James Patterson - Postcard killers

She took a great leap into his arms, holding him t ight, tight, tight, as though she never meant to let go, kissing him hard and letting her hands roam inside his checkered flannel shirt.

"Dessie," Jacob whispered into her hair. "We're standing in the stairwel and you're not wearing any clothes."

Her towel had fal en to the floor. She kicked it into the apartment and pul ed him into the front hal way. The dirty duffel bag ended up under the telephone table, his jeans by the door, his shirt and T-shirt by the radiator.

They made it as far as the door to the living room before they col apsed to the floor. She fel into his bright blue eyes and felt him pushing inside her. The world spun and she closed her eyes, straining her head back against the wooden floor when she came.

"Jeezuz," Jacob said. "I guess that means you're happy to see me!"

"Just you wait," she said, nipping his earlobe with her teeth.

They stumbled into the bedroom. Dessie pushed him onto the bed and began to explore every inch of his body. She used her fingers, hair, and tongue, tasting and licking and caressing.

"Oh, god!" he panted. "What are you doing to me?"

"I'm just happy to see you," Dessie said. "What are you doing to me?"

Then she sat astride him.

She moved gently above him, deep and intense, forcing him to calm down, slow down. It gave her a chance to catch up, and when she felt the rush coming, she let go completely. He seemed to lose several seconds when he came, but she forced him to continue for another minute or so until she came as wel.

Then she fel into his arms and passed out.

Dessie opened her eyes and looked deep into his bright blue ones. They crackled with a warmth that left her breathless. And more confused than ever.

"You're here," she whispered. "It wasn't a dream. I'm so glad. I'm happy."

He laughed. His teeth were white, a bit crooked. His hair was sweaty, sticking out in every direction. He sank back down on the bed and pul ed her to him.

"Why did you come back?" she asked.

He kissed her and then grew suddenly serious.

"Several reasons," he said. "You were the most important one."

She hit him playful y on the shoulder with her fist.

"Liar," she said.

"How did you make out in Denmark and Norway?" he asked.

She told him about the grotesque murders in the hotel in Copenhagen, about the mutilation of the bodies and the fact that the woman had probably been raped. They had found bruises and scratches on the inside of her thighs, and the semen in her vagina wasn't her husband's. It didn't seem to her like the Rudolphs' work.

She went on to tel him about the motor home death scene at the campsite outside Oslo, how neither the bodies nor the letters had been discovered because the reporter had been on vacation, and how the bodies had been arranged to look like Munch's The Scream.

"How did you get on in America?" she asked.

He gave her a summary of his investigations, tel ing her that the Rudolphs came from an extremely privileged background. That Sylvia had found their parents murdered when she was thirteen years old. That their guardian, Jonathan Blython, had embezzled their inheritance and been found dead with his throat cut. That Mac's girlfriend Sandra Schulman – whom Sylvia was jealous of – had disappeared after a visit to the Rudolphs' home. That the twins had set up an experimental art group, the Society of Limitless Art, and been expel ed from UCLA because of a public act of incest.

"A public act of incest?" Dessie said.

"They cal ed the work Taboo. The two of them made love in an exhibition hal."

"They real y are mad," Dessie said, pul ing him to her once more.

Afterward, they sat in bed and ate an improvised lunch. Jacob was finishing one of her microwaved vegetarian lasagnas.

Dessie had taken her laptop back to bed and was reading Aftonposten's report of the deal that the lawyer, Andrea Friederichs, had negotiated for the rights to Sylvia and Malcolm's story.

"An advance of three and a half mil ion dol ars," she read, "plus royalties and even more money for the subsidiary sale of the book rights. And get this – the lawyer has decided not to charge for her services. She only represented them because it was the right thing to do, she says."

"Are they stil at the Grand?"

She clicked further on the site and looked at her watch.

"According to Alexander Andersson's blog, they checked out half an hour 157 ago. They left through the back door to avoid the media scrum outside the main entrance."

Jacob threw off the covers, leapt out of bed, and disappeared into the kitchen.

Dessie looked after him in surprise.

"There's nothing that links them to the murders," she cal ed into the kitchen. "Jacob? They're free to come and go as they like."

She heard the kettle boil.

The next minute he was standing in the doorway with a mug of coffee in each hand. His face was as dark as a thundercloud.

"It was them," he said. "I know it was. We can't let them go free."

"But there's stil no evidence," Dessie said glumly. "We can't prove a damn thing."

He handed her a mug.

"Their gear must be somewhere. The eyedrops, the outfit he was wearing when he emptied those accounts, the things they've stolen and not managed to get rid of. And the murder weapon…"

"Exactly," Dessie said. "That could be in any rubbish bin, and do you know why? Because I told them in that bloody letter that they were about to get caught. I gave them time to clean up."

Jacob stopped beside the bed and looked at her.

"There was nothing wrong with that letter. You were doing the right thing when you wrote it. You were very brave."

"Was I?" Dessie said. "What did it actual y achieve? Apart from warning the Rudolphs and making a fool of me in front of every proper journalist in Sweden."

He walked angrily across the bedroom floor, turned, and came back.

"They didn't throw their stuff away," he said, "not al of it, anyway. Most serial kil ers keep trophies. They would have chosen a hiding place as soon as they got to Stockholm. It's entirely possible that it's al stil there. I think that it's even likely."

He stopped midstride.

"The little key!" he said.

Dessie blinked.

"What?"

He reached across Dessie and her computer to grab her cel phone from the bedside table.

"What's going on?"

"At the bottom of page three of the official report, there's something about a key. My FBI friend noticed it. I can't help hoping it belongs to some left-luggage locker in Stockholm."

Gabriella sighed heavily into the phone.

"Of course we looked at the key," she said. "There was nothing to indicate that it actual y belonged to the Rudolphs."

Jacob realized he was grinding his teeth again. This could be the second big error by the police in Stockholm. "What do you base that on?"

"It was in the toilet cistern in the hotel room. It could have been there for weeks. Who knows for how long?"

Jacob had to stop himself from slamming the phone against the bedroom wal. You didn't have to be an expert to know that water cisterns were a favorite hiding place for lots of people, and especial y criminals in a new city.

Christ!

"The key belongs to them!" he said. "It fits a locker, a postal box, or some other form of lockable space. And I hope that's where you'l find al the evidence. Please get on it immediately."

"The Rudolphs have been ruled out of the investigation," Gabriel a said curtly, then hung up.

Dessie took her cel phone away from him before he smashed it against the head of the bed.

Jacob col apsed onto the bed, al his energy gone, his patience, too. He'd flown across the Atlantic twice within a week, and by now his body clock had practical y lost track of what century it was.