WHEN ERICA GETS BACK TO Moira’s, she calls Greg in New York and asks him to have a local LA crew on standby in the morning. Moira comes home and makes them dinner of tuna steak, green beans, and wild rice. As they eat, Erica brings Moira up to date on her investigation. Her friend offers her usual level-headed advice and reluctantly approves of Erica’s plan for the next day, urging extreme caution—the gangs of LA consider murder a participatory sport.
Erica gets up at five, does her Tae Kwon Do, dresses down, and heads out to Pacific Palisades. She found the Zimmers’ address online and she drives past it—the house is large, Spanish style, with a circular parking area in front. Erica parks around the corner where she is almost hidden but has a clear sight line to the house.
She sits and waits. After about ten minutes the front door opens and a boy and girl, around ten and twelve, come out, followed by Samantha. The kids have their backpacks and Samantha is carrying an insulated bag. They all get in a Lexus SUV and head out of the driveway. Erica pulls down her visor, turns the corner, and follows at a distance.
The SUV makes its way down Temescal Canyon Road to Route 1 and then turns south. Worried Samantha will see her in the rearview mirror, Erica lets a car get between them. The Lexus gets on the Santa Monica Freeway and heads east for about a mile, getting off at Exit 18. Erica follows for several blocks and then stops as the Lexus pulls up in front of the Crossroads School. The kids pile out and wave good-bye.
Erica follows as Samantha drives back to Route 1 and heads north. But she doesn’t turn onto Temescal Canyon Road—she keeps going for about a half mile before turning right onto Topanga Canyon Boulevard.
Driving up the canyon road is like entering another world, with tawny brown hills home to scrub oak, tall grasses, and bamboo—there are few houses, and the urban energy of Los Angeles seems to vaporize in the sweet-smelling air. Erica stays three cars behind Samantha as they drive the winding road deeper and deeper into the still canyon. The houses they pass are mostly older, fanciful, whimsical; many look benignly neglected. They pass a small village with a post office, some shops, a restaurant, a nursery. The people, young and old, mostly look like hippies, rich and otherwise; there is a lot of flowing hair and flowing clothes.
Just on the other side of the village, Samantha turns left onto Greenleaf Canyon Road and heads up into the hills. Civilization falls away, it feels like wilderness up here, the houses are scattered far and wide. No one would hear you scream. The road branches and Samantha bears left. Up ahead—set back from the road in a small field—there’s a collapsing stable, its last horses long gone. Samantha slows. Erica quickly veers off the road, onto a dirt track where she’s able to drive the car behind a copse of trees. She gets out and runs to the edge of the road in time to see Samantha get out of the Lexus, look around, reach into the car and grab the insulated bag, put it down behind a tree, and get back in the SUV. Erica falls to the ground in high grass and watches as the Lexus drives past her back down the hill.
She lies there, watching. After a minute, Miguel Fuentes pokes his head out of the stable and looks around. Confident that the coast is clear, he rushes across the field, grabs the insulated bag, and darts back to the stable.
Erica stands up, takes out her phone, and calls Greg. “Send the crew up to Greenleaf Canyon Road in Topanga. As fast as possible. And be ready to go live as soon as they get here.”
Erica wants to give her crew a head start, so she waits ten minutes before calling Betsy Takahashi and giving her the location of the fugitive.