15th Affair

by James Patterson

  When he proposed marriage, I had no hesitation, and since then, no regrets.

  Until now.

  Now it seemed that he had lied to me. Not “No, you don’t look fat.” This was enormous, a huge honking omission the size of a city. He’d not only left out a telling chunk of his life story, but he’d also skipped right over a relationship with a woman who’d been very important to him, a woman who might be a killer.

  I couldn’t fool myself any longer.

  Joe’s disappearance alone was a betrayal. And if he had been “involved” with Alison Muller once, he could damned well be involved with her now. It could not be a coincidence that Joe and Alison Muller had been in the same place and had disappeared at the same time.

  A closetful of lacy lingerie flashed into my mind.

  I couldn’t stand my thoughts.

  I could not bear to be alone in this hotel with no moves at all. It was too late to call Claire or my sister. And I could not call June.

  I thought of the last time Joe and I had made love. How warm and silly and wonderful that romp had been. I’d held him and kissed him and loved him up and then we’d had breakfast with our baby girl in a shaft of morning sunshine.

  And now?

  Was he in bed with another woman?

  Or was he lying dead somewhere with a bullet through the back of his skull? Had Alison Muller killed him?

  Had that bitch killed my husband?

  CHAPTER 54

  I DRESSED FOR my appointment to meet John Carroll at seven-thirty that morning. I put on yesterday’s trousers, a clean blouse, and my best blazer.

  The National Mall, a long tree-lined park with iconic views of the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol, was only three blocks from the hotel. I crossed Constitution and walked along the center path, and I have to say, the grandeur of the place was just wasted on me.

  All I wanted to do was meet Mr. Carroll and listen to him say my fears were ridiculous. That he knew for a fact that Joe was working on a job that was vital to national security. And that Joe was safe and had nothing to do with Alison Muller.

  I saw a man sitting by himself on a bench, staring across a wide grass median to the Reflecting Pool. He was white, rangy, about fifty years old, with thinning brown hair. He wore blue pants, a black Windbreaker, and running shoes. As I got closer, I saw that he was gripping an aluminum cane in his right hand.

  I said, “Mr. Carroll?”

  He looked up and nodded, and I told him my name.

  He indicated that I should sit down, which I did. And he said, “June said you wanted to know about Ali Muller, but she didn’t say why.”

  “I’m with the San Francisco Police Department, Homicide. We think Alison may have witnessed a violent crime.”

  “Oh. I’m sure it wouldn’t be the first time. So you’re looking for her as a material witness?”

  “Exactly. Can you help me?”

  “The short answer is no. I haven’t seen Alison in years. Thank God.”

  He wrapped his fingers around the handle of his cane and dug the tip into the ground, preparing to stand.

  I said, “Wait. Mr. Carroll, I’m also trying to locate my husband, Joe Molinari. June thinks they may be working together.” I heard myself saying these awful words out loud. “So if you can give me any kind of lead to their whereabouts…”

  “Joe Molinari? Hah. That’s a blast from the past.” John Carroll settled back on the bench. He actually smiled.

  “I don’t doubt that Muller knows where Molinari is. Do you have any idea what you’re poking into?”

  “I think I do,” I said stiffly. He didn’t notice.

  “I worked with Joe in the early nineties,” Carroll was saying. “Bright man. With a future. I was surprised when he switched agencies. But who knows why anyone does anything?

  “She was another one. Sonja Dietrich. Alison Muller. Bright as a star. Men fell in love with her, to their long-term detriment. They would do anything for her. Tell her everything. I was in love with her myself.”

  I didn’t speak or even clear my throat. I had to hear this story. And Number Six was ready and willing to tell it.

  “I was married when I knew Muller. Had a lovely wife. Sadie. Two terrific kids. She made me forget all about them. When I was in so deep with her that I couldn’t see over the edge of my own grave, she went to Central Command and said I couldn’t be trusted.

  “Well. In a sense that was true. I’d told her things, and she had recorded our conversations. I couldn’t believe she did that to me. To me.”

  The retired CIA operative gazed at the still waters of the Reflecting Pool, lost, no doubt, in memories of Alison Muller. He’d already told me he was a dead end, but I gave it another shot.

  “Mr. Carroll. If you were me, where would you look for Muller? Any kind of a lead would help me and the SFPD.”

  “The last time I heard from Alison Muller was the night before she ruined my career and my marriage and my belief in myself. All I’ve got for you is the benefit of my experience.

  “I believe she actually loved Joe when I knew them. I thought he must be the luckiest man in our galaxy. But here’s the thing. If she’s got her hooks into Joe again, I advise you to call your lawyer and get ready to dissolve your marriage.

  “Or hope for the best. See how that works out for you.”

  “Thanks. For your time,” I said. If I’d had my gun with me, I might have shot him through the heart.

  Just like he’d done to me.

  CHAPTER 55

  I HAD MY carry-on bag slung over my shoulder and was outside the hotel with a loosely connected group of people who, like me, were waiting for the shuttle bus to the airport.

  I was thinking, There’s the evil you know, and then there’s this place.

  I couldn’t wait to get home.

  A limo pulled up to the bus stop and the window buzzed down. A voice called out to me. A beautifully manicured hand waved through the open window.

  “June?”

  I walked over to the limo.

  “Lindsay, I called and the desk said you’d just checked out. I’m glad I caught you.”

  June Freundorfer opened the door, said, “Get in,” and slid along the backseat, making room for me.

  “I have to catch the bus,” I said. “My flight…”

  “We’ll give you a lift. Virgin America?”

  How’d she know?

  I got into the car and closed the heavy door behind me. June pressed the com button and gave the driver instructions. Then she leaned back.

  “What’s going on?” I asked her.

  “Lindsay, completely off the record, maybe we can help each other. I hope you don’t mind, but I did a little poking around on your Four Seasons Hotel case.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “We were tracking Michael Chan.”

  My blood was beating against my eardrums. I was still in shock from my meeting an hour ago with John Carroll, that prick. And I wished more than anything that I could turn back time to—when was it? A week ago, when I’d had lunch with the girls and I was so high on my life. Now I was in a long black car with June Freundorfer, who wanted to be my friend. Crap. I was starting to like her.

  “The reason we were keeping tabs on Michael Chan,” June said, “was because we were interested in his wife.”

  June definitely had my attention.

  “Shirley Chan has been on the CIA watch list for years. Ours, too. She was working for MSS, China’s intelligence agency. The Ministry of State Security. MSS recruits heavily from the academic sector. This is a big talent pool for industrial and military spies, and they also plug into the universities to keep informed about our trends and advances.”

  I remembered Shirley Chan crying in the backseat of our squad car after learning that her husband was dead. She had been an emotional wreck. She was a Chinese spy? Now I pictured the woman with the “striped hair,” taking her out with three well-placed shots from across the kitchen table.

 
June was saying, “We were thinking that maybe Michael Chan was also MSS. That could explain Muller’s interest in him. Or maybe Chan was just a way to get information about his wife. You met her, didn’t you?”

  I gathered my scattered wits. I had no top secret information on Shirley Chan. Her murder was on the record in Palo Alto and, to a lesser extent, my very minor report for our files. We’d informed her that her husband was dead. We’d hoped she could tell us why Michael Chan had been killed. That was all.

  I said to June, “My partner and I interviewed her after her husband was murdered. We went back out to her house again three days later.”

  I told June that I’d found Shirley Chan dead and that her daughter’s description was vague. It seemed possible that it had been Alison Muller who had pulled the trigger.

  “Three shots,” I told June. “No misses. Very professional. The shooter left no prints and no trace.”

  June said, “Yeah, well, that’s Alison’s style all the way.”

  When the limo stopped at Virgin’s curbside check-in, June reached over and hugged me. Out of reflex, I hugged her back. It felt OK. I got out of the car and moved through the airport like a zombie on Xanax.

  Once on the plane, I collapsed into my window seat and buckled in. The flight didn’t scare me at all.

  This was the fastest way home.

  CHAPTER 56

  I HIT THE ground running and was home within an hour. I was spending some cuddle time with my daughter and gab time with my little sister and darling Brigid and Meredith when Cindy called, saying, “We’re meeting at the clubhouse in thirty minutes. Your excellent presence is requested.”

  I checked it out with Cat, who said, “Go. Please go ahead. We’ll be fine.”

  Twenty minutes later, with my stomach growling and my bruises throbbing, I breezed through the entrance to a little joint on Jackson Street called Susie’s Café.

  The four of us thought of this place as our clubhouse and tried to meet within these ocher-colored, sponge-painted walls every week.

  With the catchy beat of steel drums coming from the front room and the aroma of Caribbean-style cuisine fanning out from the kitchen, we had shared years of laughter in “our” booth at the back of the house. And we’d solved a few knotty crimes while we were at it.

  I sighed happily once I was inside.

  I nodded to the old acquaintances at the bamboo bar and to Susie, who was penning the specials on the whiteboard. I passed through the narrow channel that skirts the pickup window and empties into the smaller back room.

  As usual, Claire and Yuki had arrived first and had taken one side of the booth. Also as usual, Yuki had ordered a margarita. After all my years of knowing Yuki, she still didn’t care that tequila put her under the table. In fact, giddiness suited Yuki. Her ringing laughter was one of life’s pleasures.

  Claire’s seat was on the aisle, so she stood up and hugged me, saying, “You OK, darlin’?”

  “Never better.”

  “Right,” said Claire, calling me on my bullshit with just her inflection.

  I swung myself down to the seat across from my friends and ordered a beer, and that was when Cindy entered the back room with Richie in her wake.

  True, Richie is not in the club, but we all love him dearly, and sometimes testosterone can move our thinking in a different direction.

  Cindy sat next to me, and Richie pulled up a chair at the end of the table. Lorraine took our orders for the specials du jour and more beer. Then everyone turned to look at me.

  The volume in this place was so high that unless there was a microphone buried in the jerked pork, this was as discreet a venue as possible for a conversation about Joe Molinari, Chinese spies, and a blond government operative who set honey traps.

  I spilled the beans to a rapt audience.

  “I have it on good authority that Alison Muller—that’s one of her names—is a CIA spy.”

  I waited out the “What?” and “Who said so?” from Cindy and Claire, who were both familiar with the names of the victims. And then I said, “The same good authority told me that Shirley Chan was also a spy—for China.”

  There were more gasps and OMGs and Richie said, “So what about Michael Chan? Was he a spy, too?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe he got caught in the crossfire. But the same source, and this has been independently validated, dropped a bomb. Joe was in the CIA long before I met him. That makes me think maybe he’s working for the CIA now.”

  “That would explain why he hasn’t been in touch,” said Rich. Discussion of Joe as a CIA operative rounded the table a few times; then the conversation turned back to Ali Muller.

  Cindy was curious about what kind of woman slept with men in order to betray them. Claire added, “Sex for secrets. And she kills people, right?”

  “Psychopath,’” said Yuki. “Or patriot. Maybe she’s both.”

  I tried to keep my head in the conversation, to feel the love and the safety in this coziest of places.

  But my mind kept veering toward what I hadn’t said. That Ali Muller had worked for Joe. That they had been close. I hadn’t told my best friends in the world the fear that I was harboring, that Ali and Joe were back together again.

  Music came from the front room. People were clapping and shouting “Lim-bo. Lim-bo.” I drank my beer. I didn’t even have to form questions in my mind anymore. I ached for my missing husband. I ached for him all over.

  CHAPTER 57

  CAT AND I had a good long talk that night, and we fell asleep in the big bed. Early the next morning, with promises both ways to stay closer in touch, I kissed my sister and nieces good-bye at the curb.

  I took Martha for a good long run to the park and back. Panting and blowing, we returned to the apartment, where I showered, while Mrs. Rose made oatmeal and coffee. Breakfast time for Julie, Martha, Gloria Rose, and me was becoming almost normal, except for the empty sunlit chair where Joe had been sitting with his pancakes more than a week ago.

  I drove my car through morning rush out to the airport, this time to meet Conklin for an update on the worst tragedy visited on the city of San Francisco since the great earthquake of 1906. We boarded a little red bus full of cops and journalists, and after zipping across the tarmac, we were deposited at the yawning mouth of the SuperBay at the northeastern turn end of the airport.

  The SuperBay was huge, large enough to hold four jumbo jets. But under the lights, laid out on the football-field-sized concrete floor, was a giant, unsolved jigsaw puzzle made up of the blasted wreckage of the Boeing 777.

  Vanderleest gave nothing away with his expression, but he was thorough. He walked the large group around the perimeter of the loosely assembled airplane carcass, showing where the tail section had broken from the fuselage; pointing out the fuselage itself, with its many rows of seating; indicating the ignition site, including the fragments of the wing; and showing us the nose of the plane with the intact cockpit, one of the few parts that bore any resemblance to its original form.

  Vanderleest capped off his lecture by saying, “Anything that needed analysis was sent to our lab in DC. Investigations like this one typically take a year, sometimes a year and a half, to close. I’m always available to give updates, as needed.”

  I asked Vanderleest if there was any news of parties who had fired the missile and he told me, “There are still no credible claims to this—this horror.”

  It was a wrenching experience, seeing that total destruction, imagining the people who’d been only moments from a safe landing and reunions with friends and family. The explosion had killed hundreds for no reason anyone could explain, and to date, no one had been charged with any of it.

  When we’d seen and heard it all, Conklin and I took the bus back to the domestic parking garage, where we’d left our cars. While in transit, my partner said to me, “Brady and I went to the Chan funerals while you were out.”

  “In Palo Alto?”

  “Yeah. Small church, but it was packed,
” he said. “Lotta crying. I saw some of the people we met out at Stanford. That runner friend of Chan’s. And the department head, Levy, gave one of the eulogies. A lot of people only spoke in Chinese.”

  “You didn’t see Alison Muller, by chance?”

  “That woulda made it worth the trip. But I think I saw the guy who slammed into you at the NTSB briefing.”

  “You think?”

  “His face was sort of triangular. Wide forehead. Eyes sort of wide apart. A narrow white scar across his chin.”

  “That’s him,” I said. “That’s the guy.”

  “He saw me looking at him and just dissolved into the crowd. What’s he got to do with Chan?”

  “Maybe he wanted to confirm that Michael Chan is dead,” I said. “Maybe he doesn’t know which Chan is the real one and which is the doppelganger. Fifty bucks says he’s with Chinese intelligence.”

  “You know what I think?” Conklin said. “Flight WW 888. That plane flew outta Beijing. Michael and Shirley Chan and the Chinese thugs who’ve been dogging you. They’re all part of the same thing.”

  “I buy it, Richie. Now we only need to figure out what this ‘thing’ is.”

  CHAPTER 58

  AS SOON AS I got to my desk that day, I called Claire and asked, “Any news from Dr. Marshall regarding the whereabouts of Michael Chan, version two?”

  Claire said, “This is what she said, and I quote. ‘I am still sorting out body parts. I’ll call you when or if I locate Mr. Chan or parts thereof. Any more questions?’ She’s made herself clear. Still, whatever she says, she’s responsible.”

  I had just rung off with Claire when Brenda paged me. I picked up line two and turned to look at Brenda at the same time.

  Standing at her desk was a tall, dark, and immaculately dressed man. Brenda’s voice came to me in stereo.

  “Mr. Khan is here to see you.”

  “Send him back,” I said.