The Hunt Club

"No, ma'am. A minute, two minutes at the most, before you got here. I watched him the whole time."

"What did he do?"

"He sat in his car for a minute, no more, then got out and walked to where the driveway drops off."

"And what did he do there?"

"It seemed like he was looking at the view."

"And that's all? He never went around the back."

"No, ma'am, he didn't have time for anything like that. You and Mr. Manion arrived about a minute later. Almost immediately, in fact."

She whirled around to the na

"Sí, señora. Toda el día."

She turned to her son. "Todd? Is that true. All day?"

The boy, now frightened by his mother's madness, moved a step away toward his na

Ward came over and put his arm around his wife, dismissing the others with an impatient wave, wanting to get her away. He walked with her a few steps into the living room, whose enormous west-facing windows featured full-length white drapes now drawn against the afternoon sun. "Who was that on the telephone now that's got you so upset? Is it more of this, this police business?" He reached after her as she moved away. "Carol? Please…"

She had reached where the drapes met in the center of the windows and now threw them open with enough violence that one of them ripped at the ru

In silver paint on the glass, backward so they could be read from inside, someone had spray-painted the capital letters: T-O-D-D.

"Hello." Mrs. Manion's voice now barely audible in the cell phone, laced with panic but still managing to maintain a tenuous control.

"Don't interrupt. You can send everyone else away," Wu said, using the exact, carefully rehearsed lines they'd agreed upon. "No one else has to be involved. This is about Andrea now, not about you. We'll be watching."

Amy had gone pale, her hand shaking as she handed the phone back to Hunt-it had grown hot to the touch. "God!" she said, blowing out with each breath. "Oh, my God."

Jason put his arm around her. "You okay?"

She shook her head no. Blew out again. "Shit. Shit shit shit. That was horrible."

"It was awesome," Mick said.

"I think I might be sick."

"Here." Jason lowered her to the ground, sat with his arms around her.

Hunt went down on a knee, lifted her chin with his finger. "That was perfect, Ames," he said. "You did good."

She nodded, her breath still coming hard, and Jason looked across to Hunt. "So what do we do now?" he asked.

"Now, you guys-Amy and Jason-you take off. You've both done plenty. You get caught in any part of this, your jobs are at least severely compromised if not over. You've got too much to lose."

"Like you guys don't," Jason said.

Hunt waved away the objection. "I've changed jobs before. It didn't kill me. I can always do something else. And Devin's a big boy who's here because he wants to be. Everybody else-Mick, Tammy, Craig-they're on the payroll. I'm sure they'll get a huge bonus."

Mick perked right up. "How big?" he asked.

"Huge," Hunt said, "unprecedented." He went back to Amy and Jason. "But you guys are volunteers who've done some great work, and now you've got to get out of here and go home. I mean it."

"And what are you all going to do?" Amy asked.

Hunt said. "The rest of us, we play this way."

Juhle and Hunt had been together at the base camp for three hours since Amy's call to Carol. Now Mickey was back in his car, parked again where the road cut into the Silverado Trail, where he would be ready to tail the Manions should all of them, including Carol, come off their mountain by car and try to make some kind of getaway.

Juhle hung up from the "I'm going to be late" call to his wife and walked over to where Hunt, his binoculars mounted on a tripod in front of him, half-leaned against the hood of his Cooper. "How long you go

Hunt looked at his watch, at the declining sun, at the château, finally at his friend. "As long as it takes," he said. "You want, go on home. I'll call you from wherever we find Andrea. You can come out then and get famous."

"You still think this is going to work?"

"I don't know."

"It's taking a while."

"I figured it would. She's got some choices to make. She could come clean to Ward-or mostly clean, enough to get him to cooperate with her. Either that or convince him and everybody else in the house that she can handle whatever it is herself, that she's not having a breakdown. If that's her choice, then she's got to get rid of them, send them out to di

"If somebody writes one of my kid's name on my windows, I call the cops."

"I know, but she won't do that."

"What if she calls in twenty private security guards or even Shiu, for Christ's sake. Wouldn't that be a fine kettle of fish?"

"What if…" Hunt looked over at the house. There'd been no activity in or around it since Wu's phone calls. "She's not going to any kind of police, Dev. If she was going that way, they'd already be here. You guys are all the enemy now. Even Shiu. He might moonlight for her, but I've got to believe he's your partner first, a homicide cop investigating a couple of murders which, p.s., it looks an awful lot like she committed."

"He might just come on for double overtime."

"Unlikely."

"And you don't think Ward will call the cops, either?"

Hunt shook his head. "He might want to, but she'll talk him out of it. It's her problem and she's motivated. I hope I've made her realize that giving us Andrea is her only out. That's all we want."

"Not quite," Juhle said. "I, for example, want to put cuffs on her."

"I left that part out. And if you weren't here, that wouldn't be my issue, as I've said all along."

"You'd let her walk on the murders?" Juhle asked.

Hunt shrugged. "I want Andrea." He deadpa

Chiurco's voice crackled back up at him. "Affirmativo, mon capitaine, but nothing since the curtains. Except we did see a rattlesnake. Big old sucker."

"How about you catch it and go set it loose in the house? That'll scare her out."

Tamara's voice carried out of the speaker. "No way, Wyatt."

"That was more or less in the order of a joke, Tam."

"I'm laughing," she said.

"Good. Call if you get lonely." Hunt rang off, turned to Juhle. "Really, you don't have to stick around. We can handle it. Besides, it might not happen."

It was Juhle's turn to take a beat, check out the château, note the time.

"Really," Hunt said.

"Maybe I'll just hang a few more minutes. Take my chances."

It was within three weeks of the longest day of the year, but the Coast Range cut off the direct sun in the lower parts of the valley by a little after six. By quarter to seven, the shadow had moved up to the base camp, and Juhle put on the jacket he wore every day in San Francisco.

"Here we go," Hunt said.

Juhle came up next to him, squinting into the shadows, as Hunt straightened up off his car's hood, grabbed his walkie-talkie, and buzzed his troops, telling Mickey down on the lower road that people were coming out of the house into the parking area in front. He should hit his ignition and be ready to roll.