Faye Kellerman - Jupiter’s Bones

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in the United States by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers , 1999

This ebook edition published by HarperCollins Publishers 2019

Copyright © Faye Kellerman 1999

Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2018

Cover photography © Shutterstock.com

Faye Kellerman asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © March 2019 ISBN: 9780008293581

Version: 2018-12-07

For those who have made it worthwhile

to get up in the morning.

To Jesse for the projects and excitement.

To Rachel for the elegance and style.

To Ilana for the fun and games.

To Aliza for the snuggles and the warmth.

To Anne, my mother,

for the unconditional support.

To Barney, the suffering agent,

for the twenty-four-hour ear.

And to Jonathan—my partner in crime

as well as love.

Special thanks to

Special Agent Gayle Jacobs

for giving me a clue.

Any mistakes are mine, not hers.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Keep Reading

About the Author

Faye Kellerman booklist

About the Publisher

Because her recent days had been filled with scientific data and research, Europa had paused only for the most basic of human necessities—food, water, bathroom breaks. Her nights had been equally jammed as she tried desperately to play catch-up—exercising on the stationary cycle, calling friends and attempting a life. Time had taken on a pace as unstoppable as the biblical flood. The rushing tempo had given her sporadic anxiety attacks as well as migratory bouts of heart palpitation—unusual since she was in peak condition and excellent health. She’d probably live a long time, judging by her parents’ genetics. Her mother had been in her early sixties when she had died, but she had been a broken woman.

Unlike her father.

Her father. He’d be in his seventies. And like most narcissists, he’d probably be in wonderful health.

Or so she thought.

But no time for any musings. Her professional calendar had been too demanding.

Except there had been that recurring daydream, a fragment from her past, a sneaky little devil that kept insinuating itself into Europa’s brain when she least expected it.

A remembrance of things past, thank you, Proust.

Sitting by the lake, watching the water gently lap up on the shoreline. For her tenth birthday, her father had decided to take her camping—just the two of them, leaving her squalling younger brothers at home with Mom. Dad had taken her somewhere up in the San Bernardino Mountains. To this day, Europa wasn’t sure of the precise location, and after she had become estranged from her father, she hadn’t bothered to ask.

The moment to remember had been at night. Back then, the stars weren’t subjects of scientific scrutiny nor were they inanimate objects of cosmological theory. They were millions of diamonds set into a velvet sky. The moon had been out—a waning moon, Europa recalled that. Its beams had bounced and rolled along the caressing waves. They had just finished a trout dinner cooked on the campfire … roasted marshmallows for dessert. Snuggling under her sleeping blanket with her father by her side.

Just the two of them.

When her father had been the most important person in her life.

To help her fall asleep, he had told her stories, something he rarely did. Tales of evil empires in faraway places called black holes. There were also the heroic, fleet-footed knights of Quasar. And when demons of black holes tried to capture the knights of Quasar with their secret destructive weapon called gravity , the knights would turn themselves into invisible, weightless rays, and escape faster than the speed of light.

A fantastic story because her science teacher had told them that nothing traveled faster than the speed of light. And when she had mentioned that fact to her father, he had laughed, then kissed her cheek. The only time in her life when Europa remembered being the recipient of her father’s affection. Not that Dad had been overtly cruel, just inconsiderate. But mostly absent.

She thought of that night when she received the news—that her father was not only dead, but had died under suspicious circumstances.

“The thing is, they moved the body, Lieutenant.”

“What?” Decker strained to hear Oliver’s voice over the unmarked’s radio static. “Who’s they?”

“Whoever’s acting as the head honcho of the Order, I guess. Marge did manage to seal off the bedroom. That’s where Jupiter was found—”

“Could you talk up, Scott?”

“—point being that the crime scene is screwed up, and the body has been messed with because of the shrine.”

“Shrine?”

“Yeah. When we got here, the members were in the process of dressing him and constructing this shrine—”

“Where’s the body now?”

“In a small anteroom off some kind of church—”

Temple, Decker heard a male voice enunciate from the background. “Someone with you, Detective?”

“Hold on, lemme …”

Decker tapped the steering wheel until Scott came back on the line. It took a while.