Patterson, James - Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July

His breathing quickened as he took the narrow footpath alongside the O’Malleys’ house. Then he stooped at one of the basement window wells, stretched latex gloves over his hands, and used a glass cutter and a suction cup to remove a twenty-four-by-twenty-inch pane of glass.

He froze, waiting out the yipping of a neighbor’s dog, then slipped feet first down into the basement.

He was in. Not a problem.

The basement stairs led up to an unlocked door to a kitchen filled with deluxe appliances and a ridiculous excess of gadgets. The Watcher noted the alarm code posted by the phone. Committed it to memory.

Thanks, Doc. You dummy.

He took out his small, excellent camera, preset to shoot in bursts of three consecutive shots, and pointed it around all sides of the room. Zzzt-zzzt-zzzt. Zzzt-zzzt-zzzt.

The Watcher bounded up the stairs and found a bedroom door wide open. He stood for a moment in the doorway, taking in all the girly things: the four-poster bed, ruffles in lavender blue and creamy pink. Posters of Creed and endangered wildlife.

Caitlin, Caitlin . . . what a sweet girl you are.

He pointed the camera at her vanity table, zzzt-zzzt-zzzt, capturing images of lipsticks and perfume bottles, the open box of tampons. He sniffed the girly scents, ran his thumb across her hairbrush, pocketed a long strand of red gold hair from the bristles.

Leaving the girl’s room, the Watcher entered the adjacent master bedroom. It was draped in rich colors, redolent with the smell of potpourri.

There was a supersize plasma screen TV at the foot of the bed. The Watcher pulled open the night table, rifled through it, and found a half dozen packets of photographs wrapped in rubber bands.

He undid one of the packets and fanned the photos out like a deck of cards. Then he returned the packet and closed the drawer. He took a slow pan around the room with his camera whirring.

That’s when he noticed the little glass eye, smaller than a shirt button, glittering from the closet door.

He felt a thrill of fear. Was he being taped?

He pulled open the closet door and found the video recorder on a shelf at the back wall. The on-off button was in the off position.

The machine wasn’t recording.

The Watcher’s fear lifted. He was elated now. He panned his camera, capturing each room on the second floor, every niche and surface, before heading down to his basement exit. He’d been inside for four minutes and a few seconds.

Now, outside the house, he ran a line of caulking along the window glass and pressed it back into place. The caulk would hold until he was ready to enter the house again—and torture and kill them.

Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July

Chapter 29

I OPENED CAT’S FRONT door, and Martha yanked on her lead, pulling me into shocking sunshine. The beach was a short walk away, and we were headed toward it when a black dog zoomed out of my peripheral vision and lunged at Martha—who pulled free of my grasp and bolted.

My scream was cut short when something rammed me hard from behind. I fell, and something, someone, piled on top of me. What the hell?

I tore free of the tangle of flesh and metal and stood up, ready to swing.

Damn! Some idiot had run me over with his bicycle. The guy struggled to his feet. He was twenty-something, with thinning hair and pink-framed glasses hanging from one ear.

“So-phieee,” he yelled in the direction of the two dogs now barreling toward the water’s edge. “Sophie, NO!”

The black dog braked and looked back at the cyclist, who adjusted his glasses and turned a worried look toward me.

“I’m so s-s-sorry. You okay?” he asked. I felt him grappling with his stutter.

“I’ll let you know in a minute,” I said, fuming. I limped down the street toward Martha, who was trotting toward me, ears back, looking whipped, poor thing.

I ran my hands over her, checking for bites, hardly listening as the cyclist explained that Sophie was just a puppy and didn’t mean any harm.

“Look,” he said, “I’ll g-g-get my car and drive you to the hospital.”

“What? No, I’m okay.” And Martha was fine, too. But I was still pissed. I wanted to blast the guy, but, hey, accidents happen, right?

“What about your leg?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“If you’re sure . . . ?”

The bike guy leashed Sophie and introduced himself. “Bob Hinton,” he said. “If you need a good lawyer, here’s my card. And I’m really sorry.”

“Lindsay Boxer,” I said, taking his card. “And I do need a good lawyer. Some guy with a baby rottie ran over me with his Cannondale.”

The guy smiled nervously. “I’ve never seen you around here before.”

“My sister, Catherine, lives there.” I pointed to the pretty blue house. Then, since we were headed the same way, we all trooped off together along the sandy footpath that bisected the dune grass.

I told Hinton that I was staying at my sister’s house while taking a few weeks off from my job with the SFPD.

“A cop, huh? You’ve come to the right place. All those murders that have happened around here.”

I went hot and cold at the same time. My cheeks flamed, but my insides turned to ice. I didn’t want to think about murders around here. I wanted to detox. Take my R&R. And I certainly didn’t want to talk anymore with this blindsiding lawyer, although he seemed nice enough.

“Listen, I’ve gotta go,” I said. I tightened Martha’s lead so that she was beside me and walked quickly on. “Take care,” I shot over my shoulder. “And try to watch where you’re going.”

I clambered down the sandy cliff to the beach, distancing myself from Bob Hinton as quickly as possible.

Out of sight. Out of mind.

Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July

Chapter 30

THE WATER WAS TOO cold for swimming, but I sat cross-legged near the surf’s edge and stared out at the horizon where the aqua blue bay met the great rolling Pacific.

Martha was running along the curve of the beach, the sand spraying out behind her feet, and I was enjoying the warmth of the sun on my face when I felt something hard jab the back of my neck.

I froze.

I didn’t even take a breath.

“You shot that girl,” a voice said. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

At first I didn’t recognize the voice. My mind spun, searching for a name, an explanation, the right words to say. I reached my arm behind me so that I could grab the gun and I saw his face for a split second.

I saw the hatred in his eyes. I saw his fear.

“Don’t you move,” the boy shouted, jabbing the gun muzzle hard against my vertebrae. Sweat trickled down my sides. “You killed my sister. You killed her for nothing!”

I remembered the empty look on Sara Cabot’s face when she fell.

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

“No, you’re not, but you will be. And guess what? Nobody cares.”

You’re not supposed to hear the bullet that gets you, but that must be a myth. The booming report of the shot that drilled through my spine sounded like a bomb.

I slumped over, paralyzed. I couldn’t speak and I couldn’t stop the flow of blood pulsing out of my body, ebbing into the cold water of the bay.

But how had it come to this? There was a reason that just eluded my grasp. Something I should have done.

Slap the cuffs on them. I should have done that.

That’s what I was thinking when my eyes flew open.

I was lying on my side, my fists full of sand. Martha was looking down at me, breathing on my face.

Somebody cared.

I sat up and reached my arms around her, buried my face in her neck.

The dream’s sticky sense clung to me. I didn’t need a PhD in psychology to know what it meant. I was churning in the violence of last month.