Women's Murder Club [07] 7th Heaven

by James Patterson

  The sign spelling out ROSE COTTAGE ¼ MILE was almost hidden by the roadside flora, but Yuki caught it and made the turn through a forested glen and up an unpaved road that climbed the hillside. The rutted road became a driveway that looped in front of the manager’s cabin just ahead.

  The manager, a tall, blond-haired woman named Paula Vaughan, welcomed Yuki back to Rose Cottage. They exchanged pleasantries as Vaughan ran Yuki’s credit card through the machine. And then the manager made the connection, saying, “I was just watching the news. Too bad you didn’t win.”

  Yuki looked up, said, “You’ve got takeout menus, right? The Farm House does takeout?”

  Minutes later, she opened the front door to Rose Cottage, dropped her bags in the larger of the two bedrooms, and opened the sliders to the deck. The Bear Valley hiking trail passed to the right of the cottage, climbed upward four hundred feet through a wooded area, opening at the top of a ridge to a brilliant ocean view.

  She’d hiked this trail with Lindsay.

  Yuki changed into jeans and hiking shoes. Then she unsnapped the locks on her briefcase, took out her new Smith & Wesson .357 handgun, slipped it into one pocket of her Windbreaker, put her cell phone in the other. But before she could leave for her nature walk, there was an insistent knock on the door.

  And the booming in her chest started all over again.

  Chapter 95

  JASON TWILLY WAS WEARING chinos and a navy blue sweater and had a leather bag hooked over his right shoulder. He looked handsome, urbane, as if he’d just stepped from the pages of Town & Country, and his crooked smile had lost its menace.

  “What are you doing here, Jason?”

  Yuki kept the door open about four inches, just enough to see and hear him. And she clamped her hand around the gun in her pocket, felt the power of that little weapon, knowing what it could do.

  “Hey, you know, Yuki, if I didn’t like you so much, I’d be really hurt. I spend most of my life fending women off, and you keep slamming doors in my face.”

  “How’d you find me?”

  “I waited for you to leave your apartment and followed you. Wasn’t that hard. Look, I’m sorry I got rough this morning.” He sighed. “It’s just that I’m in trouble. I took a huge advance on this book and the money’s gone.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yeah. Sports betting. A little weakness of mine.” Twilly added a dash of boyish charm to his smile. “To be honest, it’s more than a little weakness — and it’s kind of snowballed lately. See, I’m telling you this so you understand. Really nasty people want their money back. And they don’t care if my book crashes.”

  “Not my problem, Jason.”

  “Wait. Wait. Just listen, okay? I can’t give back the advance, you understand, and I’ve got these debts. All I need is your feelings, your insight, your own true words — that’s where we’ll find a satisfying ending to the Michael Campion story.”

  “Are you serious? After all the crap you’ve dished out? I have nothing to say to you, Jason.”

  “Yuki, this isn’t personal. It’s business. I’m not going to touch you, okay? I need one crummy hour of your time, and you’re going to benefit. You’re the devoted prosecutor whose conviction was snatched from you by the little whore with a heart of stone. Yuki, you were robbed!”

  “And if I don’t want to be interviewed?”

  “Then I’ll have to write around you, and that’ll really suck. Don’t make me beg anymore, okay?”

  Yuki took the gun out of her pocket. “This is a .357,” she said, showing it to him.

  “So I see,” Twilly said, his smile becoming a grin, the grin turning into laughter. “This is priceless.”

  “I’m glad you find me amusing.”

  “Yuki, I’m a reporter, not a freaking mobster. No, this is good. Bring your gun. God knows I want you to feel safe with me. Okay if we go for a walk?”

  “This way,” Yuki said.

  She stepped outside and closed the door behind her.

  Chapter 96

  YUKI KEPT HER HAND gripped around the gun in her pocket as she walked beside Twilly up the path through the woods. He did most of the talking, asking her opinion of the jury, of the defense counsel, of the verdict. For a moment she saw the charming man she’d been attracted to a few weeks ago — then she remembered who he really was.

  “I think the verdict was completely off the wall,” Yuki said. “I don’t know what I could have done differently.”

  “Not your fault, Yuki. Junie is innocent,” Twilly said amiably.

  “Really? And you know she’s innocent how?”

  They’d reached the ridgeline, where a rocky outcropping overlooked the best view of Kelham Beach and the Pacific Ocean. Twilly sat down on the rock, and Yuki sat a few feet away. Twilly opened his bag, took out two bottles of water, twisted off the cap of the first and handed the bottle to Yuki.

  “Don’t you think it’s strange that there was no trace evidence at the so-called crime scene?” he asked her.

  “Strange, but not impossible,” Yuki said, taking a deep chug-a-lug from the water bottle.

  “That information that the police ‘developed.’ That was an anonymous caller, right?”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I was writing a book about Michael, Yuki. I followed him all the time. I followed Michael to Junie’s house that night. After Michael went into Junie’s house, I felt great. Michael Campion spent time with a hooker! Good meat for my story. I waited, and then I saw him leave — alive.

  “Of course, I didn’t know he’d never be seen again.”

  “Hmmm?” Yuki said.

  She’d come here to hear Twilly tell her who’d killed Michael or confess that he was the one who had done it — but suddenly she felt as though there was plastic foam inside her head.

  What was happening?

  Shapes shifted in front of her eyes, and Twilly’s voice ballooned out of his mouth, volume rising and falling. What was that? What was Twilly saying?

  “Are you okay?” he asked her. “Because you don’t look so good.”

  “I’m fine,” Yuki said. She was nearly overcome with dizziness and nausea. She gripped the rock she was sitting on with both hands, held on tight.

  She had a gun!

  What time was it?

  Wasn’t she supposed to keep track of the time?

  Chapter 97

  TWILLY LEERED, his face very big in front of hers. Big nose, teeth like a Halloween jack-o’lantern, his words so elastic, Yuki became fascinated with the sounds more than the sense of what he was saying.

  Get a grip, she told herself. Get a grip.

  “Say that again?”

  “When Michael went missing,” Twilly spoke patiently, “the cops came up with nothing. No clues. No suspects. I waited for months.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “The Campion story was getting stale — so I did what I had to do. Good citizen thing, right? I called in a tip. I gave the cops a suspect. Completely legitimate. I’d seen Michael at the house of a little hooker named Junie Moon.”

  “You . . . did that?”

  “Yep, it was me. And like an answered prayer, Junie Moon confessed. Man, sometimes I even think she did it. But you didn’t convict her, did you, Yuki? And now I have a shitty ending for my book. And whoever killed Michael is free. And I’m up to my neck in knee-breakers, so I can only think of one way to get a big-bang ending and bring it on home.

  “And that’s where you come in, little girl,” Twilly said. “I think you’re going to appreciate the drama and the poetry.”

  There were flashes in the sky behind Twilly, bright colors and images she couldn’t make out. There was a whooshing in her ears, blood racing or animals running through the underbrush. What was going on?

  “What’s . . . happening . . . to me?”

  “You’re having a mental breakdown, Yuki, because you’re so depressed.”

  “Me?”

  “You. You . . . are . .
. very . . . depressed.”

  “Nooooo,” Yuki said. She tried to stand, but her feet couldn’t hold her. She looked at Twilly, his eyes big and as dark as black holes.

  Where was her gun?

  “You’re morbidly depressed, Yuki. That’s what you told me in the parking lot this morning. You said that you have no love in your life. That your mother is dead because you didn’t save her. And you said you can’t get over blowing this trial —”

  He was bending her mind.

  “Craaaazzzy,” she said.

  “Crazy. Yes you are! You were on camera, Yuki. Thousands of people saw you run from the courthouse,” Twilly said, each of his words distinct and powerful — yet senseless.

  “That’s the way I’ll tell the story, how you ran to the parking lot and I ran after you, and you said that you wanted to kill yourself, you were so ashamed. One of those Japanese honor things. Hara-kiri, right?”

  “Nooooo.”

  “Yes, little girl. That’s what you told me. And I was so worried about you, I followed you in my car.”

  “You . . . ?”

  “Meeeeee. And you showed me your gun that you’d gotten so that you could end your life and give me the freaking megawatt ending my book so richly deserves!”

  Gun! Gun! Her arm was made of rubber. She couldn’t move her hand off the rock. Lights flashed in the dark.

  “I didden . . . nooooo.”

  She started to slip from her perch, but Twilly hauled her up roughly by her arm.

  “The prosecutor lost her case,” he said, “and took her own freaking loser life. It’s the money shot. Get it? Bang. Clean shot to the temple and another big chunk of dough goes into my bank account —thanks to your dramatic, tragic, movie ending.

  “Plus, Yuki, it is personal. I’ve really come to hate you.”

  “What time is it?” Yuki asked, blinking up at the starburst pattern that was somehow Twilly’s face.

  Chapter 98

  I WAS FRANTIC.

  The audio had been coming in loud and clear from the transmitter in Yuki’s wristwatch, but now we’d lost her! We’d gone out of range! I grabbed Conklin’s arm, stopped him in the path that had petered out onto a small clearing before snaking out in three directions.

  “I’ve lost the transmission!”

  “Hold it,” Conklin said into his mic to the SWAT team that was moving through the woods in a grid formation.

  And then the static cleared. I couldn’t hear Yuki, but Twilly’s voice was tinny and clear.

  “See, when I was thinking about this earlier,” Twilly was saying, “I thought I could get you to spread your wings and fly off this cliff. But now I’m thinking, you’re going to shoot yourself, Yuki.”

  Yuki’s scream was high-pitched. Wordless.

  Twilly was threatening to kill her! Why didn’t Yuki use her gun?

  “Up there. Top of the ridge,” I shouted to Conklin.

  We were at least two hundred yards away from the summit. Two hundred yards! It no longer mattered if he heard us. I ran.

  Brambles grabbed out at me, branches snapped in my face. I stumbled on a root, grabbed out and hugged a tree. My lungs burned as I ran. I saw their forms between the tree trunks, silhouetted against the sky. But Twilly was so close to Yuki, I couldn’t get a clean shot.

  I yelled out, “Twilly! Stand away from her now.”

  There was the crack of gunshot.

  OH, GOD, NO! YUKI!

  Birds broke from the trees and flew up like scattershot as the report echoed over the hillside. Eight of us boiled out of the woods into the clearing at the ridgeline. That’s where I found Yuki, on her knees, forehead touching the ground.

  The gun was still in her hand.

  I got down on the ground and shook her shoulders.

  “Yuki! Yuki! Speak to me! Please.”

  Chapter 99

  TWILLY HELD HIS HANDS in the air. He said, “Thank God you showed up, Sergeant. I was trying to stop her, but your friend was determined to kill herself.”

  I pulled Yuki into my arms. The smell of gunpowder was in the air, but there was no blood, no wound. Her shot had gone wild.

  “Yuki. I’m here, honey, I’m here.”

  She moaned, sounded and looked dopey. There was no liquor on her breath. Had she been drugged?

  “What’s wrong with her?” I shouted at Twilly. “What did you do to her?”

  “Not a thing,” Twilly said. “This is how I found her.”

  “You’re under arrest, scumbag,” Conklin said. “Hands behind your back.”

  “What are the charges, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “How do you like attempted murder for starters?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding. I didn’t touch her.”

  “Yuki was wired, buddy. You teed her up for a dive off this cliff. We’ve got it all.”

  Conklin squeezed the bracelets tight enough to make Twilly yelp. I called for a medevac, sat with my arms around Yuki as we waited for the chopper to arrive.

  “Lindsay?” Yuki asked me. “I got it . . . on my watch . . . didn’t I?”

  “You sure did, honey,” I said, hugging my friend, so very grateful that she was alive.

  While I held her, another part of my mind was turning it all over. We had Twilly in custody for the attempt on Yuki’s life, but the reason we’d tailed him was because of what he’d hinted to Yuki this morning: that he’d killed Michael Campion.

  What he’d told Yuki in the last ten minutes contradicted that.

  Conklin stooped beside us, said, “So this was all a trap? He set Yuki up to create an ending for his book?”

  “That’s what that psycho said.”

  And he’d almost done it. Now the ending was him. His arrest, his trial, and, we could always hope, his conviction.

  Yuki tried to speak, but ragged sounds came from her throat.

  She was struggling to breathe.

  “What did he give you, Yuki? Do you know what drug?”

  “Water,” she said.

  “The medics will give you water in a minute, honey.”

  Yuki’s head was in my lap when the chopper’s arrival sounded overhead.

  I looked down to shield my eyes — and saw a glint in the path. I shouted over the racket.

  “Twilly drugged the water. Is that what you mean, Yuki? He put it in the water?”

  Yuki nodded. Moments later Conklin had bagged the evidence, two plastic water bottles, and Yuki was in a carry-lift up to the chopper’s belly.

  Part Five

  BURNING DESIRE

  Chapter 100

  HAWK AND PIDGE left the car around the corner from the huge Victorian house in Pacific Heights, the biggest in a neighborhood of impressive, multi-multimillion-dollar homes, all with stunning views of the bay.

  Their target house was imposing and yet inviting, so American it was iconic — and at the same time, completely out of reach for everyone but the very wealthy.

  The two young men looked up at the leaded windows, the cupolas, and the old trees banked around the house, separating it from the servant quarters over the garage and the neighbors on either side of the yard. They had studied the floor plans on the real estate brokers’ Web site and knew every corner of every floor. They were prepared, high on anticipation, and still cautious.

  This was going to be their best kill and their last. They would make some memories tonight, leave their calling card, and fade out, blend back into their lives. But this night would never be forgotten. There would be headlines for weeks, movies, several of them. In fact, they were sure people would still be talking about this crime of all crimes into the next century.

  “Do I look okay?” Pidge asked.

  Hawk turned Pidge’s collar up, surveyed his friend’s outfit down to the shoes.

  “You rock, buddy. You absolutely rock.”

  “You too, man,” Pidge said.

  They locked arms in the Roman forearm handshake, like Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd in Ben-Hur.<
br />
  “Ubi fumus,” said Hawk.

  “Ibi ignis,” Pidge answered.

  Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

  Pidge twisted the gold foil tight around the bottle of Cointreau, and then the two boys advanced side by side up the long stone walkway toward the front porch. There was a card taped to a glass panel on the front door. “To the members of the Press: Please, leave us alone.”

  Hawk rang the bell.

  Bing-bong.

  He could see the gray-haired man through the small-paned living room windows, followed his silhouette as the famous figure walked through the house, turning on the lights in each room, making his way to the front door.

  And then the door opened.

  “Are you the boys who called?” Connor Campion asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Pidge said.

  “And what are your names?”

  “Why don’t you call me Pidge for now, and he’s Hawk. We have to be careful. What we know could get us killed.”

  “You’ve got to trust us,” Hawk said. “We were friends of Michael’s, and we have some information. Like I said on the phone. We can’t keep quiet any longer.”

  Connor Campion looked the two boys up and down, decided either they were full of crap or maybe, just maybe, they’d tell him something he needed to know. They’d want money, of course.

  He swung the door open wide and invited them inside.

  Chapter 101

  THE SIXTY-FIVE-YEAR-OLD MAN led the two boys through the vestibule and living room, into his private library. He switched on some lights: the stained-glass Tiffany lamp on the desk he’d used in the governor’s mansion, the down-lighting above the floor-to-ceiling bookcases of law books.

  “Is your wife at home?” the one called Hawk asked him.

  “She’s had a very stressful day,” Campion said. “She couldn’t wait up. Can I get you boys something to drink?”