James Patterson - 7th Heaven

I went back in for a second look and this time saw a bit of fire-blackened ribbon trailing out from the pages. Using the pen again, I opened the Bible to the bookmark. Matthew 3:11.

A few lines of text had been underlined in ink.

My cheek was nearly resting on the victim’s parched and naked bones as I read the underlined words out loud.

“I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”

CONKLIN GRUNTED, said, “Purification by fire. It’s a major biblical theme.”

Just then the garage door opened behind us and I turned to see a chic forty-something woman wearing a business suit limned in the sunlight behind her. Her face was stretched in anger and fear.

“I’m Alicia Beam. Who’s in charge here?”

“I’m Paul Arcario,” the sheriff said to her, stretching out his hand. “We spoke earlier. Why don’t we go outside and talk?”

Mrs. Beam pushed past him to the van, and although Conklin put an arm out to stop her, it was too late. The woman stared, then shrank away, screaming, “ Oh, my God! Alan! What happened to you ?”

Then she snapped her head around and locked her eyes on me .

“Where’s Valerie? Where’s my daughter ?”

I introduced myself, told Mrs. Beam that she had to leave the garage, and that I would come with her. She became compliant as soon as I put my hand on the small of her back, and we walked together out of the garage to the front of the house.

“It’s my daughter’s weekend with her father,” she said.

She opened the front door, and as she stepped over the threshold, she broke away from me, running through the rooms, calling her daughter’s name.

“Valerie! Val . Where are you?”

I followed behind her, and when she stopped she said to me, “Maybe Val spent the night with a friend.”

The look of sheer hope on her face pulled at my heart and my conscience. Was that her daughter in the body bag? I didn’t know, and if it was, it was not my job to tell her. Right now I had to learn whatever I could about Alan Beam.

“Let’s just talk for a few minutes,” I said.

We took seats at a pine farm table in the kitchen, and Alicia Beam told me that her marriage of twenty years to Alan had been dissolved a year before.

“Alan has been depressed for years,” Alicia told me. “He felt that his whole life had been about money. That he’d neglected his family and God. He became very religious, very repentant, and he said that there wasn’t enough time…”

Alicia Beam stopped in midsentence. I followed her eyes to the counter, where an unfolded sheet of blue paper was lying beside an envelope.

“Maybe that’s a note from Val.”

She stood and walked to the counter, picked up the letter, began to read.

“Dear Val, my dearest girl. Please forgive me. I just couldn’t take it any longer…”

She looked up, said to me, “This is from Alan .”

I turned as Hanni leaned through the doorway and asked me to step outside.

“Lindsay,” he said. “A neighbor found a message from Alan Beam on her answering machine saying he was sorry and good-bye.”

It was all coming clear, why there were no Latin come-ons. No fishing-line ligatures. And the victims were not a married couple.

Pidge hadn’t done this.

Pidge had nothing to do with these deaths. Any hope I had of tripping him up, finding a clue to his whereabouts, was dead – as dead as the man in the car.

“Alan Beam committed suicide,” I said.

Hanni nodded. “We’ll treat it as a homicide until we’re sure, but according to this neighbor, Beam had attempted suicide before. She said he was terminal. Lung cancer.”

“And so he chained himself to the steering wheel and set himself on fire ?”

“I guess he wanted to make sure he didn’t change his mind this time. But whatever his reason,” said Hanni, “it looks to me now like his daughter tried to save him – but she never had a chance.

“The poisonous gas and the superheated air brought her down.”

BY THE TIME I got home that evening, I had too much to tell Joe and hoped I could stay awake long enough to tell him. He was in the kitchen, wearing running shorts and a T-shirt, what he wore when he went for a run with Martha. He was holding a wineglass, and from the scrumptious smell of garlic and oregano, it seemed he’d cooked dinner, too.

But the look on Joe’s face stopped me before I could reach him.

“Joe, I was at the hospital all night -”

“Jacobi told me. If I hadn’t found wet footsteps on the bathmat this morning, I wouldn’t have even known you’d been home.”

“You were sleeping, Joe, and I only had a few minutes. And is this a house rule? That I have to check in?” I said.

“You call it checking in. I call it being thoughtful. Thinking of me and that I might worry about you .”

I hadn’t called him. Why hadn’t I called?

“I’m drinking merlot,” he said.

Joe and I rarely fought, and I got that sickening gut-feel that told me that I was in the wrong.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You’re totally right, Joe. I should have let you know where I was.” I walked over to him, put my arms around his waist – but he pulled away from me.

“No flirting, Blondie. I’m steamed.”

He handed me a glass of wine and I took it, saying, “Joe, I said I’m sorry, and I am!”

“You know what?” he said. Martha whimpered and trotted out of the room. “I saw more of you when I lived in DC.”

“Joe, that’s not true.”

“So, I’m going to ask you flat out, Lindsay. One question. And I want the truth.”

I thought, No, please, please don’t ask me if I really want to marry you, please don’t. I’m not ready . I looked into the storm raging in Joe’s deep blue eyes.

“I want to know about you and Conklin. What’s going on?”

I was flabbergasted.

“You think I’m – Joe, you can’t think that !”

“Look. I spent an hour with the two of you. You’ve got a little something special going on between you, and please don’t tell me you’re partners.

“I worked with you once, Lindsay,” Joe went on. “ We were partners. And now, here we are.”

I opened my mouth, closed it without speaking. I felt so guilty I couldn’t even act offended. Joe was right about everything. That Rich and I had a special feeling for each other, that I was neglecting Joe, that the time we spent together was more focused on each other when Joe lived a couple of time zones away than it was now.

Once Joe had made the commitment to move to San Francisco, he’d been mine, mine, totally mine. And I’d taken him for granted. I was wrong. And I had to admit it. But my throat was backed up with tears. This was the very thing that broke up cop marriages.

The Job. The obsession and commitment to the Job.

That’s what this was about – wasn’t it?

I felt sick with shame. I never wanted to make Joe feel bad, never wanted to hurt him at all. I set my glass down on the counter and took Joe’s glass out of his hand, put that glass down, too.

“There’s nothing going on, Joe. It’s just the Job.”

He looked into my eyes, and it was as though he was patting down my brain. He knew me that well.

“Give the sauce a stir in a couple of minutes, okay, Linds? I’m going to take a shower.”

I stood up on my toes and wrapped my arms around Joe’s neck, held on to the man I thought of as my future husband, pressed my cheek to his. I wanted him to hold me. And finally he did. He closed his arms around my waist and pulled me tight against him.