The Heist by Janet Evanovich Read Free Book Online

sister, Megan.
    It was clearly an order, but Megan wasn’t the least bit intimidated. The two women were sitting at a table in the backyard of Megan’s hillside home, one of the many red-tile-roofed Spanish Mediterranean McMansions in Calabasas, a suburb of guard-gated communities at the southwestern edge of the San FernandoValley. Megan was in shorts and a T-shirt, reading
Star
magazine and getting the latest news on the Real Housewives of Everywhere. While she was talking to Kate she was keeping an eye on her narrow lap pool, where her four-year-old son, Tyler, and six-year-old daughter, Sara, yellow floaties around their chubby, pale arms, were in a water cannon fight with Megan’s husband, Roger. They were all splashing and shrieking, and their Jack Russell terrier, named Jack Russell, was running around the pool barking.
    The air was rated “moderately unhealthful” by the Air Quality Management District, the fire hazard in the surrounding foothills was deemed “very high” by the Department of Forestry, and a SigAlert had been declared by the California Highway Patrol on the Ventura Freeway, meaning it would be an hour-long crawl to anywhere across the valley floor. In other words, it was a perfect Saturday afternoon in Southern California.
    “Why would I want to take down my Facebook page?” Megan asked.
    “Because it allows stalkers to mine personal information about you and your entire family,” Kate told her.
    “I don’t have stalkers.”
    “You might.” Kate was wearing a tank top, shorts, and flip-flops, and she felt naked without her Glock, which was in a lockbox in the trunk of her car. “You won’t know until one of them kidnaps your daughter to be his sex slave.”
    Megan glared at her over the top of her
Star
magazine. “How can you say something awful like that about your adorable niece?”
    “It’s a fact of life.” Kate gestured to the cover of the magazine. “It’s right there. ‘Teen Kidnapped by Hillbillies Reveals Ten-Year Ordeal as Sex Slave.’ ”
    Megan put the magazine down on a stack of publications thatincluded
People
,
Us
, and the
National Enquirer
, all of which Kate had brought. Reading trashy gossip magazines and making fun of the celebrities was a traditional part of O’Hare family picnics. It was something they’d picked up from the mothers on the military bases when they were growing up.
    “There are no hillbillies in Calabasas, and even if there were, nobody is going to kidnap my kids,” Megan said. “You know why? Because my sister is an FBI agent, and my dad, an ex-marine who can kill a man sixteen different ways with an eyebrow tweezer, lives in the house.”
    “He lives in the garage,” Kate said.
    “It’s a
casita
,” Megan said.
    “What would Dad be doing with an eyebrow tweezer?”
    “It’s mine and it might be the only weapon handy when the hillbillies attack,” Megan said. “We aren’t taking down the Facebook page. The family loves it.”
    “So make it private,” Kate said.
    “It already is,” Megan said. “Family and friends only.”
    “How many are there?”
    Her sister reached for a handful of Doritos from one of the three big salad bowls of different chips in the center of the table. “One thousand three hundred and twelve.”
    “We don’t have one thousand three hundred and twelve family and friends,” Kate said.
    “That includes family of family and friends of friends,” Megan said.
    Roger called out from the pool. “Easy on the Doritos, honey. You’ll want to save room for my world famous cheeseburgers.”
    His burgers were simply ground beef patties sprinkled with Lawry’s Seasoned Salt and topped with a slice of Kraft processedAmerican cheese. It wasn’t like it was a recipe that his great-grandmother had smuggled over from the old country on a scrap of paper stuffed in her cleavage or a unique blend of spices that he’d refined over years of backyard barbecuing. But everybody in the family, Kate included,