James Patterson - 7th Heaven

“Chuck? It’s Lindsay. Could those fires have been set with booze?”

THE SUN WENT DOWN and someone in the night crew snapped on the bright overhead lights. Rich and I were still wandering around in the dark. Somewhere, a very smug killer was having his dinner, toasting himself on his success, maybe planning another fire – and we didn’t know who he was or when he would strike again.

While Chi and McNeil reinterviewed the Malones’ and the Meachams’ friends and neighbors, Conklin and I sat at our desks, going over the murder book together. We reviewed Claire’s findings, the photos of rubberneckers at the fire scenes, the handwriting expert’s comparison of the inscriptions in each of the books left at the fire scenes, and the expert’s opinion: “I can’t say one hundred percent because it’s block lettering, but looks like all the samples were written by the same hand.”

We reviewed our own eyeball tours of the crime scenes, trying to reduce all of it to a few illuminating truths, speaking in the kind of shorthand that you use with a partner. And I felt that other connection, too, the one I wouldn’t let Rich mention but sometimes just arced across our desks. Like it was doing now.

I got up, went to the bathroom, washed my face, got a cup of coffee for me and one for Conklin, black, no sugar. Sat back down, said, “Now, where were we?”

As the night tour walked and talked around us, Rich ticked off on his fingers what we had: “The couples were all in their forties and well-to-do. The doors to all the houses were unlocked, and the alarms weren’t set. No sign of gunfire. The couples all had a child of college age. They were all robbed, but the killer took only jewelry and cash.”

“Okay, and here are a few suppositions,” I said. “The killer is smart enough and unthreatening enough to talk his way into the houses. And I’m going to also say that it seems probable that there were two assailants; one to tie up the victims, one to hold a gun.”

Rich nodded, said, “He or they used fishing line as ligatures because they’d burn off quickly in the fire. And they used an untraceable accelerant. That’s careful. They don’t leave evidence, and that’s smart.

“But I don’t think Molly Chu was in the plan,” Rich added. “This is the first time another person was in the house with the victims. I’m thinking Molly had already passed out from smoke inhalation when her ‘angel’ found her and subsequently carried her out. Kind of heroic, wouldn’t you say?”

“So maybe the killer thought she didn’t see him,” I said. “And so he felt safe carrying her out of the house. Yeah, I don’t think he wanted the little girl to die, hon.”

Rich looked up, grinned at me.

“I, uh. Didn’t mean – shit.”

“Forget it, babe,” said Conklin. “Means nothin’.” He grinned wider.

I said, “Shut up,” and threw a paper clip at his head. He snatched it out of the air and went on.

“So,” he said, “let’s say Molly saw one of the killers, okay? And let’s say he’s a college-age kid as Molly suggested. The Malones, the Meachams, the Chus, and that couple in Palo Alto, the Jablonskys – they all had kids in college. But their kids all went to different schools.”

“True,” I said. “But a kid, any kid, comes to the door and looks presentable, Mom and Dad might open it.

“Rich, maybe that’s the con . When I was in school, I was always bringing people home that my mom didn’t know. So, what if a couple of kids come to the door and say they’re friends with your kid?”

“That would be easy to fake,” Rich said. “Local newspapers do stories on kids at school. So-and-so’s daughter or son, attending such-and-such school won this-or-that award.”

Rich drummed his fingers on the desk, and I rested my chin in my hand. Instead of feeling on the brink of a breakthrough, it seemed that we’d just opened the field of potential suspects to every male college-age kid in California who knew high school Latin – and, by the way, was into robbery, torture, arson, and murder.

I thought about the puzzle pieces. Providence favoring the killers’ actions, and money being the root of all evil. There was the sci-fi book Fahrenheit 451 , and now a book about a high-placed fire official who’d set fires. When John Orr was caught, he’d said, “I was stupid, and I did what stupid people do.”

These killers weren’t making Orr’s mistakes.

They were going out of their way to show just how smart they were. Was saving Molly Chu their one miscalculation?

Rich’s phone rang and he swiveled his chair toward the wall. He lowered his voice and said, “We’re working on it, Kelly, right now. It’s all we’re doing. I promise, when we know something, I’ll call you. We won’t let you down.”

YUKI WAS AT the Whole Foods Market six blocks from her apartment, looking over the produce, thinking about a quick stir-fry for dinner, when she thought she glimpsed a familiar figure down the aisle. When she looked again, he was gone. She was hallucinating, she thought, so tired she could conjure up bogeymen anywhere. She dropped a head of broccoli into her cart and moved on toward the meat section.

There she selected a shrink-wrapped tray of tiger prawns -and got the feeling again that Jason Twilly was only yards away.

She looked up.

And there he was, dressed in navy blue pinstripes, pink shirt, wearing a full smirk and standing near the pile of frozen free-range turkeys. Twilly waggled his fingers but made no move toward her, though he didn’t turn away. He had no cart, no basket.

The bastard wasn’t shopping.

He was stalking her.

Yuki’s sudden fury gathered power and momentum, so that she saw only one possible course of action. She shoved her cart to the side of the aisle and marched toward Twilly, stopping a few feet from his sturdy English shoes.

“What are you doing here, Jason?” she said, stretching her neck to look up at his crazy-handsome face with the eight-hundred-dollar eyeglass frames and lopsided smile.

“Leave the groceries, Yuki,” he said. “Let me take you out to dinner. I promise I’ll behave. I just want to make up to you for our misunderstanding the last time -”

“I want to be very clear about this,” Yuki said, cutting him off, using her clipped, rapid-fire style. “Mistakes happen. Maybe the misunderstanding was my fault, and I’ve apologized. Again, I’m sorry it happened. But you have to understand. I’m not interested, Jason – in anyone. It’s all work, all the time, for me. I’m not available, okay? So please don’t follow me again.”

Jason’s odd, twisted smile blossomed into a full-blown laugh. “Nice speech,” he said, clapping his hands, an exaggerated round of mock applause.

Yuki felt a little shock of fear as she backed away. What was wrong with this guy? What was he capable of doing? She remembered Cindy’s warning to her to be careful of what she said around Twilly. Would he dirty her reputation when he wrote about the Junie Moon trial?

Whatever.

“Good-bye, Jason. Leave me alone. I mean it.”

“Hey, I’m writing a book, remember?” Twilly called out to her as she turned her back on him. She heard his voice as she pushed her cart down the aisle.

She wanted to hide. She wanted to disappear .

“You’re a key player , Yuki. Sorry if you don’t like it, but you’re the star of my whole freakin’ show .”

WE WERE GATHERED on the deck of Rose Cottage, outside of Point Reyes, feeling the blessed night breeze on our cheeks. Yuki flipped on the heater for the hot tub, while Claire tossed a giant salad and made burgers for the grill.