15th Affair

by James Patterson

  As I made my twenty-minute drive to work, I was in the grip of ugly feelings. My lying liar of a husband had lied. And yet, as furious as I was, I was even more terrified, because he hadn’t called me and hadn’t come home. Was he hurt? Was he dead?

  I didn’t even know the names of the people Joe worked for, that’s how wrapped up I’d been in the Job over the last crazy months.

  And that made me mad at myself.

  Roaring mad.

  By the time I parked my car, I was more of a mess than I wanted anyone to see. I entered the Hall from the rear and immediately ran into Jacobi in the lobby. My old partner, friend, and now chief of police knew the workings of my mind almost better than I knew them myself.

  “What is it, Boxer? What’s eating you?”

  “Just deep in thought. The Four Seasons case.” That was the half of the story I was willing to tell him.

  Jacobi said he was assigning a couple of teams to work with me on the hotel murders.

  I said thanks, gave him a weak wave, then headed up the stairs to Homicide.

  Conklin was at his desk.

  When he looked up, I said, “I screened the video from our van on the street.”

  “And?”

  “I hope you’re going to tell me I’m crazy.”

  He looked at me like he was already of that opinion. I’ve tried, but I just cannot hide my feelings from people I know. I sat down behind my computer and Conklin stood behind me as I downloaded the surveillance tape from Waverley Street.

  I ran the footage, halting it a few seconds before the heart-stopping incident.

  “Look at this,” I said. “Tell me what you see.”

  Conklin watched intently, and when we got to the part where Joe turned to the camera, I hit Pause.

  My partner said, “Is that Joe? What’s he doing driving by the Chans’ house?”

  “That’s the sixty-four-million-dollar question, and I have no answer. As far as I know, we’re looking at Joe’s last known whereabouts.”

  “No way.”

  “Right.”

  “No,” he said. “I mean, that’s why he looks familiar.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  Conklin said, “The guy in the hotel,” he said. “The one with the bulky jacket who eluded the cameras. Look, Lindsay.” He went over to his desk, moved some papers around, and came up with the screen shots we’d taken of the stealthy man crossing the hotel lobby on the day of the shootings.

  “Lindsay, don’t you see it?” Conklin asked me, shoving the photocopy under my nose. “The man in the lobby is Joe.”

  CHAPTER 17

  I TOLD CINDY I had to see her, and she met me on the front steps of the Hall fifteen minutes later.

  “What have you got for me?” she said.

  She was wearing a different T-shirt and steel-tipped work boots. The boots signified something. My guess was that she wanted to kick butt. She was in serious bulldog mode.

  “We need to identify these people,” I said.

  I showed her the pictures on my phone of the three unknown subjects: the mystery blonde and the morgue shots of the two PI kids, slightly ’shopped so that they looked less dead.

  “Send them to me,” she said.

  I did and she asked, “Are they wanted for questioning in the hotel murders? What can you tell me?”

  “Let’s just start with you putting them out under a headline, ‘Do you know these people?’ and see how it goes.”

  “OK, OK, OK,” said Cindy. “You’re not giving this to anyone else, right?”

  “You’ve got a twenty-four-hour exclusive; then the FBI is going to move in and do it their way.”

  Cindy said, “I’ll get this up on the site, front page, as soon as I clear it with Tyler. These photos will be on the Web today and in the paper tomorrow.”

  “OK.”

  “I’m going to say ‘Contact Cindy Thomas.’”

  “You’ve got twenty-four hours.”

  “Gotcha.”

  My phone buzzed. Brady, of course.

  “Boxer, got some people here from the FBI.”

  “I’m downstairs. I’ll be up in a second.”

  I hung up and turned back to Cindy.

  “I don’t know how long your twenty-four-hour window is going to stay open. There’s a cab,” I said, pointing to one at the light. “See if you can grab it.”

  She thanked me and told me I wouldn’t be sorry. We hugged, and I went upstairs.

  Conklin, Brady, and I all got into the elevator and rode it up to Jacobi’s office. There we met three serious men in gray suits, and over the next two hours, we told them everything we knew. Everything but the one thing I wasn’t ready to give up, and I knew Richie had my back.

  I didn’t say a word about Joe.

  CHAPTER 18

  WHEN CINDY CALLED me at 10:30 p.m., I was bordering on despair. I still hadn’t heard from Joe, the baby was crying, and although I had done everything I knew to calm her, nothing worked. She was frantic and I didn’t know why. I had thrown on a robe and was going across the hall to get Mrs. Rose when the phone rang.

  Cindy didn’t wait for me to say hello.

  “I got a hit,” she said.

  “I have to call you back.”

  “Really?”

  Julie let out a freshly minted over-the-top howl. Why?

  “Really,” I said, and then, “I’ll call you back.”

  I felt the baby’s forehead and checked her diaper, and both were fine. I carried her to the kitchen, patting her back while I warmed up a bottle. Was she sick? Or was she simply channeling my anxiety?

  I took her back to her room, sat down in the rocker, fed her, and tried to soothe myself. Julie took the bottle, and of course she couldn’t cry and suck at the same time. Mercifully.

  When she fell asleep in my arms, I put her into her bed as gently as possible. She barely stirred, but I stood over her watching until her breathing deepened and I was sure she was in a nice solid sleep.

  I nuked a cup of milk for myself, stirred in some Green & Black’s powdered chocolate, and set it on the end table next to the big sofa, giving myself permission to just sit quietly and calm the hell down.

  I had dozed off when the phone rang.

  Joe.

  I found the phone where I’d dropped it on the floor near the sofa and caught it on the fifth ring.

  “Christ, Lindsay,” Cindy said. “What the hell is wrong with you? I said I have a hit on one of your suspects.”

  “The baby,” I said. “She was having a tantrum.”

  “Everything OK?”

  “I think so.”

  “OK,” Cindy said, moving on. “The blond-haired woman from the hotel. Someone wrote in saying he knows her. Are you free now? Or should I just tell Richie?”

  “Put me on speaker and tell us both,” I said into the phone.

  Richie grunted, “I’m here.”

  “Good. Cindy, who is the blonde? Who the hell is she?”

  CHAPTER 19

  CINDY’S ANONYMOUS TIP could blow open the whole case. If it was good. If it was true.

  I took my laptop to the big sofa in the living room, and, leaving Julie’s door open, I got to work. I typed the name Alison Muller into one law enforcement database after another, and when she didn’t come up, I Googled her.

  At 11 p.m., I called Brady.

  He cleared the sleep from his throat, and after he said his name, I said, “Cindy got an anonymous tip on the mystery blonde from the hotel. We should keep it to ourselves until Conklin and I can chase it down.”

  Every cop knows that the FBI doesn’t like to share. Once they’re involved, they take over the case and cut you out of it. You’re lucky to read about it in the papers.

  I said so and Brady grunted without committing himself. Then he asked, “What did you find out?”

  “According to Cindy’s source, her name is Alison Muller. She’s thirty-five, an executive at Aptec, a software company in Silicon Valley. T
he tipster told Cindy that he knows her, that his family and the Mullers live on the same street in Monterey.”

  “You’ve got an address?”

  “I do.”

  I heard Yuki in the background saying, “Brady, who’s calling this late?”

  Brady said to her, “It’s Lindsay. We’ll be off soon.”

  I said, “I found info on Muller on Aptec’s website. She’s married to Khalid Khan, the composer. They have two children, five and thirteen years old. She’s a graduate of Stanford with a PhD in mathematics from MIT and she’s fluent in Spanish and Chinese. Speculating, but she and Chan may have met at Stanford.”

  There was a pause as Brady thought things over.

  He said, “OK. I’ll call Monterey PD and have them sit on Muller’s house until morning. You and Conklin bring her in first thing.”

  I called my partner and filled him in. Then I tried Joe’s phone again.

  As before, his mailbox was full. Good-bye.

  I dragged my churning mind to bed with me and closed my eyes, but sleep stayed on the other side of the room. It was just as well. An hour after I’d spoken with Brady, he called me back.

  “Here’s the thing, Boxer.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “This Alison Muller. She’s been reported missing. Monterey PD has a BOLO out for her. Her husband hasn’t seen her in a couple of days.”

  “No. Really?”

  “Khalid Khan spoke with her late Monday afternoon. She missed her daughter’s birthday party. Said she was working and would be home soon. She never showed.”

  “Late Monday afternoon. That’s when the shootings went down,” I said.

  Brady said, “Right.” He and I talked it over. Where was Alison Muller? Had she been abducted at gunpoint? Was she dead? What, if anything, did she have to do with the death of Michael Chan, and the other victims of that purge?

  I asked him, “Anything else? Did Muller’s husband get a ransom call?”

  “No. And Khan has been unable to reach his wife on the phone. Total blackout. Monterey PD pinged her phone. Last time it was used was Monday, six fifty-seven, from the Market Street area.”

  The Four Seasons Hotel was on Market.

  I no longer expected to find Muller and question her. She had disappeared, and I had no idea where to look for her, no idea at all. Another thought sprang at me with bared fangs. Joe Molinari, my husband, was also missing.

  What was he doing? Was he involved in all of this? I felt cold, like I was out there on that deadly, frozen highway in Minnesota again. Only this time, I was naked, alone, and without a car.

  Julie whimpered. I shot a look in the direction of her room as I said to Brady, “I take back what I said before.”

  “Which is what?”

  “We need the FBI. We need their resources.”

  Brady said, “See you in the morning.”

  We hung up, and the full weight of what I had done crashed in on me. I had withheld important, possibly critical information from Brady, and in doing so, I’d involved my partner.

  I had to tell Brady about Joe.

  He could fire me. And he’d be right to do it.

  I hoped that by morning, I would have a theory that explained how Joe innocently fit into this case—a theory that didn’t sound like total bullshit.

  Maybe he’d come home so that I could ask him tonight.

  I dared to hope.

  CHAPTER 20

  I HATED THIS.

  It made me sick to have to show anyone that questionable footage of Joe in places where logic said he didn’t belong. I wanted to ask him about it. He was my husband. And I trusted him. Right? But whatever he’d done, he’d covered it up. He’d lied. He’d put me in a jam.

  I had to do the right thing. So I put on my game face and sailed through the entrance to our squad room.

  The man known as Lieutenant Badass was in his glass-walled cube. Brady is brave. He’s fair. And he doesn’t play patty-cake.

  When I had his job, I didn’t like being restricted to a desk and all that that entails. Now I report to him. Once in a while, I’ve taken liberties with police procedures and Brady has given me hell—with a warning.

  I didn’t think I would get a warning today.

  I cleared the obstacle course of gray metal desks and hardened homicide cops and knocked on Brady’s door, and he waved me in. He was working at his laptop and didn’t look at me.

  “I’m busy, Boxer. Can this wait?”

  When I didn’t speak, Brady jerked his head up and nailed me with his double-barreled, blue-eyed stare.

  “I have a meeting with Jacobi in five, so make it quick.”

  “Brady. Something I have to tell you. I haven’t heard from Joe in thirty-six hours. Then, yesterday, while Conklin and I were in Palo Alto notifying Chan’s widow, our surveillance team recorded Joe driving by the Chan house.”

  “I don’t get you,” he said tersely. “What are you saying?”

  Brenda, the department assistant, came through the doorway, dropped some papers on Brady’s desk, and said, “Sergeant Chi needs to speak to you, Lieu, and your ex-wife called.”

  Brady said to her, “Hold everything until after my meeting.”

  “We can talk about this later,” I said to Brady, getting half out of my chair.

  “Sit,” he said.

  I did it.

  “Make me understand,” he said. “Use short, clear sentences.”

  I swallowed hard and pushed through my own wall of resistance. I gave Brady the short sentences he’d asked for, covering the Palo Alto footage, Joe’s drive-by at 5:24, and the hotel security video from the day of the shootings.

  “We saw a man on the hotel tape who looked like Joe.”

  Brady said, “Joe was in the hotel around the time those people were taken out?”

  “Looks like him—which is far from a positive ID.”

  Brady said, “You’re saying Joe was in the hotel and also on the block where Chan lived. What’s he doing?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t—”

  “Could he be involved in the shootings?”

  “Absolutely not,” I said with conviction, but honest to God, I had no idea what Joe was capable of. Not anymore.

  “Jesus, Lindsay. You shoulda told me yesterday.”

  Brady was furious. As I would have been in his place. I waited for him to ask for my badge and my gun and send me home.

  I said, “I wanted to talk to Joe first.”

  I was looking at Brady’s face, waiting for the shit-storm that didn’t come. Maybe he was holding back because outside of the Job, Brady and Yuki are married. Joe and I hang out with them. We’re friends.

  “The meeting with Jacobi is an FBI briefing,” Brady said. “You’re going to have to tell this Joe story again. Get the video, Boxer. Meet me upstairs.”

  CHAPTER 21

  WORLDWIDE AIRLINES FLIGHT #888 from Beijing was in its final approach to San Francisco International Airport into a foggy sun-lit morning.

  At 9 a.m., Michael Chan was seated in the center row of business class on the main deck. The seats were narrow and uncomfortable and configured in blocks of two rows of four seats facing another row of four seats, so that eight passengers were sitting knee-to-knee.

  Chan had been trying not to look at the untidy American couple sitting directly across from him for the last twelve hours. They were sloppy eaters. They took off their shoes. They had littered bags of chips and newspapers on the narrow space in front of their feet.

  He had done his best to avoid eye contact, but they hadn’t done the same. The long plane ride had been pure hell. But it was almost over.

  The pilot took the plane into another series of descending turns toward the airport. The FASTEN SEAT BELT signs were on and the flight attendants had put away the serving carts and strapped in.

  But Michael Chan had his eyes on the restroom at the front of the cabin on his left. When he had washed his hands in that restroom e
arlier, his wedding band had loosened and dropped into the sink. He had fished it out, but just then, the plane had lurched. He’d been thrown off balance and needed both hands to catch himself, and the ring had spun away from his grasp, into a dark, germ-ridden place somewhere between the commode and the console. And that was when the “return to your seat” announcement had come on.

  The flight attendant had rapped on the door, and after a brief, fruitless search for the ring, Chan had left the restroom, deciding he could retrieve his ring once the plane landed. Now, as the huge airliner made its descent, he knew he’d made a mistake.

  Chan turned to the man on his left, another cramped, overtired traveler, and said he needed to get up.

  The neighboring passenger reeked of sweat and bad temper. Muttering, he swung his knees toward the aisle. Chan said thanks and made the awkward climb over his neighbor’s legs, bumping the knees of the woman across from him, apologizing for that.

  He was steps away from the WC when the flight attendant, the red-haired one with the bright pink lipstick, unclipped her harness and blocked his path.

  She said, “Mr. Chan, you have to return to your seat.”

  Chan said, “I’ll be very quick.”

  He thought of the wheels touching down and the passengers from the first-class deck and all the others behind him, blocking the aisle, stampeding for the exit. He would have to wait for the aisle to clear, and for the plane to empty, and then all four hundred passengers from this flight would get ahead of him in the endless rope-lined queue to go through customs. His delay would irritate the men who would be waiting for him. It was just unacceptable.

  He said, “Sorry, sorry,” and pushed past the flight attendant. He had his hand on the door latch when there was an explosion directly under the plane’s right wing.

  Chan saw a flash and felt the simultaneous concussive boom. He was slammed off his feet, and at the same moment, a metal fragment pierced the fuselage and sheared through his left thigh. A question formed in Chan’s mind, but before he could process the thought, his brain and body were separated by an inexplicable destructive force.