James Patterson - 11th hour

After that, Yuki and I sat together surrounded by Homicide cops who had come to show support for Brady. Lieutenant Meile arrived in street clothes and apologized to me in front of a packed waiting room.

“I’m sorry for the things I said to you, Sergeant. And I’m sorry for a few things you didn’t hear me say. I’m a dumbass, but I believed in Will Randall’s innocence. He’d better not die before he tells me what the hell he was thinking. Damn him. I have to know.”

I wasn’t thinking about Randall.

I sat close to Yuki, thought about Brady, and revisited some pretty deep memories of the months I’d known him.

The first time I saw Brady was his first day with Homicide. I’d noticed the hard-eyed, suntanned looker who was sitting in a folding chair at the back of the squad room.

I got up and gave an update on a case I was working. It was a bad one: a madman had just shot a mother and her little kid and had left a cryptic message behind.

I was almost nowhere on the case, but I presented what I had with confidence.

When the meeting was over, Brady introduced himself, said he was transferring to our squad from Miami PD. Then he told me that what impressed him about my presentation was that I was sucking swamp water.

His blunt assessment didn’t endear him to me, but days later, there was a standoff in front of the madman’s house. A bomb went off, a diversion, and the madman made it to his car. Brady stepped in front of the car and emptied his gun into the windshield in an attempt to bring the bad guy down.

I had been impressed with his bravery.

But I still didn’t like him.

When Brady started dating Yuki, I was shocked and I was worried. Yuki’s a fighter, don’t get me wrong, but she’s got terrible judgment when it comes to men, and I couldn’t see her with a badass cop like Brady.

I thought he would hurt her; I really did.

Then I saw them together.

I pictured them now at a lawn party, first tossing footballs, then Brady carrying Yuki around slung over his shoulder. He was sweet with her. And she made him laugh. They brought out the best in each other and that counted in his favor.

I hadn’t forgotten that he was only legally separated from his wife, who still lived in the Sunshine State. I hadn’t forgotten that he was my superior officer or that I didn’t like his rough management style.

And I certainly hadn’t forgotten that he’d accused Warren Jacobi of being Revenge. He was going to have to take that back for sure. I hoped to hell he lived to do it.

I looked up when Dr. Boyd Miller came into the hallway outside the waiting room. He was thirty, bald, thin-lipped. He did not look warm and fuzzy. He did not look like he was bringing good news.

“Is Mrs. Brady here?” he asked.

“I’m his girlfriend,” Yuki said. “He’s with me.”

“He’s my commanding officer,” I said. “I was on the scene when he was shot. What’s his condition?”

I expected that Miller was going to say that he could speak only to Brady’s immediate family. I didn’t think either Yuki or I could handle that.

“We successfully repaired the damage to his femoral artery,” he said. “His lung is going to be fine. He has two broken ribs and there’s not much we can do about that. He’s on his way to the ICU now. I’m optimistic,” Dr. Miller said. “But officially his condition is guarded.”

“Can I see him?” Yuki asked. “I have to see him.”

“Not yet. I’ll let you know when it’s okay.”

It was just about five in the morning when Yuki was told she could look at Brady through the glass.

When she came back to the waiting room, her expression was soft. She sat down next to me, squeezed my hand.

“He’s going to be all right,” Yuki said. “My mom told me that he’s going to be fine. And she likes him now. She said, ‘Brady very good man.’”

I nodded, said, “That’s great.”

I had to accept that Yuki thought that her dead mother spoke to her. Maybe she did.

“I think your mom is usually right,” I said.

“Good, because she also said that you should go home now, Lindsay, and get some sleep.”

Claire turned her car into the lot on Harriet Street, parked in the space with her name stenciled on the asphalt. It was after ten in the morning, the first time in a year that she’d been late for work.

The reception room of the Medical Examiner’s Office was churning; the new girl with big brown eyes was at the desk juggling the constantly ringing phones. Messengers came and went. Cops milled around, waiting for bullets and other forensic material to take out to the lab.

Claire waved at the receptionist, went through the glass door to her office, hung her coat and voluminous bag on a rack in the corner, and sat down at her desk.

She was dialing Lindsay when the brown-eyed girl knocked on the door and opened it. She came toward Claire with a flat package in her hands.

“This just came, Dr. Washburn. It’s marked urgent.”

Claire took the package, looked at the return address. It was from Ann Perlmutter, the forensic anthropologist at UC Santa Cruz.

Claire sliced open the package with a scalpel and found six disks, each in its own case. And there was a letter from Dr. Perlmutter.

Sorry this took so long, Claire. Call me if you have questions. Ann

Claire inserted one of the disks into her computer’s DVD drive. A picture of a woman appeared on the screen, so lifelike it could have been a photograph — but it was a computer-generated 3D facial reconstruction of one of the skulls from the Ellsworth compound case.

This 3D-imaging technique was a kind of miracle, and Claire knew how much time, skill, and artistry had gone into creating this likeness.

A 3D representation had been made of each skull by a laser scanner that utilized light, mirrors, and sensors to capture the image and generate a wire-frame matrix. Information from CT scans of living persons was added, and the sophisticated software program distorted reference points on the 3D skull to correspond with points on a reference CT scan, creating a facial shape for each skull.

The six bare skulls that had been exhumed from the Ellsworth garden had faces now. These representations could not be 100 percent accurate — but they would be close.

The face on Claire’s screen had been labeled JANE DOE EC 1. The woman had rounded eyes, a wide forehead, a small nose, and long, wavy hair.

In real life, Jane Doe EC 1 had had a family, and soon, Claire hoped, she would have a name.

Dr. Andrea Shaw came to the waiting room just before the sun came up. She was a small woman with a sweet expression and wavy silver hair.

She said to Yuki, “Jackson is going to be okay. He’s asking for you.”

Yuki’s face brightened. It was as if all the stars had come out at once and the sun and moon had done the tango together just for her.

She hugged the doctor almost off her feet, then she hugged me, making tears jump out of my eyes.

“Go to him. Go,” I said.

A few hours and a change of clothes later, I was at my desk in the Homicide squad room. I would be subbing for Brady until he was back on the job. All the phone lines were ringing at once, but when I saw Claire’s name come up on the caller ID, I stabbed the button, didn’t wait for her to say hello.

“Brady’s condition is stable,” I told her. “Randall is still critical. No change.”

“Man, that’s great news about Brady. Listen, I’ve got something for you, girlfriend. I’ve got faces on those heads from the trophy garden.”

The wind went right out of me.

I blinked stupidly long enough for Claire to repeat herself, and then I got it. Ann Perlmutter had done the facial reconstructions. With faces, we might be able to ID the Ellsworth compound skulls.