Mortal Faults Read Online Free PDF

merged with the flow of traffic and followed.
    She expected the Chevy to head for the San Diego Freeway, and she was right. The car took the northbound lanes, staying well within the speed limit. Abby hung back by several car lengths, allowing another vehicle or two to occupy the intervening space from time to time.
    Even at a distance, the Chevy wasn’t difficult to follow. Abby had taken the precaution of breaking its left taillight. She could hold the single taillight in view and be sure the target hadn’t been lost.
    Under other circumstances she might have risked following closer, but tonight there was the problem of her car. When on assignment, she ordinarily drove a beat-up Hyundai that she stored in a spare parking space in the Wilshire Royal’s underground garage. Today, not expecting to go undercover, she’d driven her Mazda Miata to the congressman’s office. It was a bright red, sporty little two-seater convertible, and even with the top up it stood out more than she would have liked.
    Most drivers would never notice a car behind them, no matter what the make or model. But something in this woman’s hunched shoulders and quick, frightened stride had suggested paranoia, and paranoia had a way of making people vigilant. Abby had dealt with plenty of paranoid types. There were lots of them—lonely people, prickly, insecure, alienated. She felt their nervous glances in supermarkets. She saw their pale faces in crowds. Sometimes she feared that her own face must look like theirs in her unguarded moments. How many Leon Trotmans could she get to know before she became one of them?
    The Chevy left Orange County and passed through the crowded confines of West L.A., then crossed into the San Fernando Valley, a grid of suburban streets lined with single-family homes. The Valley was an immense openness, flat, broad, sprawling to the far horizons. As was true of any large community, there were affluent sections and poorer spots. Judging by the age of the Chevy Malibu, Abby figured they weren’t heading for a high-rent district.
    The car kept going, into the northwest part of the Valley, which was dominated by aging industrial concerns. Finally the one working taillight began to pulse. The Chevy was taking the Mission San Fernando exit.
    On surface streets it passed through San Fernando, a small city carved out of county land. Traffic was light, and Abby stayed back, keeping the single taillight barely in view. Then the car turned down a side street, and she had a decision to make. If she followed, she might be spotted, but if she continued going straight, she might lose the target.
    She compromised, pulling onto the shoulder and slowing. By the time she took the corner, the Chevy was far ahead. It pulled into the driveway of a house and was illuminated by a light inside the carport. Abby killed her headlights and parked up the street, watching as the driver emerged.
    She wasn’t a blond anymore. She’d taken off the wig. Her hair was brownish, cut short, framing a square, pale face, a face with good bone structure half hidden in too much flesh. She would have been attractive when she was younger, but she’d let herself go. Abby put her age at fifty or thereabouts, but she moved with a curious stiffness, like a very old person—or like someone in pain.
    Abby started driving again and cruised past the house, noting the street number just as she’d noted the street name at the corner. Now she knew her quarry’s address—903 Keystone Drive.
    She made a U-turn in a cul-de-sac, then considered her options. The safest approach would be to go home, look up the address in a reverse directory, and see if the resident was Rose Moran. Then she could arrange one of those cute-meet situations she was so good at.
    The problem was, she was a little hyped up after the long tail job, and she wasn’t in the mood to do research. She was in the mood to get up close and personal, right now.
    Could be dangerous. Worse, it could be