Final Sins by Michael Prescott Read Free Book Online

Pricey part of town—not that any L.A. real estate was cheap these days. Her little Westwood condo, all one thousand square feet of it, punched a gaping hole in her checkbook every month.
    At Faust’s address she paused, idling outside. His house was largely concealed behind high walls. Through the iron gate she had a glimpse of a sprawling stucco pile landscaped with palms and yuccas. Nice place—much too nice for the man who had tightened a leather noose around Emily Wallace’s neck. But then, nobody ever said life was fair.
    The rented guest cottage was a few doors down and across the street, at the rear of a smaller but no less elegant estate. Abby saw the roofline of the cottage through a scrim of oleander. A black sport-utility vehicle was parked in a nearby carport. Her quarry’s transportation, probably. If so, he was home.
    She could lure him out at any time, but she preferred to wait until after dark. As much as she hated to admit it, Faust might have had a point when he compared her to a jungle animal. Most of them hunted at night, amid the shadows.
    Nighttime is my time, she thought, like the song says.
    It was two thirty now. The sun wouldn’t set for another five hours. In the meantime, she needed to work off some of the nervous energy that always developed when she was on a case.
    Not to put too fine a point on it, she needed to get laid. She wondered how Faust would work that detail into his jungle-predator metaphor.
    * * *
    Vic Wyatt lived in a one-bedroom Culver City apartment with thin walls and noisy neighbors. Abby knew he could have afforded better on a cop’s salary, especially after his promotion to lieutenant, but he was the kind of guy who barely noticed his surroundings. For him, the apartment was only a place to crash. His quality time was spent working on the rebuilt engine of his latest acquisition, a classic Mustang.
    Well, most of his quality time, anyway. Abby liked to think that her visits would also rate inclusion in that category.
    She ascended the stairwell—never ride the elevator when you can walk, that was her motto—and made her way down the corridor to his door. Two or three prolonged buzzes got his attention.
    The door opened, and Wyatt was there, his sandy hair slightly tousled, the way it got when he’d been sleeping.
    Abby grinned. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
    “Just a nap.”
    “It’s nearly three o’clock. Not feeling very industrious, are we?”
    “One of the occupational hazards of working the night watch.”
    “If you need your beauty rest, I can always come back later.”
    “I’m wide-awake now.”
    He ushered her in. She looked around, frowning. “You know, this place is starting to have kind of a funny smell.”
    “Maybe I should get a maid.”
    “You sure you don’t already have one?” She patted a heap of unsorted laundry on the sofa. “She might be under here somewhere.”
    “I would’ve heard her screams for help. Something to drink?”
    “No, thanks. I wet my whistle at a coffee bar earlier today.”
    “I never thought of you as the Starbucks type.”
    “This wasn’t Starbucks. Not a place where the elite go to meet and greet. More like a caffeinated watering hole for the young and the clueless.”
    His arms encircled her waist, “Then what were you doing there?”
    “Does that question imply that I’m not clueless, or not young? Wait, don’t answer that. I was meeting a client. A pretty unusual guy, actually.”
    “You can tell me all about him—later.”
    “Come to think of it, maybe you can tell me a little about him.”
    His face changed almost imperceptibly. “Here we go,” he said in a quiet voice.
    “What do you mean, ‘here we go’? Where are we going? Did I miss something?”
    “No. I did.” His arms weren’t around her waist anymore. “I assumed you were here for some ... intimate companionship. When in fact you’re here to pick my brain.”
    Abby made a face. “Don’t say ‘pick my brain’.