James Patterson - 12th of Never

Fish was walking backwards, talking to me, telling me he was as surprised as we were that we hadn’t found Sandra. “I’m not so sure what I remember. You know, being in a coma for two years is a big deal. In fact, I’m not sure if I ever knew Sandra Brody or if I just got her name from you.”

He was screwing with my head.

I thought maybe God was messing with me, too.

BOOK IV

ECLIPSE

Chapter 68

PROFESSOR PERRY JUDD tried to make sense of the enormous black hole that had opened in front of him. It was like a portal ringed with light, a tunnel of some sort, and he was being pulled through it as if he were being drawn into an eclipse of the sun.

The image was stunning, and the feeling of effortless movement was heady. At the same time, the professor knew that what he was experiencing could not be real.

Either he was dead—or he was having a dream.

A dream.

That had to be it.

He had prepared himself for the possibility of a waking dream by marking an X on the back of his left hand before going to sleep. Now he held out his hands, palms facing away from him, and spread his fingers wide. The bluish light limned each of his fingers, and he could clearly see that there were no Xs, no marks of any kind on the backs of his hands.

He was almost certainly dreaming, but to be sure, he ran another reality check. This time he pushed two fingers of his left hand into the palm of his right.

The fingers went straight through his palm.

He had really done it. He was lucid, aware that he was inside a dream, and that meant that he had control of the story and the ending.

But first—where was he?

He was sure he had never been in this place before, but then the location came to him. This had to be the Aquarium of the Bay. He had seen a video of it on the Web. He had planned to take his nephew there one day.

The main feature of the aquarium was a moving walkway that went through a long glass tunnel, and the fish swam above and around the walkway.

The shapes he saw bobbing in the halo of light were sharks. Perry Judd didn’t feel that this was a dream about sharks. But he did sense danger.

He swung his head from side to side and took in the people who had appeared on the moving walkway with him. There was a girl traveling alone, and two young men talking to one another. Someone else had a camera and was angling for various shots of the sea creatures.

The professor was trying to memorize the sights around him when a sharp, cracking sound tore through his dream. It was a gunshot. He remembered that Sergeant Boxer had told him to look around, to grab the gun, and to remember who the shooter was.

Who had fired?

The professor was startled awake.

He blinked in the blue light of his digital clock, his heart fluttering fast against his ribs like a moth on a lightbulb. He double-checked to be sure. There was his TV. There was his painting of a church in Munich. There was the X on the back of his left hand.

Definitely, he was awake and at his own home.

Still, he was aware that something had happened—or was about to happen—in the Aquarium of the Bay. Trouble was, he had failed to see the shooter. Or had he? Maybe it was one of the people he had seen.

Judd turned on his bedside lamp and called the SFPD. It was only five thirty in the morning, but an operator answered the phone.

“I have to leave a message for Inspector Conklin,” he said. “Tell him I’ll be coming in to see him this morning.”

“Your name, sir?”

“This is Professor Perry Judd.”

“And your number, please.”

Judd gave his number to the operator, who said that she didn’t know what time Inspector Conklin would be coming to work, or if he was coming in at all.

“Tell him that I’ll be there. It cannot wait.”

Judd hung up the phone and closed his eyes. He wanted to fall asleep and find out what happened inside the aquarium. Three hours later, he took a cab to the Hall of Justice and pressed the elevator button that let him out on the third floor. He found the homicide squad assistant behind her desk and demanded to see Inspector Conklin.

“He’s expecting me,” said Professor Judd.

Chapter 69

THE LAST THING Judge Nussbaum had said before adjourning court for the weekend was “I can hardly wait until Monday, Mr. Kinsela, to see what you’ve got up your sleeve.”

Kinsela had laughed through his nose, and Keith Herman had nearly grinned his face off, but Yuki hadn’t been amused.

She had left the courtroom and gone directly upstairs, where she found Red Dog Parisi conferring with Chief Jacobi. She pulled a chair up to Parisi’s desk and the three of them discussed Lily Herman’s kidnapping, her mysterious return, and what effect the child’s reappearance might have had on the jury. They also reassured each other that the gun dealer’s recanting of his earlier testimony was meaningless.

The next day, Yuki, Nicky, Red Dog, and all the ADAs had gathered to pick their case apart and to critique the new structure of Yuki’s closing argument. They worked on Sunday, too, and even met again this morning to evaluate the media coverage and to incorporate last-minute thoughts.

The mind meld had been productive and Yuki was glad for the team’s support, but she was still uneasy.

Damage had been done. She’d told the jury in her opening statement that Keith Herman had killed two people, not one. And while the case was still about the murder of Jennifer Herman, Yuki knew that Kinsela had damaged her standing with the jury. And, by the way, he could slip another knife between her ribs before he was done.

There was only one witness on Kinsela’s list. It was another of the prosecution’s former witnesses—undercover cop Lieutenant Floyd Meserve.

Meserve was a good guy and a good cop.

Keith Herman had tried to hire Meserve to kill his wife and child. No question about it. Their interview had taken place in Meserve’s vehicle and had been recorded on video. The video had been shown to the jury. Keith Herman had told Meserve that he wanted Jennifer and Lily killed.

Now, as Yuki sat with Nicky at the defense table, waiting for court to reconvene, Yuki muttered to her associate, “How could Kinsela possibly use Meserve against us? How?”

The minute hand on the big clock moved. The bailiff announced that court was in session. The judge entered the courtroom and so did the jury. The judge banged the gavel, made some general remarks, then asked Kinsela if he was ready to begin.

Kinsela said, “Your Honor, we call Lieutenant Floyd Meserve.”

Meserve came through the front doors of the courtroom. He wore a cheap plaid sport jacket, a starched shirt, and a wide blue tie. His pants were shiny and so were his shoes. His ponytail had been hacked off—an amateur job, as if he had done it himself.

The lieutenant in charge of Crimes Against Persons looked pissed off as he was sworn in. He took his seat in the witness box and John Kinsela, appearing fresh and invigorated in a light gray suit and yellow tie, came toward him.

Yuki thought Kinsela definitely had something up his sleeve, but she couldn’t fathom what kind of something it could be.

Chapter 70

JOHN KINSELA GREETED his witness, Lieutenant Meserve, then asked him, “Are you familiar with Lynnette Lagrande?”

Meserve sat back in his chair and looked genuinely puzzled before he said, “I don’t understand what you mean by ‘familiar.’”

“Let me put it this way. Do you know Lynnette Lagrande?”

“Yes, I know her,” said the former undercover cop.

“How would you characterize your relationship with her?”