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  It didn’t help any that the rotting meat was Jim Akers, a man she’d met on at least four occasions. The thought of him inside this sordid little motel at the edge of town depressed her to a depth she had not expected.

  “Are you the responding officer?” Jolie asked the Gardenia cop.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Has anyone else been inside?”

  “No, ma’am, I preserved the scene.”

  She stepped through the doorway.

  The chief lay faceup across the bed. His feet were on the floor, as if he had been sitting on the edge of the bed and then decided to lie back. He wore jeans, a polo shirt, running shoes.

  He’d been shot above the right ear. His head was turned to the side, away from the point of entry. Blood seeped into the bedspread like an inkblot. The contents of his head—blood, a few flecks of bone, and brain matter—had been flung against the wall and the headboard like pudding.

  I bet you don’t miss a thing.

  Something he’d said to Jolie once. She didn’t recall the context, but he was right about that.

  She tried not to miss a thing.

  Jolie thought about everything she knew about him, which wasn’t much. He did flirt with her once at a picnic, in an offhand kind of way. It didn’t bother her because there didn’t seem to be anything behind it. She’d seen him with his wife and daughter—they looked like a happy family to her.

  Jim Akers was an uncommonly handsome man. Now all that was gone.

  Jolie surveyed the room, which reminded her of the places she and her dad had stayed in on their way back from New Mexico. Hundreds of miles a day, but the rooms were all alike. In small towns whose names she’d since forgotten, or places just off the freeway.

  She raised the camera and took photos of the man on the bed.

  The crime scene technicians came in. Jolie watched them for a while before going outside in the hot, damp air, inhaling the heavy scent of magnolias along with the residual incinerator stink of the paper mill. She could taste the copper of his blood, and every once in a while the spoiled-meat stink seemed to blow out of the room, bloated and huge. She looked at her notes under the porch light.

  She wondered what the chief had been thinking, if he knew it was coming. Was there time to think? Did he close his eyes and pray? Or did he just give up and let it happen?

  Jolie concentrated on the list of Akers’s possessions: wallet, change, comb, ID, pocket litter.

  Something was missing.

  Two things, actually. His cell phone, and his service weapon. Jolie doubted that a cop, even an administrative cop, would go anywhere without his service weapon.

  And it was strange he had no cell phone. A police chief was on call, always. These days, how many people left their cell phones behind?

  She stepped off the walkway and motioned the responding officer over. His nameplate said “Collins.” “Did you know the chief well?”

  He seemed calm, but his eyes were like two blue holes in his head—shock. “Yes, ma’am. Pretty well. It’s a small department.”

  “What kind of service weapon did he use?”

  “An S&W model 66 .357 Magnum. The short barrel. Same as everybody in the PD.”

  It occurred to her that there might be another explanation for the missing weapon and phone. It was a fleeting thought—way out of left field. She dismissed it immediately as outlandish.

  But the feeling, small and uncomfortable, grew behind her solar plexus.

  “What kind of holster?” she asked.

  “A belt holster, ma’am. Standard issue.”

  She liked his succinctness. “Did he have a backup weapon?”

  He stared into the room, watching one of the crime scene techs examining the bloody headboard. The tech was a woman, short and squat, hair done up in an elaborate bun. “He had one in an ankle holster. Don’t know the make or model, though.”

  “Did he wear them regularly?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He looked puzzled. “Why wouldn’t he?”

  Jolie went back into the room. Gently, she lifted the polo shirt up with a gloved finger.

  No belt holster. Not even a belt.

  No backup gun, either.

  4

  The motel owner, Royce Brady, hovered outside the tape. He was a wiry man with a complexion like a gingerbread cookie. He wore a Hawaiian shirt and shorts and white socks and sandals and a hearing aid. Jolie took him to the motel office.

  “A woman called the office and said she heard gunshots,” Brady told her. “Said she was driving by and heard the shots.”

  “What time was this?”

  “About ten? Not sure, though.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I called room nine. The chief of police was right here in my motel, so I called him. When he didn’t answer, I went down the row and looked in each room.” He added, “That’s when I found him.”

  “Did Chief Akers ever check into one of your rooms before?”

  “No. Kind of took me by surprise.”

  “What was his demeanor?”

  Brady shrugged. “Same as he always was. Calm, friendly.”

  “Did you see him with anyone?”

  “No, but I’m inside here mostly. I leave the guests alone. They check in, and after that, what they do is their business.”

  “You know him well?”

  “I know everyone in this town. He was here during the standoff, the hostage situation. Worked the phone right here in the office, tried his best to get that sick asshole to come out.” He stared forlornly at the parking lot. “That poor young lady who was killed, she was my daughter’s age. A real nice girl. Piled all her used towels in the sink so the maid didn’t have to stoop to pick them up. Always left a good tip, too. Can’t think a medical rep makes that much, but she was considerate like that. How’d I know, when I gave her the key, I was signing her death warrant? There must be a curse on that room.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “It’s the same room.”

  Jolie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Luke Perdue and Kathy Westbrook—that happened in room nine?”

  “Yes, yes, room nine. I spent a ton of money to clean up the mess, finally got it ready for paying customers, and now this happens!”

  Jolie went outside into the warm night and stared up the walkway in the direction of room nine. Room nine. The same room. She thought about the two missing weapons. The missing phone. Thought about the woman who called the motel about gunshots.

  A theory forming. Just a theory. Nothing to get excited about.

  A woman called the office to complain about gunshots, and Royce Brady went to check the rooms. He found Chief Akers dead on the bed of room nine.

  Room nine, the same room where Luke Perdue had taken Kathy Westbrook hostage a little over a month ago.

  Lots of elements here. Coincidences.

  Jolie had been a cop for nine years. She saw it as a huge responsibility. People depended on her, every day. They looked to her for help.

  The hostage, Kathy Westbrook, had depended on Chief Akers to get her out. She would have taken comfort in the knowledge that the cavalry had come for her. The chief of police had been right here, in this motel, negotiating for her release. She would have thought he wouldn’t let her come to harm.

  But she was wrong.

  5

  The meat wagon was backed up as close to room nine as possible, doors open. A flatbed had already taken the chief’s Crown Vic to impound.

  Jolie found a woman with an elaborate hairdo in the bathroom, removing the clear plastic liner from the wastepaper basket. Jolie noted the two beer bottles inside the liner as well as a crumpled-up Kleenex. The beer fit in with her theory, but it could fit in with any theory. As the woman walked it out of the bathroom, Jolie caught a sharp smell—a cross between rubbing alcohol and perfume. It reminded her of something, but she couldn’t remember what.

  “Do you know if there was GSR on his hands?” Jolie asked.r />
  The woman pushed up at her glasses on the bridge of her nose with a gloved finger. “Randy did that.”

  Randy, the other tech, was assisting in the removal of the body. The victim was zipped up in the body bag on the gurney, ready to go.

  Jolie said to Randy, “Was there any gunshot residue on his hands?”

  “No. Why would there be?”

  “You did bag his hands, didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t think it was nec—”

  “Please open the bag.”

  “I don’t want to break the seal.”

  “Open the bag.”

  He shot her a resentful look and pulled the zipper open. The death stench billowed out.

  She leaned forward and looked at the hands. No visible evidence of gunshot residue. In between the waves of death smell, Jolie got a whiff of the same odor she’d smelled in the bathroom—a sharp, alcohol-based scent.

  Randy bagged the chief’s hands and zipped up the bag. “Anything else?”

  She heard the resentment in his voice, and was surprised by it. “Make sure his hands are swabbed and tested for an alcohol-based product. All right?”

  He nodded. She saw the tiredness in his eyes under the harsh yellow light. He’d probably worked the day shift and then come out here at night. Jolie knew this happened a lot, understaffed as the crime scene unit was. “I’m hoping you’ll do this yourself,” she said. “It’s very important, and it could make the difference in this case.”

  “Okay, I’ll make sure it gets done.”

  “Thanks.” As she stepped outside, Jolie’s gaze strayed to Stearing Automotive across the street.

  Stearing Automotive had figured prominently in the standoff last month. Jolie pictured one FBI sniper and his spotter lying flat on their bellies on the roof, and the other FBI sniper and his spotter positioned on a railroad car. The railroad car had been stopped dead on the tracks that bisected Kelso Street.

  Jolie thought about the philosophical rift between hostage negotiators and tactical teams. There was even a joke about it.

  The hostage negotiator says after a two-week standoff, “We’re beginning to make real progress.”

  Ten minutes after hostage negotiations begin, the SWAT team leader says, “Told you it wouldn’t work—time to go in.”

  True.

  Jolie thought about Chief Akers working the phone, trying to bring Kathy Westbrook and her kidnapper out safely. After hours of painstaking negotiations, two people still ended up dead.

  She checked her watch. Seven a.m. She wanted to get to the Akers house early so that Akers’s widow, Maddy, would hear about her husband’s death before it made the news.

  But Jolie’s guess? Maddy Akers already knew.

  6 NICK

  ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA

  One minute Nick was ahead of the other car, and the next, the jogger crossed in front of him.

  They’d dragged from the light and were coming off the curve by the park when the jogger trotted out onto the road. Three in the morning—and there was a jogger crossing the street! Nick hit the brakes, and the car slewed sideways and jounced against the curb.

  Everything stopped.

  First thing he realized—the airbag didn’t deploy.

  Second thing he realized—he was unhurt. Maybe banged up a little. But unhurt. The seatbelt had saved him. His car was in the right lane but turned backwards—he’d done a complete one-eighty.

  Nick put a hand up to touch his face and smelled the alcohol on his own breath.

  Had to get out of here.

  Because the airbag hadn’t deployed, he could drive away. There would be no drunk driving charge, if he could just get this thing straightened out and go, soon. But what about the other driver?

  What about the jogger? Bemused—it must be the shock—he looked around. The other car was gone. The jogger was gone.

  He got out, shakily, dread building. Peered under the car—no jogger.

  Almost cried with relief. He looked around. The street was empty.

  Just the six-lane road, the park on the right, the sodium arc lights staining everything orange.

  Son of a bitch—lucky as usual.

  Get the hell out of here. He forced himself to move. Got back in and turned the car around, worried that at any minute a speeding car would come around the curve and ram right into him. But his luck held. He took the back streets home. Driving like a little old lady.

  Back inside his condo, he sat on his couch and stared out the window at the darkness. Thinking: How lucky can you get?

  First, he’d survived the massacre at the Aspen house. And now, he’d driven away from an accident which could have killed him, the other driver, or the jogger. He’d even avoided a drunk driving charge.

  I’ve been spared.

  That was the bottom line. He’d been spared. And for what? His new thriller was dead in the water. He had to have a follow-up. Nick had a three-book deal, and this was the third book.

  But he couldn’t get past chapter four.

  A deadline was looming. It was his last thought before he fell asleep.

  His cell woke him. A text from one of his more ardent fans.

  The message said, “When can we meet?”

  Never, he thought.

  To be fair, this guy wasn’t hurting for money—Frank was some big muckety-muck in the government. He was just a pest—a glommer-on. He had a manuscript in his closet and wanted something for nothing, just because they were related—cousins, several times removed, if the guy was to be believed.

  First e-mails, then phone messages, now text messages.

  Get a life.

  Outside, it was sunny. Another beautiful California day. Nick stared at the sky. Feeling better.

  Much better.

  Maybe it was the accident—the feeling he’d cheated death once again. But this morning he’d awakened full of purpose. Nick had been trying to come up with the idea for another book, but nothing had interested him—until now. This story was different. This story had been dropped in his lap.

  The best ideas always came like this, on waking. Before he even got up to take a leak.

  He felt excitement building, the sense of purpose, deep in his gut.

  Nick had found his inspiration.

  7

  Chief Akers’s house sat on a street dead-ending at a small public park. The yard was dominated by a moss-draped oak and a fish pond. A boat was backed into the carport, which was otherwise empty.

  Maddy Akers drove a GMC Yukon.

  Jolie pressed the buzzer and waited. No one answered. She rang again. Then knocked. Mrs. Akers either wasn’t at home or she was in a deep sleep.

  A car turned onto the street from the main drag. From the sound of the engine, it was a four-banger.

  The car did a funny thing. It came to a stop three doors down, in the middle of the street. Jolie was a defensive driver and could read car body language—most good drivers can.

  This car—an old Toyota Corolla—braked, then crawled forward to the next driveway. The driver executed an awkward turn, rushed and sloppy.

  The driver’s head swiveled back in Jolie’s direction, long hair flipping with the motion. Either it was a female driver or a Lynyrd Skynyrd fan. The Corolla went back up to the road, blinker on, and turned right. Too far away to see the license plate.

  Jolie’s own take-home vehicle was a Crown Vic with black-walls. It was supposed to look like a civilian’s car, but the jack-in-the-box clown on the antenna didn’t fool anybody. She’d been spotted.

  She jogged to her car, started it up, and followed.

  On Kelso, Jolie saw the Corolla up ahead, stopped at the light. She stayed in the other lane and to the left, behind an old truck. The Corolla only went a city block before turning in at Bizzy’s Diner. The parking lot was already full. Jolie cruised by, parked at the convenience store next door, and watched in her rearview as the woman got out. The woman was slight and pale. Lackluster red hair fell straight from a mid
dle part. Low-riding jeans. The woman held a ratty shoulder bag close as she jabbered on the cell phone held to her ear. She snapped the phone shut, dumped it in her purse, and walked across the parking lot as if someone might jump out at her at any minute.

  Jolie ran the plate: 1989 blue Toyota Corolla, belonging to one Amy Perdue.

  Luke Perdue, the hostage-taker at the Starliner Motel, had a sister.

  It was in the paper and on the news.

  Bizzy’s: pebbled gold water glasses, rabbit-warren rooms, mismatched tablecloths, Friday night catfish buffets. Jolie parked herself at a table in one room where she could look through the doorway and see Amy Perdue in the other.

  The woman was still on the phone. She looked more than nervous; she looked scared.

  Jolie ordered a big breakfast. The waitress, Eileen, had big platinum curls. Eileen’s son, a Marine lance corporal, came back from Afghanistan with a severe head injury. On Eileen’s days off, she drove three hours to the VA hospital in Biloxi, and three hours back, to visit her son, even though he would never recognize her again.

  Eileen never mentioned her son, but she’d been quick to offer Jolie her condolences when her husband died. With Danny, most people pretended it never happened. Even people Jolie worked with and saw every day, people who had worked with him, too. Ignore it and it will go away.

  Eileen came by with Jolie’s breakfast and a smaller plate piled up with Bizzy’s world-famous hush puppies. “Heard what happened. You need to stoke up. Nothing like hush puppies to give you a foundation for the day you’re going to have.”

  Jolie had already paid her check and was waiting outside by the time Amy walked out of Bizzy’s. She caught up with Amy quietly and fast. “Amy Perdue?”

  Perdue spun around and stared at her, eyes wide with recognition.

  “Can we talk a minute?”

  Perdue looked like she wanted to bolt. An elderly couple in a big car bore down on them and managed to steer past. Amy kept her eyes on them as if they were the most fascinating elderly couple in the world.