James Patterson - 7th Heaven

“Jason Twilly just told me he knows who killed Michael Campion, Lindsay, but he wants me to think that he did it. That he killed Michael. Lindsay! Maybe he did .”

Twilly’s rented Mercedes was in her rearview mirror as Yuki circled the block. She ran a red light, took a sudden turn into an alley – and when she was sure she was no longer being followed, she parked in a fire zone outside the Hall.

She flashed her ID at the security guard, ran through the metal detectors, then took the stairs to the squad room on the third floor. She was panting when she found Lindsay waiting for her at the gate.

“Don’t worry,” Lindsay told her. “I’ve got your back.”

TWO HOURS after leaving the Hall of Justice, Yuki packed an overnight bag and headed out of town. She tried to shake the echo of Twilly’s voice as she drove over the Golden Gate Bridge toward Point Reyes.

Could Twilly really have killed Michael Campion? If so, why would he do it?

And why would he tell her ?

She turned on the radio, found a classical station, dialed it up loud, and the music filled the car and her mind. It was a beautiful afternoon. She was going to Rose Cottage, to walk in the surf and remember that she wasn’t a quitter.

That she wouldn’t quit on this .

As she got onto Highway 1, she let the incomparable beauty of the place take her over. She switched off the radio, buzzed down all the car windows so she could hear the thundering waves break over the huge rocks below her. Moist ocean air whipped her hair away from her eyes and brought blood into her cheeks. She looked out over the blue, blue sea that stretched out to the horizon – no, out to Japan – and she breathed in the fresh air, consciously exhaled, letting the tension go.

In the small town of Olema, she turned off Highway 1, passed the little shops at the intersection, and from there negotiated the back roads by memory. She glanced down at her new wristwatch. It was only two thirty in the afternoon, plenty of sunlight left in the day.

The sign spelling out ROSE COTTAGE ¼ MILE was almost hidden by the roadside flora, but Yuki caught it and made the turn through a forested glen and up an unpaved road that climbed the hillside. The rutted road became a driveway that looped in front of the manager’s cabin just ahead.

The manager, a tall, blond-haired woman named Paula Vaughan, welcomed Yuki back to Rose Cottage. They exchanged pleasantries as Vaughan ran Yuki’s credit card through the machine. And then the manager made the connection, saying, “I was just watching the news. Too bad you didn’t win.”

Yuki looked up, said, “You’ve got takeout menus, right? The Farm House does takeout?”

Minutes later, she opened the front door to Rose Cottage, dropped her bags in the larger of the two bedrooms, and opened the sliders to the deck. The Bear Valley hiking trail passed to the right of the cottage, climbed upward four hundred feet through a wooded area, opening at the top of a ridge to a brilliant ocean view.

She’d hiked this trail with Lindsay.

Yuki changed into jeans and hiking shoes. Then she unsnapped the locks on her briefcase, took out her new Smith amp; Wesson.357 handgun, slipped it into one pocket of her Windbreaker, put her cell phone in the other. But before she could leave for her nature walk, there was an insistent knock on the door.

And the booming in her chest started all over again.

JASON TWILLY WAS WEARING chinos and a navy blue sweater and had a leather bag hooked over his right shoulder. He looked handsome, urbane, as if he’d just stepped from the pages of Town amp; Country , and his crooked smile had lost its menace.

“What are you doing here, Jason?”

Yuki kept the door open about four inches, just enough to see and hear him. And she clamped her hand around the gun in her pocket, felt the power of that little weapon, knowing what it could do.

“Hey, you know, Yuki, if I didn’t like you so much, I’d be really hurt. I spend most of my life fending women off, and you keep slamming doors in my face.”

“How’d you find me?”

“I waited for you to leave your apartment and followed you. Wasn’t that hard. Look, I’m sorry I got rough this morning.” He sighed. “It’s just that I’m in trouble. I took a huge advance on this book and the money’s gone.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah. Sports betting. A little weakness of mine.” Twilly added a dash of boyish charm to his smile. “To be honest, it’s more than a little weakness – and it’s kind of snowballed lately. See, I’m telling you this so you understand. Really nasty people want their money back. And they don’t care if my book crashes.”

“Not my problem, Jason.”

“Wait. Wait. Just listen, okay? I can’t give back the advance, you understand, and I’ve got these debts . All I need is your feelings, your insight, your own true words – that’s where we’ll find a satisfying ending to the Michael Campion story.”

“Are you serious? After all the crap you’ve dished out? I have nothing to say to you, Jason.”

“Yuki, this isn’t personal. It’s business . I’m not going to touch you, okay? I need one crummy hour of your time, and you’re going to benefit. You’re the devoted prosecutor whose conviction was snatched from you by the little whore with a heart of stone. Yuki, you were robbed!”

“And if I don’t want to be interviewed?”

“Then I’ll have to write around you, and that’ll really suck. Don’t make me beg anymore, okay?”

Yuki took the gun out of her pocket. “This is a.357,” she said, showing it to him.

“So I see,” Twilly said, his smile becoming a grin, the grin turning into laughter. “This is priceless.”

“I’m glad you find me amusing.”

“Yuki, I’m a reporter, not a freaking mobster. No, this is good. Bring your gun. God knows I want you to feel safe with me. Okay if we go for a walk?”

“This way,” Yuki said.

She stepped outside and closed the door behind her.

YUKI KEPT HER HAND gripped around the gun in her pocket as she walked beside Twilly up the path through the woods. He did most of the talking, asking her opinion of the jury, of the defense counsel, of the verdict. For a moment she saw the charming man she’d been attracted to a few weeks ago – then she remembered who he really was.

“I think the verdict was completely off the wall,” Yuki said. “I don’t know what I could have done differently.”

“Not your fault, Yuki. Junie is innocent,” Twilly said amiably.

“Really? And you know she’s innocent how?”

They’d reached the ridgeline, where a rocky outcropping overlooked the best view of Kelham Beach and the Pacific Ocean. Twilly sat down on the rock, and Yuki sat a few feet away. Twilly opened his bag, took out two bottles of water, twisted off the cap of the first and handed the bottle to Yuki.

“Don’t you think it’s strange that there was no trace evidence at the so-called crime scene?” he asked her.

“Strange, but not impossible,” Yuki said, taking a deep chug-a-lug from the water bottle.

“That information that the police ‘developed.’ That was an anonymous caller, right?”

“How did you know that?”

“I was writing a book about Michael, Yuki. I followed him all the time. I followed Michael to Junie’s house that night. After Michael went into Junie’s house, I felt great. Michael Campion spent time with a hooker! Good meat for my story. I waited, and then I saw him leave – alive.