone and was talking to someone, most likely her partner, Dubose. Then she finally came back to the call.

"Where exactly are you?" she asked.

"I'll text you the address," Ballard said.

Bennett raised his head off the floor and screamed.

"She said she's going to kill me!"

Ballard stepped over, leaned down, and pulled the plastic band between his wrists up off his back, putting pain and stress into his shoulders. He lowered his head back to the floor.

"You shut the fuck up, Bennett, or I'm going to take your socks off and stick them down your throat. Got it?"

Bennett didn't answer. She yanked on his arms again.

"Yes, I got it," he said.

Ballard stood back up and spoke into the phone.

"Charlotte, are you there?"

"Ballard, we're on our way. He'd better be alive when we get there."

"Then don't take too long."

Ballard disconnected.

"Sounds like this isn't going to go too well for you," Bennett said.

"Maybe not," Ballard said. "But it's going to be far worse for you. You hear those waves out there? This is it. You'll never hear or see or taste freedom again."

"We'll see about that."

"Yeah, we will."

Bennett went silent. Ballard texted the address to Goring. As she did so, she heard someone come in the front door. It was time for the open house to begin. She quickly grabbed more of the snap ties and used them to bind Bennett at the ankles, then pulled his feet up to hog-tie them to his wrists.

"Help," he yelled. "Somebody call the police!"

Ballard jumped up and turned toward the hallway. A pair of prospective buyers stood there, eyes wide with shock. The man, the arms of a sweater tied around his neck, raised his hands.

"We don't want any trouble," he said.

"Don't worry, I am the police," Ballard said. "This man is under arrest and the open house is over."