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“They’re coming to us?” Sophie wondered.
“We should go,” Masha said. “We should go now.”
Sophie agreed. Masha rounded the old Chevy, popped the trunk, threw in the buckets, and collapsed the cart as fast as she could.
Sophie clumsily lunged for the door, knocked her cart over, and all her supplies spilled to the curb.
“No, no, no,” she whispered, panicked, and gripped the door handle. She flung the door open, turned, and bent down to fetch the bottles and brushes, tossing them into the back one-by-one, feeling stupid and terrified.
The men seemed to notice and quickened their pace.
“Mrs. Poplov!” the tallest one called from across the street, a block down, on the sidewalk.
Masha and Sophie looked up and froze like rabbits scenting the breeze.
Missus? he had said. That meant Sophie.
All three men were tall and broad shouldered. Russian? Maybe. American officials or police? Possible. They all wore suits, shiny shoes, and aviator glasses, and headed toward the cousins in long, swift, quickening strides.
“Mrs. Poplov, please wait a moment for us,” the tall one called again, this time louder.
He held a briefcase, the second gripped the car keys, and the third, a blond, looked too baby-faced to be in this company, a college boy playing at tough.
“Hurry, hurry,” Masha chided her cousin. “Sophie! Leave it! Get in the car!”
Sophie shoved her collapsed cart into the back seat and slammed the door shut while Masha slipped behind the wheel and started the engine.
“Mrs. Poplov! Don’t leave!” the tallest one shouted. They were now crossing the street at an angle from Masha’s Chevy.
“Sophie! Get in!” Masha yelled.
But heart pounding and stomach clenched, Sophie froze, stuck between the passenger door and inside. She slipped her right hand into her purse, the messenger bag across her shoulder, and felt for the gun she kept at the bottom amid the crumpled-up tissues, latex gloves, and hand sanitizer.
Would she have to use it again? In broad daylight? Never again, she had told herself.
She’d promised God.
“Sophie!” said Masha. “Run! Run away! They’re coming for you!”
CHAPTER 2
FIVE MONTHS BEFORE
“MRS. PARKS, YOUR client is dead.”
Elizabeth Parks blinked in surprise at the two detectives who sat in her study across from her desk. She said nothing. They were from Beverly Hills.
Of course, Stanley Lewis was dead, she thought. Lewis was in his nineties, with advanced pancreatic cancer. Of course. He had days to live the last time she checked. Two weeks, at most.
He was a lovely, charming man, white-haired, handsome, and always good humored, even when he was weak and struggling with terrible pain. He’d survived the pandemic, only to receive a cancer diagnosis six months later, the day before Christmas.
“First of all, he’s not myclient,” the doctor corrected the detectives. “He’s my patient. And second, I’m notMrs.Parks, officers, I’mDoctorParks. Before I became a CEO, I had a surgery practice for sixteen years.”
The detectives glanced at each other. The shorter one, Will Hernandez, leaned in.
“DoctorParks,” he said respectfully, “Stanley Lewis did not die of cancer. He was murdered with a hammer to his head in his home. In his bedroom. In his pajamas.”
Dr. Parks’s eyes widened. “You’re kidding me,” she said, and took a moment to absorb the news. “Why am I only hearing this now? When? When did this happen?”
