James Patterson - 10th Anniversary

I had to remember that I wasn’t single anymore.

A moment later, my mind boomeranged back to Avis Richardson and her missing baby.

That child. That child. Where was that baby?

Was he lying in the cold grass? Or had he been stuffed in a suitcase and into the cargo hold of a ship?

I called Conklin’s cell at 7:30, and this time I got him.

“Avis Richardson goes to Brighton Academy. That’s one of those boarding schools where parents who live out of state park their kids.”

“It might explain why no one is looking for her,” Conklin said. “I was just talking with K-9. The hounds are going in circles. If Avis was transported from point A to point B by car, that would have broken the circular trail.”

“Crap,” I said. “So, she could have delivered the baby anywhere and then been dumped by the lake. No way to know where point A was.”

“That’s what I’m thinking,” he said.

“I’ll meet you at the hospital in fifteen minutes,” I said. “Avis Richardson’s memory is all we’ve got.”

When we got to Avis Richardson’s hospital room, it was empty, and so was her bed.

“What’s this now? Did she die? ” I asked my partner, my voice colored by unadulterated exasperation.

The nurse came in behind me on crepe-soled shoes. She was a tiny thing with very muscular arms and wild gray hair. I recognized her from the night before.

“It’s not my fault, Sergeant. I checked on Ms. Richardson, then went down the hall for a quarter of a minute,” said the nurse. “This girl of yours scampered when my back was turned. Appears she took some clothing from Mrs. Klein in the room next door. And then she must’ve just walked the hell out of here.”

AT 8:30 THAT MORNING, Yuki Castellano was sitting at the oak table in a small conference room in the DA’s Office on the eighth floor of the Hall.

Predictably, she was anxious.

Right now, she was running a low-grade anxiety that would heat up as it got closer to the actual start of the trial.

Today was a big day. And a lot was at stake.

She’d put in a year of work on this case, and it was all going to happen in less than half an hour. Court would convene. Dr. Candace Martin would go on trial for murder in the first degree, and Yuki was the prosecuting attorney.

Yuki knew every angle of this case, every witness, every crumb of physical and circumstantial evidence.

The defendant was guilty, and Yuki needed to convict her, for the sake of her reputation in the office and for her belief in herself.

Yuki was satisfied with the jury selection. The case folders stored on her laptop were in perfect order. She had exhibits in an accordion file, and a short stack of index cards to prompt her in case she got stuck while giving her opening statement.

She’d been practicing her opener for several days, rehearsing with her boss and several of her ADA colleagues. She’d rehearsed again with her deputy and second chair, Nick Gaines.

She had her opening statement down cold, and the case would simply flow from there.

Just then, Nick came into the conference room, bringing coffee for two, a smile on his face, his shaggy hair hanging over his collar.

“You look hot,” he said to her.

Yuki waved away the compliment. She was in what she called her “full-court dress”: a white button-down silk-blend shirt, her late mother’s pearls, a navy-blue pin-striped suit, and short stacked heels. One magenta streak blazed in her shoulder-length black hair.

“I want to look cool ,” she said. “Unflappable. Prepared. And I want to scare the snot out of the defense.”

Gaines laughed. And then Yuki did, too.

“What do you say, Nicky? Let’s get there early,” she said.

The two ADAs walked through the maze of cubicles out to the hallway. They got on the elevator and rode down to the third floor, where doors to the courtrooms lined both sides of the main corridor.

Yuki was inside her head, psyching herself up as she made this walk. She reminded herself that she was dedicated. She was smart. She was buttoned up to her chin and she knew what she was going to say.

And now for the hardest thing.

She had to kick doubt’s ass right out of her mind.

GAINES HELD THE DOOR for Yuki, then followed her into the wood-paneled courtroom. The defense table was empty. There were only half a dozen people in the gallery.

They settled in at the prosecutors’ table behind the bar. Yuki straightened her jacket and her hair and then squared her notebook computer with the edge of the table.

“If I get stuck, just smile at me,” Yuki said to her second chair.

Gaines grinned, gave her a thumbs-up, and said, “You’ve heard of Cool Hand Luke? When you see this, it means Cool Hand Yuki.”

“Thanks, Nicky.”

Yuki was always prepared, but she’d lost a number of cases she had been favored to win. And that losing streak had taken a bite out of her confidence. She’d won her last case, but her opponent had given her a parting shot that still stung.

“What’s that, Yuki?” the jerk had said. “Your first win in how long?”

Now she was going up against Philip Hoffman, and she’d lost to him before. Hoffman was no jerk. In fact, he was a gentleman. He wasn’t theatrical. He wasn’t snide. He was a serious dude, partner in a law firm of the highest order, and he specialized in criminal defense of the wealthy.

Hoffman’s client, Dr. Candace Martin, was a well-known heart surgeon who’d killed her philandering louse of a husband.

Candace Martin was pleading not guilty. She said she didn’t kill Dennis Martin, but that was a monumental lie. There was enough evidence to convict her a few times over. And yes, the People even had the smoking gun.

Yuki’s nervousness faded.

She knew her stuff. And she had the evidence to prove it.

CINDY THOMAS was one of two dozen people in the editorial meeting in the big conference room at the San Francisco Chronicle . The meeting had started an hour ago and it looked as though it could go on for another hour.

Used to be that these meetings were collegial and fun, with people making cracks and busting chops, but ever since the economic downturn and the free-and-easy access to the Internet as a news source, editorial meetings had a scary subtext.

Who would keep their job?

Who would be doing the job of two people?

And could the paper stay in business for another year?

There was a new gunslinger in town: Lisa Greening, who had come in as managing editor under the publisher. Lisa had eight years of management experience, two years at the New York Times , three at the Chicago Tribune , and three at the L.A. Times .

Her claim to fame had been an investigative report for the latter on the PC Killer, a smooth con man with a foot fetish who’d terrorized the Pacific Coast, luring women, killing them, and keeping their feet in his freezer as trophies.

Greening had won a Pulitzer for that story and had parlayed it into her new post at the Chronicle .

Since Cindy was the Chronicle’s crime desk reporter, she felt particularly vulnerable. Lisa Greening knew the crime beat as well as Cindy did — probably better — and if she failed to live up to a very high standard, Cindy knew she could become a budget cut. Greening would pick up her territory, and Cindy would become a freelancer working for scraps.

Half the editors in the room had given status reports, and Abadaya Premawardena, the travel editor, was up.

Prem was talking about cruise ship packages and discounts on Fiji and Samoa when Cindy got up and went to the back of the room and refilled her mug at the coffee urn.