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“Who the fuck are you?”
“LAPD. And you are under arrest for the murder of Colleen Hatteras, with many more charges to come.”
“Bullshit.”
“No, you’re bullshit, Bennett. You’re done. And you know what? She led me right to you. Colleen got you.”
Ballard stepped back behind his feet and pulled out her phone. She called Charlotte Goring’s cell and the detective answered with an accusation.
“You lied to me, Ballard.”
“Don’t worry about it. I just—”
“No, I’m worried about it. I just got a call from Chuck Pell and he said Hatteras’s computer was accessed yesterday at three fifty-five p.-fucking-m. You were in the office then, Ballard, and you told me you didn’t know the password.”
“Charlotte, listen to me. I just arrested Andrew Bennett. I’ve got the Glock and he literally just confessed. I need to transport him from Laguna to L.A. Do you want to come down and get him, or do you want to worry about what I said and did yesterday?”
There was no response at first. Ballard could tell Goring had covered the phone and was talking to someone, most likely her partner, Dubose. Then she finally came back to the call.
“Where exactly are you?” she asked.
“I’ll text you the address,” Ballard said.
Bennett raised his head off the floor and screamed.
“She said she’s going to kill me!”
Ballard stepped over, leaned down, and pulled the plastic band between his wrists up off his back, putting pain and stress into his shoulders. He lowered his head back to the floor.
“You shut the fuck up, Bennett, or I’m going to take your socks off and stick them down your throat. Got it?”
Bennett didn’t answer. She yanked on his arms again.
“Yes, I got it,” he said.
Ballard stood back up and spoke into the phone.
“Charlotte, are you there?”
“Ballard, we’re on our way. He’d better be alive when we get there.”
“Then don’t take too long.”
Ballard disconnected.
“Sounds like this isn’t going to go too well for you,” Bennett said.
“Maybe not,” Ballard said. “But it’s going to be far worse for you. You hear those waves out there? This is it. You’ll never hear or see or taste freedom again.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“Yeah, we will.”
Bennett went silent. Ballard texted the address to Goring. As she did so, she heard someone come in the front door. It was time for the open house to begin. She quickly grabbed more of the snap ties and used them to bind Bennett at the ankles, then pulled his feet up to hog-tie them to his wrists.
“Help,”he yelled.“Somebody call the police!”
Ballard jumped up and turned toward the hallway. A pair of prospective buyers stood there, eyes wide with shock. The man, the arms of a sweater tied around his neck, raised his hands.
