James Patterson - The 9th Judgment

Behind her locked bedroom door, Sarah Wells became mesmerized by the gorgeous refracting light.

SARAH WELLS WASN’T the first cat burglar to do break-ins while dinner was on the table. She’d studied the greats, the Dinnertime Burglar and the Dinner Set Gang. Between them, they’d scored tens of millions in jewels using simple no-tech tools while their victims lingered over coffee and dessert on the floor below. Like her role models, Sarah thoroughly researched her intended targets and studied their movements. But with all the news about Hello Kitty, she marveled at how her victims felt so secure with the lights on that they didn’t set their security alarms.

Their magical thinking was just amazing. And woo-hoo for that.

As Sarah gloried in the Dowlings’ former riches, one special item reached out to her and hooked her in. It was a ring with a really large, pale-yellow stone, maybe twenty karats, cushion-cut and anchored in a thoroughly gaudy setting.

She took a rough count of the pavé jewels surrounding the center stone and tallied 120 little diamonds.

What a ring!

This thing was a frickin’ gasper. It just shrieked romance. Marcus Dowling had undoubtedly given this ring to his wife for some special occasion, and now Sarah wondered what it could be worth.

She had learned a lot about precious stones since she’d started moonlighting as a cat burglar, but she wasn’t a true gemologist and was really curious to know what she had.

She stashed the rest of the Dowling loot and her bag of tools into the bottom drawer of the dresser, put back the false lid, and piled her clothes on top of it. Then she shut the drawer and fished a pictorial guide to gemstones out from under the armoire, taking it with her into the double bed.

Paging through the book, she found a couple of matches to the stone. Possibly the ring was a topaz or a yellow tourmaline. No-there was a hint of green in Casey Dowling’s big, yellow stone. Which probably made it a citrine, a flashy but not supervaluable stone. That was even more reason Sarah wanted to keep this ring.

While she knew that holding on to stolen merchandise could be a terrible mistake, she had to find a way to keep this one thing. She wanted more than a souvenir. She wanted a trophy. A reward. And now she was thinking that the thing to do was to have the yellow stone reset as a pendant.

She remembered something her grandmother had said to her mother, who had said it to her: “On some people, rhinestones look like diamonds. On others, diamonds look like rhinestones.”

Sarah thought that, on her-with her T.J. Maxx wardrobe and plain looks-citrine would look like glass. She stood in front of the mirror and held the yellow stone to her black turtleneck, just under her collarbone.

It looked much smaller when it wasn’t a ring.

She was sure that, once reset, this stone would keep her secret. As Sarah stared at herself in the mirror, there was a loud knock on the door. It was her husband, Trevor.

“Why is the door locked, missy? What are you doing? Having fun with yourself?”

“You could say that,” Sarah said.

“Let me in.”

“No.”

“Let me in!”

Sarah put the ring under the hollowed-out base of the lamp on her night table.

“Go to hell!” she shouted.

He was shaking the door, kicking at it. Sarah went over and unlocked it. Just another day, she thought as she let Trevor into the bedroom. Just another day in the secret life of Sarah Wells.

SARAH SLAMMED THE front door of her apartment and marched out to the car thinking about frickin’ Trevor, who had begged her, “Wait just another minute.” Only it was an unbearable twenty minutes under his fat, nasty body, and now she was borderline late to work-again.

Sarah headed her Saturn onto Delores Street and got onto the freeway, making up lost time. She switched on the radio and found “ Good Morning with Lisa Kerz and Rosemary Van Buren, the place for traffic, weather, and local news.”

Lisa Kerz was saying, “Rosemary, this is the latest on Casey Dowling, who we’ve just learned was shot last night.”

Shot. What was that? Sarah gripped the wheel.

“Do the police have a lead on who killed her?” Van Buren asked.

Killed her?

Sarah’s heart thundered in her chest. What kind of lie was this? Casey Dowling was alive and screaming when she had escaped from the Dowling house.

Casey had been alive.

“No, this is about Marcus Dowling,” said Kerz. “Breaking news. Mr. Dowling’s lawyer, Tony Peyser, made a statement ten minutes ago-”

Sarah stared at the radio as if it were a person, listening to Lisa Kerz saying that Mr. Dowling’s lawyer had gone live on KQED asking for help from the people of San Francisco. She ripped her eyes back to the road just in time to miss the guardrail.

“Okay, now here’s the statement, hot off the wire,” Van Buren added. “Says here, quoting Mr. Peyser, ‘Mr. Dowling is offering a fifty-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to the arrest of whoever killed Casey Dowling.’”

Sarah saw her exit ramp rushing toward the car, jerked the steering wheel without signaling, and left rubber on the roadway as she made the turn. Once off the freeway, she drove without seeing, eventually finding herself in the parking lot at Booker T. Washington High.

Sarah shut off the car, grabbed her backpack, and headed through the red iron gates and into the main building, entering the teacher’s lounge for her customary pick-me-up before facing the day.

The bell had rung. The lounge was nearly empty except for one person: Heidi Meyer, who was standing by the coffee machine, stirring her cup. Sarah called out, “Hey, Heidi.”

“Hey, yourself. Whoa. You okay, Sarah?”

“Bah. Trevor’s a bastard. Heard enough?”

Heidi put down her cup and opened her arms to give Sarah a hug. Sarah walked into the embrace and was enveloped by the scent of lilacs. She buried her face in the soft cloud of Heidi’s red hair and just held on.

Could Heidi hear her blood roaring? God. The implications of what she’d just heard were inescapable. The police would be seriously focused on finding Sarah, and they’d be looking to charge her for killing Casey Dowling. That was just insane.

“We’re late to class,” Heidi said, rubbing Sarah’s back, “and the monsters will be revolting.”

“As always.” Sarah laughed.

Heidi gave Sarah a peck on the lips-and Sarah kissed Heidi back, but harder and with feeling, Heidi’s sweet mouth opening under hers as Sarah put her whole heart into it.

If only she could tell Heidi everything.

THE MORNING AFTER their murders, Barbara Ann and Darren Benton, along with Casey Dowling, were chilling in the morgue while Conklin and I stared at each other across our overloaded desks, not knowing whether to spit or go blind.

We were working the Dowling case because Jacobi had been absolutely clear when he said, “Dowling trumps Benton. Dowling trumps everything.” Because Casey Dowling was a high-profile victim and the Bentons were not.

I told Jacobi that the lunatic killer who’d left a message in the Bentons’ RAV4 made me feel like I’d put my finger in a live electric socket. That I was sure their killer was signaling a pattern in the making. That Conklin and I should be on the Benton case now, full-time.

Jacobi showed me his palms. What do you want from me? No manpower. No budget. I want to keep my job. Do what I tell you.

Conklin looked fresh, his brown eyes sparkling in the gloom of the bull pen, his shining brown hair falling across his forehead as we studied Stolen Property’s case notes on Hello Kitty and scoured crime scene photos of the Dowlings’ master bedroom.