by Lee Goldberg
"I'm not sure she can hear you," Chet said in his deep, sonorous voice.
"She can hear me," Mark said. "I can see it on her face."
Lacey stared in shock at the dashboard TV screen and at the two words emblazoned under Mark Sloan's face: LIVE BROADCAST.
"Think about it, Moira," Mark said. "There's no point in killing him now—not with a few million witnesses watching. It's over."
Moira let go of the rope and fell back in her seat, closing her eyes in defeat. Stryker clutched his throat and sucked air in deep, wheezing gasps.
"Wise choice, Moira," Mark said.
Now they could hear a helicopter circling overhead and distant sirens drawing near. There was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.
Lacey looked up at the interior light on the ceiling of the Escalade and remembered that it hadn't gone on when they got in the car. Because it wasn't an interior light, she realized now, but an infrared camera, sending a signal back to some satellite truck hidden in the rocks. She looked straight into the camera, ready for her close-up.
Chet looked into his camera, too. "This is probably a good time to remind our audience that we're coming to you live from the KCBS newsroom. We're watching a live feed from hidden cameras in a vehicle parked at Vasquez Rocks, where Lacey McClure and her body double, Moira Cole, have just attempted to kill private detective Nick Stryker."
"How are you feeling, Nick?" Mark asked. "Can you talk?"
"I can sing you a show tune if you like," Stryker said, his voice hoarse.
Mark smiled. "You better rest your voice until the medics can take a look at you."
"He's a brave man," Chet said.
"He certainly is," Mark said. "Nick took a huge risk helping us, but we couldn't have revealed Lacey and Moira as the murderers they truly are without his help."
It was a surreal experience for Lacey McClure. The enormity of her exposure was so difficult for her to accept, that she sat there in mute disbelief, watching the broadcast as if she wasn't right in the center of it. But Moira Cole fully comprehended her predicament and sat quietly crying in the backseat.
"Joining us in this live report is Dr. Mark Sloan, who enlisted the assistance of Action News in revealing this murder plot," Chet said, then turned to Mark. "While we wait for authorities to arrive at the scene, please tell us what made you suspect that Lacey and Moira were lovers."
"It was something I saw in the bedroom of the beach house where Cleve and Amy were killed," Mark said. "There was ChapStick and a bottle of Glacier Peaks water on the nightstand on the right-hand side of the bed. I saw the same items on the nightstand in the bedroom of Lacey's trailer and again later in the master bedroom of Moira Cole's house. That's because Lacey McClure was sleeping in all those places. Once I realized that, I knew Moira was her lover."
"Does an illicit tape of them together actually exist?" Chet asked.
"I don't know, Chet," Mark said. "But I was counting on Lacey believing that it was a real possibility, and it worked."
"So the thing that actually brought her down—that undid all her careful planning—was her innocent habit of having bottled water and lip balm beside her bed," Chet said.
"I suppose so," Mark replied.
Chet shook his head. "Isn't human nature a funny thing?"
"I don't think Lacey McClure is finding it very funny tonight," Mark said.
"Let's ask her." Chet looked into the camera. "How are you feeling at this moment, Lacey?"
Before she could answer, the Escalade was blasted with light by the LAPD chopper circling above them and from the high beams of the dozen police cars closing in. The blinding white light, combined with the bone-rattling rumble of the chopper hovering low, made it feel as if some massive starship was landing in front of them.
The door beside Lacey was suddenly yanked open, but it wasn't some alien being standing there, silhouetted against the light. It was Steve Sloan, dangling a pair of handcuffs from his fingers.
But Lacey stared at him with the same dazed, uncomprehending look that she would have given him if he had been a naked green man with a pointy head and a ray gun in his hand.
"You're under arrest," Steve said, and read Lacey her rights. "It's time to thank the Academy and get off the stage."
Over the following week, the same reporters who had turned so quickly against the Sloans just as rapidly embraced them, celebrating them as heroes and branding Lacey McClure a killer.
The LAPD immediately cleared Steve Sloan of misconduct, with Chief Masters publicly reinstating him and praising Mark Sloan for his efforts. The chief also quietly retracted his request to have Amanda Bentley relieved of her position as a medical examiner.
Moira Cole quickly cut a deal to testify against Lacey McClure in exchange for a lighter sentence. With the testimony in hand, and the damning footage from the news, there was little doubt that the district attorney would breeze through the preliminary hearing and win a conviction at trial, using much of the same evidence that had been dismissed before.
Arthur Tyrell declined to represent the two women this time, choosing instead to take an "extended sabbatical" from the practice of criminal law to write a book about his experiences, and to become a Court TV commentator at Lacey McClure's murder trial.
Nick Stryker not only got his private investigator's license back, but cut a lucrative deal with ABC for a TV series pilot loosely based on his exploits.
The only truly surprising development in the aftermath of the arrests went unnoticed by the media, but had the most significant impact on the lives of Mark Sloan and Amanda Bentley. It was the sudden resignation of Community General administrator Noah Dent, who left behind letters revoking the layoffs of the nurses, retracting his proposal to sever the contract with the county medical examiner's office, and reinstating Mark and Amanda to their previous positions. Where Dent went, or why he left, was a mystery.
Mark was still puzzling over that as he hosted a casual celebration dinner at his beach house for Steve, Amanda, Jesse, and Susan. They were all gathered in the living room, having coffee and dessert.
"I can't understand why Dent backed down," Mark said. "The arrests didn't change anything at the hospital. He still could have pushed his agenda through."
"Perhaps he had a crisis of conscience," Jesse said.
"He didn't have a conscience," Amanda said.
"That was the crisis," Steve said.
Mark shook his head in bewilderment. "Dent seemed hell-bent on getting us out, it doesn't make sense for him to suddenly reverse course and disappear."
"There's something about the murders I don't get," Jesse said, quickly changing the subject. "Was Lacey really having an affair with Titus Carville?"
"Only long enough to establish her alibi," Steve said. "Moira Cole says she and Lacey have been lovers since high school in New Jersey. Lacey married Cleve and came out here with him just to further her career. Moira Cole came along, too, and became her stunt double, so no one questioned all the time they spent together."
"Did Lacey and Cleve really have a secret separation?" Susan asked.
"No," Mark said. "That's why the water bottle and lip balm were on the nightstand at the beach house. She was still sleeping there, presumably with him. But once she discovered the money-laundering scheme, and that he was grooming a replacement for her, she decided to kill him."
"And take advantage of all the publicity it would generate," Steve said. "She was a lot smarter than Cleve or any one else—us included—gave her credit for."
"Which reminds me," Mark said to Steve, "I never would have gotten involved in these homicides if it wasn't for the paint set you got me."
Mark went over to the corner of the living room, where something on the floor was covered with a white sheet. "So I have a present for you."
He whipped the sheet off to reveal his finished seascape painting—the one he'd been working on the fateful day of the shootings.
"I've signed and dated it at the bottom," Mark said,
smiling with fake pride at his hideous painting. "In case it becomes a collectors' item."
Amanda studied the painting. "Why did you paint a picture of giant moths?"
"Those aren't moths," Mark said, trying his best to sound genuinely exasperated. "They're seagulls."
"Why are they flying around a Jell-O mold?" Steve asked.
"It's the ocean," Mark said. "How can you not see that?"
While Mark indulged in his mischief, Jesse and Susan slipped out onto the deck to admire the real seascape.
"Why didn't you tell Mark what you did?" Susan asked, once the door was closed, and they couldn't be heard by the others.
"Because it would have brought back all the ugliness again," Jesse said. "Mark hated himself for what he had to do to Tanya. If he knew why Dent fired him, Mark might not have accepted his job back, just to punish himself and make amends. It's better if Mark never knows."
Susan hugged herself to Jesse's arm and rested her head on his shoulder. "I love you," she said.
Jesse kissed the top of her head. "I love you, too."
They stood quietly for a long moment, enjoying the near ness of one another and the beautiful view.
"You don't think Mark was really trying to paint this, do you?" Susan asked, motioning to the surf.
"No," Jesse said. "Those were obviously white blood cells battling an infection."
"Why would Mark want to paint that?"
"This might come as a shock to you," Jesse said, "but Mark Sloan is a very strange man."
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
