We asked the people at the flower shop if they had seen anything, but they hadn’t. We asked every shopkeeper in the strip mall and most of the employees, but they all said no. I hoped they had seen so...
Waiting doesn’t look like much, but it is something very important. Waiting is passive hunting.
WALSH AND FOUR AGENTS from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms arrived at Cole’s house an hour later. Two stayed with their cars, but two male agents came in with Walsh—a tough-looking Latin...
Video cams set up on a little platform at the rear of a place that might be called a grand ballroom if you thought small.
Tyson glanced at Amber, and eased his phone from his pocket. He was frowning at my reply when Amber stepped away from the woman and her dog. Tyson saw her turn, and jammed the phone back into his pock...
This man took my last son. No one could claim my hurt, or my anger. No one could have a greater claim on this one’s life. Her voice was tight and fierce. She patted Ray’s arm. There’s been enough kill...
These dogs are not machines, goddamnit. They are alive! They are living, feeling, warm-blooded creatures of God, and they will love you with all their hearts! They will love you when your wives and hu...
There are two crime scenes at every kidnapping. The first crime scene is where they snatch you, the second is where the cops find your body.
The woman with the thick waist showed us out through the cool of Frank Garcia’s home. Joe’s red Jeep Cherokee was parked beneath an elm tree at the curb. My car was parked behind it. Pike and I walked...
The thirty-million-candlepower Nightsun was impressive, but Scott knew the helicopter’s high-magnification cameras and FLIR heat imager gave the Air Support crew a much better view than their searchli...
The tall man’s pistol suddenly appeared in front of Orlato’s face, locked dead center between his eyes. The flat copper snouts of its bullets slept in their cylinder crypts. Elvis
The people in the terminal ebbed and flowed with the early morning flight schedule of the big cross-country flights to New York or Miami or Chicago, then grew steadily as the number of flights increas...
The lock was removed, and the door rose with a ratcheting clatter, filling the truck with grim red shadows. Jack checked the time. 2:55 A.M. The people ahead of them started to move. Krista’s
The living room, dining room, and kitchen proved to be a waste of time. Another phone sat in the kitchen with another empty memory. I was having what we in the trade called an unproductive morning. Th...
The Predators The African lion makes a kill only twice out of every ten hunts. Leopards do better, catching their prey twenty-five percent of the time, and cheetahs do best of all the big cats, with a...
The Men’s Central Jail is an anonymous building behind Central Station, less than ten minutes from the Criminal Courts Building in downtown L.A. I parked in a neat, modern underground parking structur...
The Malinois breed bit so hard and well, and showed such bite commitment, they were jokingly called Maligators.
The Los Angeles River is small, but mean. People who don't know the truth of it make fun of our river; all they see is a tortured trickle that snakes along a concrete gutter like some junkie's vein. T...
THE GIRL was moody getting out of the car, making a sour face to let him know she hated the shabby house and sun-scorched street smelling of chili and episote. To him, this anonymous house would serve...
Staying groovy had nothing to do with being cool. It was an expression used by small recon units and sniper teams in hostile terrain. They would tell one another to stay groovy when the danger level w...