Avarice

CHAPTER ONE

It was a perfect, eighty-five-degree summer day in Pacific Beach, and the town was crowded with tourists who decided California was everything they had expected when excitedly planning their trip back in Milburn, Ohio, or in some other land-locked state far away from the Pacific Ocean. Locals, who took their paradise for granted, were happy to share their bliss with the foreign hordes who boosted the economy and enabled them to afford their homes near the beach. Situated just south of La Jolla, where top rated golfers were playing in a celebrity tournament at Torrey Pines that very day, Pacific Beach offered visitors a plethora of shopping venues and the challenging decision of where to enjoy lunch in one of the many restaurants on the boulevard. Others were catching rays on the white, sandy beach or swimming or surfing in the cold waters of the Pacific. Joggers and cyclists crowded the bike path that ran in front of taco and souvenir stands and, farther south, where it passed pricey homes, situated side by side facing the ocean.

Anyone lying in a beach chair or playing catch with frisbees who happened to glance up at the good-looking man and his female companion who were slowly cycling south on the bike path, apparently in no hurry to reach their destination, would have been immediately arrested by the young couple’s striking physical attributes. She was a beauty with a Dodger cap pulled down tight over auburn hair, her white T-shirt hanging loose over a toned body, and her tan shorts showing off legs that were shapely and well-muscled. He was unusually handsome, dressed in jeans and a blue T-shirt, muscular and tall with unruly blond hair. Both were grinning, enjoying the early June summer weather and the warm breeze that floated in off the water. The immediate thought that might have come into anyone’s mind when they caught sight of the attractive couple was these two must be among the rich and famous people who lived just up the coast in La Jolla or owned one of the expensive vacation houses on the beach. Their curiosity would have lasted a few seconds before their attention would have returned to their own activities as the couple continued slowly cycling down the path.

The aforementioned blond man, Josh Sibley, reached out his hand toward his fiancée, Rosemaria Baker, and they briefly touched fingers as they meandered down the path on their bicycles. “I think we’re holding people up,” he said. “Everybody’s passing us.”

“I’m too busy enjoying my vacation to notice,” Rosemaria responded and inhaled deeply of the salty ocean air.

“I think my meeting will be over by three or four. We can walk on the beach and then have dinner at the Mexican restaurant you spotted on the way here.”

“Sounds like heaven to me.”

She turned off the bike path onto a small walkway between two upscale houses, and Josh followed her onto a tiled patio that wrapped around the front and side of a magnificent three-story house of glass and steel. They stepped off their bikes and rested them on kickstands near the front door. The home they were about to enter glittered like a jewel in the noonday sun.

“I know envy is the ugliest emotion after self-pity, but right now, I feel sorry for myself that we don’t own this house instead of Joell,” Rosemaria admitted. “Does that make me a bad person?”

Josh shook his head as he pressed keys on the alarm pad. “I never cease to be shocked at the breadth of your shortcomings, my darling.”

She followed him into the black-and-white-tiled entryway, light pouring down from a glass canopy three floors up. “And I try so hard to live up to your expectations.”

Josh grabbed her and pulled her close. “I’m a very patient man. I will give you several years to improve.”

Rosemaria whispered in his ear, “Actually, you think I’m perfect, don’t you?”

“You wouldn’t deserve me otherwise.”

“Wise guy!” She pushed past him on her way to the kitchen, but he caught her from behind and held her by the waist.

“Don’t get any ideas,” she said. “Joell’s driver is picking me up in an hour to take me to the gym. I worked hard to get rid of my spare tire, and I won’t have you standing in my way.”

He turned her around and kissed her. She melted.

“I was a strong, independent woman when I met you. And now look at me.”

“Yes, I’d like to do that.”

She sighed and let him lead her toward the stairs.

An hour later, wearing sweatpants and a clean T-shirt, she was seated in one of four tall chairs next to the marble-covered island in the perfectly appointed kitchen that had a view of the ocean through the family room. The cabinets were glossy white with platinum steel pulls and etched see-through glass. The appliances were stainless steel, and the floor was covered in beige travertine tiles. Rosemaria was enjoying the ocean view while sipping her lemonade from a glass. She became aware of Josh standing in the doorway, ready to head out, having showered and changed into a white shirt tucked into khaki slacks.

She turned to him. “I’m going to enjoy this swanky gym of Joell’s. They don’t let just anybody join, you know. Celebrities and rich people don’t like having the common folk staring at them when they sweat.”

“Joell’s not like that, and besides, famous people don’t sweat.”

She stood up, rinsed her glass in the sink, and placed it in the dishwasher. She picked up her gym bag from the glass kitchen table and threw the strap over her shoulder. “Well, I do. Plenty. It takes a lot of work to keep the flab off these thighs.” She looked up at him. “So why did she change the meeting to San Diego? I thought because she was playing in the pro-am, having the meeting in La Jolla would be convenient.”

“She and her partner finished early, and apparently, she had some business downtown. I don’t ask questions. Just follow orders. We’ll be discussing everything about the European tour, all the logistics, checking into the hotels, tech rehearsals, local lineups, everything, so it could be at least four o’clock before I get back.”

“I still get to see La Jolla, don’t I?”

“We’ll go there tomorrow, okay?”

“In Joell’s shiny black Mercedes?”

“You sure focus a lot on the good life for somebody who’s engaged to a starving musician.”

She stood up, walked over to where he was leaning against the doorway, and wrapped her arms around him. “This will be your first tour as an honest-to-God famous singer. I will miss you terribly, but I’m so proud of you.”

“Semi-famous—make that almost unknown. And songwriter, not singer. If it weren’t for Joell being the biggest recording artist in the world and her having faith in me, I wouldn’t even be going on this tour.”

“By the time you get home, you’ll be more famous than any of them.”

He smiled and shook his head. “What am I going to do with you? You had the same kind of impossibly high expectations of me even when I was living in a rundown apartment in Hollywood.”

“It’s your talent, my dear. The first time you sang for me, I knew all this was inevitable.”

“Even though I was a murder suspect, and all your cop friends were sure I did it?”

She took his arm, and he opened the door to the carport. “I may not be able to carry a tune, but I knew within minutes of meeting you that you weren’t guilty, and after I heard you sing, your fate was sealed. I was going to hook my wagon to a star, baby.”

They walked into the garage, where a black Mercedes and classic Jaguar were parked side by side. Josh pressed a button on a pad by the kitchen door, and the garage door slid open. He gave her a peck on the cheek and used his clicker to unlock the Mercedes.

As she watched him, Rosemaria felt a sudden shortness of breath and a premonition of impending disaster. It happened to her sometimes when everything seemed too good to be true. She shook it off. Nothing to worry about.

Josh was about to get into the Mercedes when he looked up at her and saw the stricken expression on her face. “Are you all right? What’s wrong?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. Just a cramp. Female stuff.”

“Okay, it looked like more than that, but I’ll take your word for it. You waiting in the alley for Joell’s driver?”

“Yes, you go ahead and pull out. He’ll be here any minute.” She walked outside, watched as he backed out of the garage, and waved before he disappeared around the corner. She set the alarm after the garage door slid shut and saw Raul approaching from the other end of the alley in Joell’s Lincoln. She was tickled at the thought of the pampering she was receiving over this long three-day weekend. Yes, it was way too good to be true, and this kind of lifestyle was far above anything she had ever experienced in her life. But that didn’t mean something had to go wrong.

* * * * *

Ten minutes later, she was relaxing in the front passenger seat as Raul drove. She had convinced herself to accept Joell’s magnanimous offer to live in her rarified world for the weekend, but sitting in the back of a limo like some pampered celeb seemed a bit too imperious for a newbie prosecutor who was still on the low end of the salary scale. Joell’s Rolls was back in Bel Air, so she had rented the Lincoln for the weekend, but today, she was being driven to her meetings by her manager and didn’t need the town car. Joell had insisted that Raul, Joell’s driver and bodyguard, a six-feet-four African American with astonishing green eyes that made his handsome face even more so, drive Rosemaria wherever she needed to go.

Raul glanced briefly at his passenger. He had accepted Rosemaria’s desire to sit up front with him. Other friends of Joell’s sometimes did the same when she occasionally asked him to drive them to the airport or home after having too many drinks. Even though Rosemaria was undeniably beautiful, she struck him as a woman who was indifferent to her looks and didn’t have a narcissistic, self-centered bone in her body. “How do you like Pacific Beach so far?” he asked.

“I keep thinking I need to be somewhere, doing something useful, like time is going by, and I’ve jumped off the train and am losing ground.” She shifted in her seat uneasily.

Raul laughed. “Sounds like you need to stay off the train and let it move down the tracks without you for a while. You’re in serious need of some downtime.”

“So, who is guarding Joell while you’re driving a nobody around town?”

“She’ll be surrounded by friends all day, and you’re not nobody. Walk into the gym like you own the place, and everybody will believe you’re somebody famous they can’t quite place.”

“Will you come in for a workout too?”

“Not today. I’ll be waiting for you outside or in the lobby.”

“I won’t be too long.”

“Don’t worry about it. Take your time.”

As she glanced out the window and up at the sky, she noticed some clouds moving in from the ocean. She hoped they weren’t headed in their direction. She was looking forward to a walk on the beach and up the boulevard to the Mexican restaurant and maybe doing a bit of shopping. Raul was right; the train would move along just fine without her for a few days. She could do with some mindless relaxation. Rosemaria had thought that resigning from her job as a homicide detective in the Beverly Hills Police Department and becoming a prosecutor at the Airport Courthouse would have calmed her life down somewhat. But her first year as prosecutor had been almost as fraught with danger as when she worked vice in Hollywood. She didn’t want to risk her life anymore. She was happy with Josh and lived in anticipation of his music dreams coming true. And it was all about to happen.

* * * * *

Standing in the shower after an hour’s workout, Rosemaria was already thinking about what she was going to order for dinner. She mentally slapped herself. Darn! She wished she didn’t love eating so much. Then she wouldn’t have to work so hard to keep the pounds off. But her body was really shaping up, and she finally liked what she saw in the mirror every morning, even if Josh proclaimed her body was just as desirable with more flesh here and there. Yeah, right. All men said that until you got too fat, and then their eyes started wandering.

She dressed in her sweatpants and T-shirt and dried her hair with one of the dryers provided by the gym. A bean burrito, maybe, lots of chips and salsa. Hey, she could afford a few carbs. She smiled at the attractive young blonde girl at the front desk on her way out and saw several people waiting at the entrance. She was surprised to look out the window and see that one of those California rarities had occurred. A rainstorm had blown in off the sea and was drenching everyone caught unaware. Those clouds had decided to come their way after all. She looked around the lobby for Raul and saw that he was sitting in the driver’s seat of the Lincoln. She walked out the entrance and waited for him under the awning.

As soon as Raul spotted her, he jumped out of the car and came running toward the front entrance carrying a large black umbrella. He huddled with her under the awning where five other people were waiting to see if the deluge would let up. “You want to make a run for it, or should I pull up in front?”

“Let’s see if it stops first. I don’t want you driving in this pouring rain.” Rosemaria preferred to wait because the ride back to Joell’s house was mostly on the 163, and the road from the gym down to the main street was steep and lined with trees and brush. It wouldn’t do to get in an accident the first time Joell loaned Rosemaria her car and driver.

They walked back inside and stood in the lobby, looking out the window at people either still waiting under the awning or laughing and running for their cars. Rosemaria, a born-and-bred Californian from Simi Valley, knew that heavy summer rain was unexpected and fun for people in southern California. They could hear cars whizzing by on the street on the hill just above the gym, the drivers ignoring the possibilities of an accident on the slippery, oily pavement. They waited five minutes, and the torrential downpour turned into a steady rain, but the black clouds remained. Rosemaria watched a man walking a small dog of dubious origin at the far end of the parking lot. The poor wet mutt was pulling at the leash, but the man was ignoring him. She saw he was wearing an earbud and intent on listening to something or someone. Even walking his dog in the rain, he couldn’t stay off the phone.

“You ready to go?” Raul asked.

“Yes, let’s do it.”

They ventured back outside and stopped under the awning. Only two other people, a man and a woman were still waiting. Rosemaria again noticed the man walking his dog who looked in their direction and immediately began talking to his dog or to someone. Raul pulled open the umbrella, and the rain beat down on it in a steady rhythm as they walked, hunched over, toward the Lincoln a few yards away. She stopped and turned when someone tapped her on the shoulder. It was the blonde receptionist, who now leaned close under their umbrella. “You forgot your jacket.” The words were barely spoken before she heard the sound of a rifle, the receptionist’s head exploded, and blood splatter covered Rosemaria’s face.

Raul grabbed Rosemaria’s arm and ran. “Keep down! It’s coming from up on the hill!” He pulled his Glock out of its holster and fired up the hill where he could see the sniper. A woman who had just stepped out of her car screamed and ran for the gym entrance. Rosemaria glanced back and saw the receptionist lying on the ground in a pool of blood, her face obliterated by the bullet.

The man with the dog dropped the leash and began firing at them with an automatic. Raul could see that the high-powered rifle on the hill was still aimed at Rosemaria, who had ducked down behind a car several yards away from the Lincoln. Raul fumbled the car key out of his pocket, and it slipped from his grasp and fell underneath the car. He fired back at the man in the parking lot then dropped down by the driver’s side and slid under the car as bullets tore into the side of the Lincoln.

Rosemaria was close to the edge of the hill above the road that wound down from the gym to the freeway and decided her best bet for escape was to run down the hill through the thick brush and trees and make her way to the road below. She had left her own Beretta at Joell’s house, not having anticipated that she would need it for a trip to a pricey health club. Maybe Raul could hold off the man in the parking lot long enough for her to get away, then somehow get in the car and meet her at the bottom. She cursed at herself for not being able to protect him.

From underneath the Lincoln, Raul saw the gunman minus his dog, making his way toward the edge of the parking lot where Rosemaria had disappeared. Raul fired three shots from underneath the car at the man’s legs and saw him stumble and fall. The dropped keys were about a foot away, and he managed to crawl two feet forward without exposing himself to the sniper, grab them, click open the door, and pull himself inside. He didn’t have to worry about the man on the hill once he was inside the car. Joell always ordered bulletproof glass on even her rented limos. A bullet slammed into the windshield as Raul started the car. He backed out of the parking spot and saw a man carrying a gun come tearing down the hill. By this time, no one was in the parking lot. Everyone had run inside and was huddled down behind locked doors. The wounded gunman had made his way to a black Ford, and Raul figured he had less than a minute to pick up Rosemaria at the bottom of the hill before they caught up with him. He raced out of the parking lot.

Rosemaria heard more gunshots. She ran and stumbled down the hill, now deeply covered in mud from the rain that was falling steadily. The root of a tree tripped her up, and she went down, hitting her head on something hard. She forced herself up and kept slipping and sliding down the hill, desperate to get to the road where Raul, if he had escaped the gunmen, would be waiting. She saw the Lincoln pull up, limped her way toward the partially open passenger door, and managed to pull it open enough for her to fit. She felt a pain in her shoulder and saw a black Ford bearing down on them.

“Get in!” Raul shouted. He took off before she was all the way inside, but he grabbed one of her arms and pulled her in. The pain in her shoulder was excruciating, and they were racing down the road fifty miles an hour before she finally was able to shut the door and fasten her seatbelt. By now, bullets were exploding on the back windshield. She whispered a thank-you to Joell when she saw they weren’t penetrating the glass.

Raul drove like he was competing in the Indianapolis 500. Only once before, when he’d worked as a bodyguard for a much-reviled politician, had he had to drive like this to outrun a would-be assassin. But he had never experienced anyone as fierce and determined as the two who were behind him right now. He shot through the intersection at the bottom of the hill and hit the freeway entrance going eighty miles an hour. The Ford was right behind him. But he knew these streets and freeways like the back of his hand. San Diego was where he had grown up, and it was about to pay off. He knew all the dead ends and one-way alleys and had a friend who worked as a guard in a ritzy condo building. That’s where he would head. But first, he had to try to get these dirtbags off his tail.