The Dirty Secrets Club

The Dirty Secrets Club Read Free

Book: The Dirty Secrets Club Read Free
Author: Meg Gardiner
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down the block, and back at her. "How will you explain that yours are?"
    She stopped dead on the sidewalk.
    He held the ball up. "Return it without getting prosecuted. I dare you."
    He turned, faced the jewelry store they were passing, and hurled the ball straight through its front window. Glass crashed. An alarm shrieked. He spun back around.
    "Have fun, Hardgirl."
    He took off down the street.
    2
    H eadlights, that's the first thing Pablo Cruz saw, high beams that flared in his rearview mirror. Taillights followed a finger snap later as the car veered around him, streak, boom, gone. He made it a BMW, screaming through the intersection at Van Ness and California. He made the speed ninety plus. He made the infraction Driving While Stupid, because the traffic lights were cherry-red, and his police car was black and white. Cruz lit up his light bar and rolled.
    Grabbing the radio, he raised the dispatcher. "In pursuit. Late-model BMW, dark blue or black."
    One a.m., empty street. The BMW was already a block ahead. Cruz laid on the power. His Crown Vic accelerated to keep it in sight, lapping up the asphalt.
    Why did the driver do it, blow straight past a police cruiser? Maybe high. Maybe throwing down a challenge. Maybe getting the hell out of town before another quake hit, like the one a few days back. Maybe fleeing the scene of a crime.
    California Street ran bone straight between darkened businesses and Victorian apartment buildings. Cruz held tight to the wheel, trying to make out the shape of the BMW, keeping the side streets peripherally in his vision. Taillights, low-profile—it was an M5, and it was not slowing down. He gave the siren a yowl. No response.
    The BMW skied up Nob Hill, slick as a hockey puck. Cruz roared after it, lifted over a ridge in the road at Leavenworth Street, and went high against the straps of his seat belt. Ahead, the M5 crested the rise and raced past Grace Cathedral at the top of Nob Hill. Cruz still had eighty yards to close on it.
    The M5 blew past the Mark Hopkins Hotel and reached the far side of the hilltop. For a second it looked airborne, before dropping out of sight for the long descent toward the Financial District. Cruz followed. At the cusp of the hill the city lights accosted him. Downtown spread out below, glitter-gold, a spill of lights that stopped at the dark shore of San Francisco Bay.
    Downhill the M5 slammed against the road, bottoming out. Sparks wheeled behind it. It raced toward another red light, ready to power straight through. From a side street a Volkswagen rolled into the intersection. The M5 slid into a left-hand turn, veered around the VW, and took the corner in a skid, brake lights tapping on and off, the driver keeping control and powering up again. Damn, the guy knew how to handle that car.
    Cruz had himself a full-blown car chase. His first ever.
    He turned on the siren and let it sing. He tightened his hands on the wheel. Ahead the BMW swung wide, onto the left side of the street past the cable car tracks, and its brake lights flashed. He was getting ready to turn right.
    The passenger door swung open. Oh boy, Cruz thought, here we go.
    What was he going to toss out, the cocaine or the slim jim he'd used to boost the car? Cruz kept the pedal down, eating up ground between them, teeth tight, breathing through his mouth. Hoping that wh at emerged from the M5 wasn't the barrel of a sawed-off.
    Hand on the door, a woman leaned out.
    Her arm was pale and slim. Her blond hair batted in the wind. She stared at the pavement that fled beneath her.
    "Jesus," Cruz said.
    She was trying to jump.
    Like yanking a chain, the driver jerked her back inside the car. The BMW skated around another corner, back end sliding out, driver handling the oversteer. The momentum of the turn slammed the passenger's door shut. Cruz's pulse kicked up another notch. That BMW was quick and agile, but head down these streets and the blocks got narrow; drive into Chinatown and the restaurants

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