Agonized screams at the police cordon caught Justine’s attention. She looked up at Cruz. “Connie Yu’s family has arrived. Let’s get out of here, Emilio. We can’t help those poor people. Not here, anyway.”
Chapter 7
Justine had gone to the morgue with the girl’s body, and it was past two a.m. when she called Private’s chief criminalist, Seymour Kloppenberg, nicknamed Dr. Science-Sci for short-and said she needed him right away.
Sci told his girlfriend, Kit-Kat, he had to go in to the Private offices, made a snack for his rather unusual pet, Trixie, and left the apartment with his helmet under one arm.
His lovingly restored World War II courier bike with sidecar was in the garage under Sci’s apartment building. He kick-started the motor and floored it up the ramp onto Hauser, then took Sixth all the way to Private’s offices in downtown LA.
Flashing his ID at security, he took the elevator to the basement level, where his lab was located.
Justine was already waiting for him.
“This is about schoolgirl number twelve?” he asked, unlocking his door, immediately switching on music-the theme from Sweeney Todd.
“Yes,” Justine said. “And it’s enough to turn your stomach. Well, maybe not yours.”
Sci gave her a jokey fanged-monster face. Then he escorted Justine through the negative-pressure chamber into the lab, his “playground.”
Accredited by the International Organization for Standardization, Sci’s multimillion-dollar lab was the heart of Private’s operations, as well as a profit center. It was used by several West Coast law enforcement agencies, since it was better equipped and faster than anything at the LAPD or the FBI.
Sci’s crew of twelve technicians worked in several areas of forensic science: analysis, serology, forensic identification, and print and latent-print identification. Sci’s latest pride and joy was the new holographic- manipulation technology that he used to tease apart cells with a microlaser under a high-powered microscope.
His people had been the first to test real-time use of a satellite, a method called teleforensics. Using a tiny camera, Private’s investigators could bounce streaming images from a crime scene straight back to the lab, saving time and resources, preventing scene contamination.
Justine followed Sci across the vast underground space to his hub of an office and personal control center. Horror movie posters adorned the walls: Shaun of the Dead, Carrie, Hostel, Zombieland.
Sci dragged up a stool for Justine, then dropped into his chair and swiveled around like a little kid in an ice cream store.
“Sorry to take you away from Kit-Kat,” Justine said, smiling, “but I need you to look at what we’ve got before I turn it over to the LAPD in the morning.”
She brought Sci up to date on the details of the crime as she knew them: the location, the mutilation, the cause of death.
She handed him Connie Yu’s backpack. “Found not too far from the crime scene by Emilio. The sonofabitch finally made a mistake… unless he wanted us to find this.”
“You’ve got the victim’s blood and tissue?” Sci asked.
“In the bag, along with her personal items. You’ll see.”
Sci opened the bag. Looked at the articles inside. He’d already started thinking about running the blood, deconstructing the wallet, frisking the phone. If there was anything there, he would have it in time for the staff meeting at nine.
“I’m on it,” he said, and turned up the Sweeney Todd soundtrack to an almost deafening level.
Chapter 8
Justine walked across the vast clipped lawn with its stunning canyon view-a very pretty picture in pearly light and sharp shadow at 5:15 in the goddamn morning.
She stripped down to her bra and panties, then quietly opened the gate to the tennis court.
She picked a racket off the bench and practiced her serve, powering balls over the net, taking out most of her frustration on the lime green hairballs.
Ten minutes into her workout she did a double take. She spun around and saw Bobby’s silhouetted form standing at the fence, his fingers laced into the chain links.
“You okay, Justine? It’s, like, five in the morning. What’s going on, sweetie?”
“I’m working off my aggression so I don’t act out,” she said to Bobby, hauling back, grunting as she tossed up another ball and smacked it hard.
“Put the racket down and come over here. Please.”
Justine did, walking through the gate into Bobby’s arms. He held her for a good long few minutes, the feel of his strong hands on her back almost putting her into a trance.
Then Bobby said, “What would you like? Hot tub, breakfast, or bed?”
“All three-in that order.”
Bobby took off his robe, draped it around Justine’s shoulders, and walked with her toward the lanai. “Did you find anything interesting?”
“Apart from this murder being another freakin’ tragedy?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing I can tell you. Not yet.”
“Let me put it this way, then, Justine. Have you got a new theory? Anything at all? Where are you on the case?”
Justine walked up the teak steps to the hot tub, dropped the robe and her underthings. Then she took Bobby’s hand as she stepped into the steaming water.
She sat down on the seat and leaned back as his arm went around her. She closed her eyes and exhaled, letting the water do its work.
“You must have a theory,” Bobby said.
“Here it is. The killer has multiple personality disorder.” Justine sighed. “And every one of his personalities is psychopathic.”
Chapter 9
My dreams weren’t exactly identical, but they were all variations on the same disturbing theme. There was an explosion: sometimes a house blew up, or a car, or a helicopter. I was always carrying someone away from the fire toward safety: Danny Young, or Rick Del Rio, or my father, or my twin brother-or maybe the person in my arms was myself.
I never made it out of the fire zone alive. Not once.
My cell phone vibrating on the night table woke me from this morning’s nightmare, as it had done almost daily for about three years.
Already, I was swamped with dread, that sickening falling sensation that hits you before you even know why.
And then my brain caught up with my gut, and I knew if I didn’t pick up the phone, it would ring again and again until I answered.
This was my real-life nightmare.
I opened the clamshell, put it to my ear.
“You’re dead,” he said.
