15th Affair

CHAPTER 47

MONDAY MORNING, I cracked my eyes open around 3 a.m.

Joe’s side of the bed was stone cold and I heard Julie crying from her room next door. I rolled gingerly out of bed, trying not to press hard on my full-body bruises, and within a couple of minutes, I was cuddling with my daughter in our favorite rocker. I even sang her back to sleep with one of my mother’s Irish lullabies.

Mission accomplished, Martha and I grabbed another couple of hours in the big bed before our nanny rang the bell.

I left Mrs. Godsend in charge of the baby and the border collie, and at 8 a.m., I was having breakfast with Conklin.

The crummy break room looks its best on Monday mornings. It wasn’t Muller-Khan clean, but at least it didn’t look like potbellied pigs had had a party in there.

I made a fresh pot of French Vanilla roast to go with the bag of churros my partner had brought with him. We were soaking up the relative calm while waiting for Brady to get out of a meeting with the brass and the NTSB on the WW 888 disaster.

Conklin had the morning paper and opened it to Cindy’s column on page eight. She’d run the pictures again of the young snoops in room 1418, asking for anyone who recognized either of them to please come forward.

“They’re from out of state,” I said. “Or out of the country. Could be tourists, right? Any other time, we’d have an ID, but…” I didn’t have to say the obvious. The city’s agonized attention was focused on the crash and the ongoing search for answers. Of which there were none.

Richie closed the paper, straightened out the sections, and said, “I’m just going to float something. Blue sky. Don’t jump all over me.”

I said, “Go ahead.”

“It’s about Joe.”

“OK.”

“He’s an airport security consultant, right? He’s working on something related to the crash. That’s what he said in the message he left you.”

“Right.”

“So we see him on the hotel security tape. We see him outside the Chan house. Why? What if Joe had high-level intel that a Michael Chan was involved in terrorism? He finds out that there’s a Michael Chan in Palo Alto. He goes out there and follows Chan back here to the hotel, OK?”

“OK, OK, I’m with you.”

“So Joe’s waiting in the lobby for Chan to leave, say, but instead, we arrive with CSI and Claire, et cetera, heading up to the fourteenth floor. Joe can’t get involved in that, but he drives out to the house in Palo Alto the next day—”

“Why does he do that?”

“He doesn’t know Chan is dead. He’s waiting for him to come home.”

“OK.”

“And he sees our car in front of the house and peels off. Hell, maybe when he looks into the van’s lens, he knows full well that it’s doing surveillance on Chan.”

“So you think Joe’s on assignment to bird-dog Michael Chan?”

“Yeah. Then, two days later, the plane goes down. And now Joe’s got the same passenger manifest Claire’s got. And Michael Chan is on the plane. And he can’t call you,” said my partner. “There’s some blackout protocol, whoever he’s working for. They don’t want to be hacked by terrorists.”

“That’s good, Rich. I like it.”

And I did. It was the first meaningful and still innocent explanation for where Joe was and what he was doing.

It made sense.

So why wasn’t I buying it?

Brady appeared in the doorway of the break room.

He gripped both sides of the doorjamb for a couple of seconds, just long enough to say, “We’ve got Alison Muller’s lease car. Brown Lexus. Left in a parking lot at Seattle-Tacoma International. It’s white-glove clean, like it was detailed inside and out. No prints, no trash, no body in the trunk. No nothing. And Muller’s name isn’t on any airline passenger list.

“Thought you’d like to know.”

CHAPTER 48

I CALLED OUT to Brady as he broke from the doorway.

“Lieu, I need a minute.”

He turned, saying, “A minute’s all I’ve got. They’re waiting for me upstairs.”

He shut the door and joined Conklin and me at the table, moving the paper and the sugar canister aside to make room for his massive arms. Then he looked at me as if to say Well, what is it?

I thought about what Conklin had said, that if I told Brady about the beatdown, he was going to take me out of the game. But now I had to tell him everything. I took a breath and got started.

“There are some Asian guys dogging me,” I said, “four of them, and I’ve never gotten a good look at any of them. Night before last, I was roughed up on the street—”

Brady got up, opened the door, and shouted across the room to our steady and uncomplaining squad assistant, Brenda, “Tell Jacobi I’m running late.”

When he came back, he was glaring at me. He looked conflicted—furious and worried. He was checking out the scrape on the side of my jaw, which I’d somewhat covered with makeup, and my blackening eyes.

“How bad?”

“I’m good. I went to the ER. I’m bruised, but no broken bones, no internal injuries, no concussion. They kept me overnight and released me in the morning.”

Now he let me have it.

“You got beaten by four guys and you didn’t tell me? What’s wrong with you, Boxer? Don’t you think knowing that would impact decisions I have to make? Do not ever, ever keep intel away from me again. And watch your ass. Do not work alone. Understand?”

“Yes. I’m sorry. Really.”

“What did these guys want?”

“I cannot figure it out. One of them shouted at me. Heavy accent. It sounded like ‘Do you know Chan?’ And maybe ‘Who you work for?’ I can’t swear to that, Brady. But they didn’t kill me and they could have. I never got in a punch.”

Conklin was crossing and recrossing his legs, sighing, his body language conveying frustration and maybe suffering along with me.

Brady said, “Tell me all of it.”

I had to do it. I told him there might have been as many as four incidents: the confrontation at the ME’s office, the body slam at the NTSB meeting, then the beatdown outside my apartment building, and yesterday’s cross-country steeplechase in and around Monterey—which might or might not have anything to do with the other three incidents.

“We never got a look at the driver,” Conklin said. “But the point is, Lindsay, you have been harassed and assaulted.”

“Could you ID these guys?” Brady asked.

“Maybe I could identify the man who confronted me outside Claire’s office, but otherwise, their faces are a blur.”

“Tell me what happened outside the ME’s office.”

“That guy wanted to see his son. I took it to mean that his son had been on the plane. Brady, he couldn’t have known if his son was with Claire or at Metro or still on the highway.

“I gave him a phone number. He didn’t like that. Maybe everything that followed was payback for that. That’s speculation. What do you think?”

Brady said, “I want you to go home. No argument. Keep your gun with you. You want to speak to someone? A shrink?”

I shook my head. I could feel the marbles inside my skull rolling from ear to ear.

“Call me if you see these guys again. Even if you think you do.”

I nodded and Brady left the room.

I got my jacket, and after Conklin walked me down to the car, he told me, “For God’s sake stay home, lock your doors, and get some sleep.” It was touching how much my friend and partner worried about me. How much he cared.

We hugged. Then, without agreeing to anything, I drove home.

CHAPTER 49

I PARKED MY car at Eleventh and Lake, a block from the apartment. It was humiliating to have to admit to being beaten by dirt bags who’d gotten clean away with it, dirt bags I couldn’t identify.

But I was glad Brady had sent me home.

Underneath my horrible mood was a sense that I was burying something really big and really deep. As if I’d had a profound dream of losing something. And now that I was awake, I had to figure out what I’d lost.

I locked up the Explorer, stuck my hands in my pockets, and walked home, still limping from the pain cloaking my entire body. I looked up to see Mrs. Rose at the front door. She must have just brought Julie and Martha back from the park.

Wow, that Gloria Rose was cute.

She was wearing a watermelon-pink wool coat and a knitted cloche-type hat with flowers in the front. My baby girl kicked in her stroller and waved her hands and shrieked when she saw me. And Martha barked in little riffs that made me grin.

I took back my baby and dog. Then I gave Mrs. Rose a hug and told her I’d been made to take a sick day and I’d call her later.

Upstairs, I fixed fresh banana smoothies for baby and me. We ate in front of the TV and I made up a story of a big banana that wanted to be a smoothie. Julie seemed to think I was an awesome storyteller, and when she fell asleep on my lap, I put her in her playpen with her sock monkey.

I switched on the TV to Bloody Airplane News, which was pretty much on all channels. Worldwide Airlines was giving a press conference and all the networks were present.

At the podium, in front of a dark curtain, was a red-haired man, Colonel Jeff Bernard. The title under Bernard’s image said he was an aviation safety expert and former air force colonel working for NTSB.

I amped up the sound in time to hear him say that the black boxes had been recovered and analyzed. He said the recordings told the story of a perfectly normal approach to SFO with pilots in control, no prep for an emergency landing.

Colonel Bernard looked down at his notes, then raised his eyes again and continued.

“We believe it’s likely that a SAM, that is to say, a portable surface-to-air heat-seeking missile, was launched within three miles of the aircraft, probably from Junipero Serra County Park. Once launched, the missile followed the heat trail to the engine on the right side of the airliner, and when it exploded, the fuel that is stored in the airliner’s wing ignited. Uh, it is my opinion that the passengers never knew what happened. Mercifully, the entire incident lasted approximately two seconds.”

There was shouting and shoving and the camera was knocked aside. My heart was pounding as I switched channels again. Cut to a reporter out front of the WWA building who began summarizing the news, namely that the crash of WW 888 had been an act of terrorism—and that while several terrorist groups had taken credit, none of the boasts had checked out.

I clicked on channels up and down the line, and at some point, sleep grabbed me by the shoulders and hurled me onto the sofa. When I woke up, an hour had passed and I had an idea.

I’m pretty sure I would have had the idea sooner if I hadn’t been in denial. But the interview with Alison Muller’s husband had been nagging at me.

If Khan was to be believed, he trusted his wife. She takes off and doesn’t call and he tells me, “She’ll be home when she’s ready.”

Meanwhile, there are secrets in Ali’s closet, hard evidence of something that should have told Khan he didn’t know everything about Ali.

As for me, I was pretty sure that Ali Muller was either a killer or a targeted victim, definitely not a casual bystander.

So what was the difference between Khalid Khan and me? Both of us trusted our spouses, and maybe both of us had been willfully blind to the fact that our mates were leading double lives.

I wasn’t buying into blind trust anymore.

I was going to find Joe, no matter what it took.

CHAPTER 50

“JULIE-JULIE-JULIEEEE,” I sang.

I picked her up, loudly kissed her stomach, and brought her with me into the master bedroom. After spreading the fluffy duvet on top of the rug, I put the kiddo down with her sock monkey and her favorite dog.

Martha is the perfect baby minder, and the two of them were having a perfectly sensible conversation as I opened Joe’s closet door.

Joe’s wardrobe was not as organized as the contents of Ali Muller’s closet. And it was smaller, too, your standard six-by-six closet, with upper and lower rods: jackets on the top rod, pants on the lower.

I gathered armloads of clothing, making several trips from the closet to the bed, and when the racks were empty, I cleaned off the top shelves. I opened shoe boxes and Joe’s gun safe. His gun was gone.

I looked in his hamper to see what clothes he’d shucked when he’d come home for clean ones a few days ago. I found only regular laundry: underwear, shirt, jeans, socks. No trace of paint, gunpowder, or lipstick was visible to my naked and angry eye. I smelled the dirty clothes. They smelled like Joe.

I ran my hands over every inch of the closet walls. I was feeling for anomalies, for secret doors or traps. I tapped on the walls with the butt of my flashlight. The walls were solid. I lifted the carpet for good measure and found only a mess of dog hair in the corners.

Next I went through all of Joe’s pockets and checked the linings. I shook out his boots and put my fingers deep into his shoes. Nada.

I tossed Joe’s clothes onto the closet floor and shut the door. Then I went to his dresser, where I did a similarly thorough frisking of his shirts and underwear. I not only emptied the drawers but also checked for false bottoms and examined the undersides.

After I’d looked between the mattress and box spring and under the nightstands, I remembered that I was dealing with a man who’d been trained by the FBI. If Joe didn’t want something found, it wouldn’t be found.

But still, I couldn’t stop.

I picked up Julie and her sock monkey, whistled to Martha, and went into the back bedroom, which Joe used as an office. It was small, about nine by twelve. He had a desk under the one window facing Twelfth Avenue, a swivel chair, and a stand-alone bookshelf.

The desk was locked, so I got the key from where it was taped under the bathroom sink. Not that I’m so smart. He’d showed me where he kept it.

I returned to the back bedroom, opened the desk, and looked immediately for his laptop—and of course, it was gone. So were his iPad and his computer bag, and since the days of datebooks are long gone, I found nothing telling.

There were no cryptic notes on the pad next to the phone and no numbers in or on his desk.

But I remembered a couple of names from Joe’s recent past.

I called Brooks Findlay, Joe’s former employer. Findlay is a real shit who had hired Joe to draft security procedures for the Port of LA. Then, without cause or reason, he fired him. We figured Findlay had canned Joe because by doing a great job, Joe was making Findlay look bad.

Joe had given Findlay an elegant FU the last time he spoke with him, and Findlay had no reason to help me—but it was a place to start.

Findlay didn’t answer his own phone, but the woman who took a message said he’d be back in the office after lunch. I used the time to empty the bookshelves, flap open every book, and run my hand over the shelves.

And I made other calls. I spoke with three federal agents I’d worked with on cases where the SFPD and federal law enforcement crossed paths. I didn’t expect much, and that’s what I got. No one had heard from Joe or knew what he was working on or where he was.

Then Findlay’s name lit up the caller ID.

I told Findlay I hadn’t heard from Joe in a few days. That the last I’d heard, he was doing a freelance job for San Francisco International Airport having to do with the crash. Did Findlay have any information on that?

“I haven’t heard from Joe and I haven’t heard about him, either. I don’t think you know who you’re married to, Lindsay.”

I suddenly understood the expression “My blood ran cold.”

I told Findlay thanks and good-bye—I think. I became aware of the beeping busy signal as I held the phone next to my side.

I disconnected the line, used the bathroom, washed my face, gulped some Advil, and tried to think. There was one name and phone number I hated to call, but it was time.

Her number was stored on my phone from nine months ago when she’d come to SF to drop off a gift for our new baby. Her name was June Freundorfer and she was Joe’s old girlfriend, still with the FBI, DC Office.

I called June.

She answered on the first ring.

CHAPTER 51

I WAS DRESSED and caffeinated when my sister, Catherine, arrived from Half Moon Bay with her two little girls and an air mattress. I was glad to see them, very darned happy to turn my household over to Julie’s aunt and cousins.

I had cleared two days off with Brady, and my cab was waiting. I kissed everyone hello and good-bye at my door, grabbed my bag, and ran down the stairs.

The driver kept the radio on throughout the drive to the airport. I knew the news cold, but I listened again as reporters talked about San Franciscans in a panic. It had been bad enough when the news of the crash of WW 888 had centered on the body count and the tragic stories. Since then, the story had evolved and expanded and was now being billed as the worst terror attack on US soil since 9/11. And so far, no person, no group, no country had been identified as the terrorists.

I boarded the 10:15 a.m. Virgin America flight to Dulles International on the theory that terrorists wouldn’t strike two airliners in one week, a theory that held no water at all. All the passengers were putting on brave faces, and when the nice man to my right offered me a sleep aid, I took it.

Seven hours after leaving San Francisco, I was in the darkly lit bar at the tony Hotel George, waiting for June Freundorfer to appear. I had a small table, a bowl of nuts, a watery wine spritzer, and a ton of trepidation.

I remembered a time not so long ago when a picture of June, dark-haired and glamorous in a full-length gown, and Joe, completely dashing in a tux, had turned up in the online Style section of the Washington Post. Joe was still commuting to DC at the time, and when I showed him the photo, he insisted that he and June were just friends and that he had escorted her to a benefit. That was all.

I’d taken it badly.

June was gorgeous. Furthermore, she had once been Joe’s partner in the FBI. She was promoted to the FBI’s Washington field office about the same time Joe was hired as deputy director of Homeland Security, also in DC.

Both single, they’d dated for a while back in the day, but I hadn’t asked Joe for details. Not long after Julie was born, June had come to visit, unannounced, and had brought a baby gift in a robin’s-egg-blue box tied with a white ribbon.

I’d thanked her, and as soon as she was out of sight, I’d dumped the unopened gift into the trash. I didn’t want to see her, know her, or give the Tiffany’s rattle or whatever it was to Julie.

Now I was going to have to see June again. And this time, I was going begging. She said she had information for me but wouldn’t speak further on the phone. And that was how I came to be waiting for her at a hotel bar three thousand miles from home.

I was about to order another drink when I saw her coming through the room. She was in a shimmering gray suit, diamonds at her throat, perfect wavy hair—the kind of look I admired but couldn’t easily pull off.

There was just too much street cop in me.

Joe’s former partner and ex-girlfriend, high up in the FBI pecking order and currently whatever she was to Joe, came over to me. She said, “Lindsay, it’s good to see you.” I stood up and she gave me a fragrant air kiss.

I thanked her for making time for me.

“You sounded worried,” she said. “I would be worried, too.”

Holy crap. What did that mean?

The waiter pulled out her chair, and when we were both seated, June ordered a glass of club soda and a Jack Daniel’s on the rocks. Jack Daniel’s was Joe’s drink.

When she turned back to me, she said, “I only have fragments of information for you, but it may be worth something.”

The waiter put the drinks down in front of June and she pushed the whiskey over to my side of the table.

“This is for you,” she said.

CHAPTER 52

I SIPPED AT the two iced fingers of Jack to be polite, but not only did I want to hear from June, I wanted to be able to assess whether she was being straight with me or jerking me around. She put her phone on the table.

“I’m waiting for a call,” she said.

Then she leaned in.

“Joe was involved in some heavy stuff, Lindsay.”

Was?

“When you met him he was with Homeland Security, right?”

I nodded. A group of six people came into the bar and the maître d’ led them to a table about ten feet away. The group settled in noisily, laughing, their chairs scraping the floor.

I said, “He’d just been appointed deputy director.”

June said, “Well, as you know, he had been with the FBI before that, DC Bureau, but it isn’t commonly known that right out of college and for the following ten years, Joe was CIA.”

“What? He…never told me.” Was that true?

“Nor me. But it’s come to my attention recently. Do you know the name Alison Muller? Sometimes she goes by Alison Khan. Sometimes by Sonja Dietrich.”

Yes, indeed. I pictured Ali Muller with her Gucci shades and slow-motion blond hair. Then Joe flashed onto the flat-screen in my mind.

I said, “Ali Muller showed up on security footage around the time of a quadruple homicide last week.”

June said, “I thought so. She was seen by our people, but not positively identified. I have to ask you to keep this between us, Lindsay. I could get in very deep trouble, but look. Joe is missing and I know you must be in hell.”

I nodded dumbly as June said, “Joe and Muller worked together in the CIA.”

“They did? Worked together how?”

“This is what I know,” said June Freundorfer, tugging on her diamond necklace. “Muller sets what’s called, in the trade, honey traps. She uses her, um, appeal, to entice her subject, get close, and once she’s learned what she needs, she’s gone.

“Joe was her superior, I think. At any rate, they were an effective team. Muller had connections to foreign ministers, foreign intelligence operatives, military leaders—you wouldn’t believe the names. She’s not only brought in actionable information, she’s turned enemies into defectors to our side. She’s kind of a legend in the CIA.”

I must have been blinking like a bat under a bright light. I was trying to process information that just didn’t compute. Joe. Managing a Mata Hari for the CIA? No. No way. June could be making this up, but why would she? I thought she was being sincere. Maybe she really could help me. I had to ask.

“June. Is she working with Joe now?”

“I don’t know, Lindsay. But you should know that it’s not impossible. Alison and Joe were close.”

There was a lot of static in my head. “Close.” Meaning sexually. Romantically. Joe and that blond flytrap. I could actually picture that.

“I’m just guessing,” June said, “but maybe his relationship with Alison Muller got out of hand. Maybe that’s why he moved over from the CIA to the FBI. This is speculation built on rumor—but then, that’s my stock in trade.”

I took a swig of the whiskey and coughed most of it up. June handed me a cocktail napkin, and as I dabbed at my face and the table, she said, “Mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“No. But I’m almost completely in the dark.”

Not just dark, pitch freaking black. I remembered what the horrible Brooks Findlay had said to me: “I don’t think you know who you’re married to, Lindsay.”

Wasn’t that the truth?

June said, “To your knowledge, when was the last time anyone saw Alison Muller?”

I told June that the video featuring Alison Muller was shot Monday a week ago.

“And the last time you saw Joe?”

“I saw him on surveillance video that was shot the next day.”

June sighed and sat back hard.

I managed to ask, “Is Joe alive?”

“I don’t know,” June said. “He hasn’t answered my calls. Look. I have a name for you. John Carroll. He used to go by the tag Number Six, because that was his number on our CO’s speed dial.”

June laughed.

“Funny guy. He was my mentor at the time, and he knew both Joe and Alison before he retired. He may still be in touch with Alison or know someone who is. You can trust him.”

She wrote a name and number down on the cocktail napkin, then answered her phone. When she clicked off, she said, “I’ve got to go. Good luck, Lindsay. Call me if you need to talk.”

CHAPTER 53

THAT MORNING’S THREE a.m. wake-up call had nothing to do with Julie. It was utterly silent in my big hotel room, but my mind was far away and it was very busy.

I ran my memories of Joe in fast forward, picturing him when I’d first met him. How he looked. How impressed I was with the way he worked our case. How smart and funny and solid he was. I tried to skip over the first time we made love, but the pictures took up a whole room in my mind.

My apartment. Our second date. Even now, as scared and as angry as I was, I could still feel the chemistry.

After that, Joe flew across the country to see me, time upon time. And then he left DC and his job and moved to San Francisco so that we could get off the roller coaster of bicoastal relating. That was meaningful. Job vs. Lindsay. He chose me. And I couldn’t have loved my big handsome lover more.

When my apartment on Potrero Hill burned to the ground, Joe said, “Move in with me.”

I did it.

I thought about the fights we’d had, and how he’d walk us back down. I liked that he was older than me, and I saw a good husband and father in his values and his manner and his actions.

When he proposed marriage, I had no hesitation, and since then, no regrets.

Until now.

Now it seemed that he had lied to me. Not “No, you don’t look fat.” This was enormous, a huge honking omission the size of a city. He’d not only left out a telling chunk of his life story, but he’d also skipped right over a relationship with a woman who’d been very important to him, a woman who might be a killer.

I couldn’t fool myself any longer.

Joe’s disappearance alone was a betrayal. And if he had been “involved” with Alison Muller once, he could damned well be involved with her now. It could not be a coincidence that Joe and Alison Muller had been in the same place and had disappeared at the same time.

A closetful of lacy lingerie flashed into my mind.

I couldn’t stand my thoughts.

I could not bear to be alone in this hotel with no moves at all. It was too late to call Claire or my sister. And I could not call June.

I thought of the last time Joe and I had made love. How warm and silly and wonderful that romp had been. I’d held him and kissed him and loved him up and then we’d had breakfast with our baby girl in a shaft of morning sunshine.

And now?

Was he in bed with another woman?

Or was he lying dead somewhere with a bullet through the back of his skull? Had Alison Muller killed him?

Had that bitch killed my husband?

CHAPTER 54

I DRESSED FOR my appointment to meet John Carroll at seven-thirty that morning. I put on yesterday’s trousers, a clean blouse, and my best blazer.

The National Mall, a long tree-lined park with iconic views of the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol, was only three blocks from the hotel. I crossed Constitution and walked along the center path, and I have to say, the grandeur of the place was just wasted on me.

All I wanted to do was meet Mr. Carroll and listen to him say my fears were ridiculous. That he knew for a fact that Joe was working on a job that was vital to national security. And that Joe was safe and had nothing to do with Alison Muller.

I saw a man sitting by himself on a bench, staring across a wide grass median to the Reflecting Pool. He was white, rangy, about fifty years old, with thinning brown hair. He wore blue pants, a black Windbreaker, and running shoes. As I got closer, I saw that he was gripping an aluminum cane in his right hand.

I said, “Mr. Carroll?”

He looked up and nodded, and I told him my name.

He indicated that I should sit down, which I did. And he said, “June said you wanted to know about Ali Muller, but she didn’t say why.”

“I’m with the San Francisco Police Department, Homicide. We think Alison may have witnessed a violent crime.”

“Oh. I’m sure it wouldn’t be the first time. So you’re looking for her as a material witness?”

“Exactly. Can you help me?”

“The short answer is no. I haven’t seen Alison in years. Thank God.”

He wrapped his fingers around the handle of his cane and dug the tip into the ground, preparing to stand.

I said, “Wait. Mr. Carroll, I’m also trying to locate my husband, Joe Molinari. June thinks they may be working together.” I heard myself saying these awful words out loud. “So if you can give me any kind of lead to their whereabouts…”

“Joe Molinari? Hah. That’s a blast from the past.” John Carroll settled back on the bench. He actually smiled.

“I don’t doubt that Muller knows where Molinari is. Do you have any idea what you’re poking into?”

“I think I do,” I said stiffly. He didn’t notice.

“I worked with Joe in the early nineties,” Carroll was saying. “Bright man. With a future. I was surprised when he switched agencies. But who knows why anyone does anything?

“She was another one. Sonja Dietrich. Alison Muller. Bright as a star. Men fell in love with her, to their long-term detriment. They would do anything for her. Tell her everything. I was in love with her myself.”

I didn’t speak or even clear my throat. I had to hear this story. And Number Six was ready and willing to tell it.

“I was married when I knew Muller. Had a lovely wife. Sadie. Two terrific kids. She made me forget all about them. When I was in so deep with her that I couldn’t see over the edge of my own grave, she went to Central Command and said I couldn’t be trusted.

“Well. In a sense that was true. I’d told her things, and she had recorded our conversations. I couldn’t believe she did that to me. To me.”

The retired CIA operative gazed at the still waters of the Reflecting Pool, lost, no doubt, in memories of Alison Muller. He’d already told me he was a dead end, but I gave it another shot.

“Mr. Carroll. If you were me, where would you look for Muller? Any kind of a lead would help me and the SFPD.”

“The last time I heard from Alison Muller was the night before she ruined my career and my marriage and my belief in myself. All I’ve got for you is the benefit of my experience.

“I believe she actually loved Joe when I knew them. I thought he must be the luckiest man in our galaxy. But here’s the thing. If she’s got her hooks into Joe again, I advise you to call your lawyer and get ready to dissolve your marriage.

“Or hope for the best. See how that works out for you.”

“Thanks. For your time,” I said. If I’d had my gun with me, I might have shot him through the heart.

Just like he’d done to me.

CHAPTER 55

I HAD MY carry-on bag slung over my shoulder and was outside the hotel with a loosely connected group of people who, like me, were waiting for the shuttle bus to the airport.

I was thinking, There’s the evil you know, and then there’s this place.

I couldn’t wait to get home.

A limo pulled up to the bus stop and the window buzzed down. A voice called out to me. A beautifully manicured hand waved through the open window.

“June?”

I walked over to the limo.

“Lindsay, I called and the desk said you’d just checked out. I’m glad I caught you.”

June Freundorfer opened the door, said, “Get in,” and slid along the backseat, making room for me.

“I have to catch the bus,” I said. “My flight…”

“We’ll give you a lift. Virgin America?”

How’d she know?

I got into the car and closed the heavy door behind me. June pressed the com button and gave the driver instructions. Then she leaned back.

“What’s going on?” I asked her.

“Lindsay, completely off the record, maybe we can help each other. I hope you don’t mind, but I did a little poking around on your Four Seasons Hotel case.”

“Really? Why?”

“We were tracking Michael Chan.”

My blood was beating against my eardrums. I was still in shock from my meeting an hour ago with John Carroll, that prick. And I wished more than anything that I could turn back time to—when was it? A week ago, when I’d had lunch with the girls and I was so high on my life. Now I was in a long black car with June Freundorfer, who wanted to be my friend. Crap. I was starting to like her.

“The reason we were keeping tabs on Michael Chan,” June said, “was because we were interested in his wife.”

June definitely had my attention.

“Shirley Chan has been on the CIA watch list for years. Ours, too. She was working for MSS, China’s intelligence agency. The Ministry of State Security. MSS recruits heavily from the academic sector. This is a big talent pool for industrial and military spies, and they also plug into the universities to keep informed about our trends and advances.”

I remembered Shirley Chan crying in the backseat of our squad car after learning that her husband was dead. She had been an emotional wreck. She was a Chinese spy? Now I pictured the woman with the “striped hair,” taking her out with three well-placed shots from across the kitchen table.

June was saying, “We were thinking that maybe Michael Chan was also MSS. That could explain Muller’s interest in him. Or maybe Chan was just a way to get information about his wife. You met her, didn’t you?”

I gathered my scattered wits. I had no top secret information on Shirley Chan. Her murder was on the record in Palo Alto and, to a lesser extent, my very minor report for our files. We’d informed her that her husband was dead. We’d hoped she could tell us why Michael Chan had been killed. That was all.

I said to June, “My partner and I interviewed her after her husband was murdered. We went back out to her house again three days later.”

I told June that I’d found Shirley Chan dead and that her daughter’s description was vague. It seemed possible that it had been Alison Muller who had pulled the trigger.

“Three shots,” I told June. “No misses. Very professional. The shooter left no prints and no trace.”

June said, “Yeah, well, that’s Alison’s style all the way.”

When the limo stopped at Virgin’s curbside check-in, June reached over and hugged me. Out of reflex, I hugged her back. It felt OK. I got out of the car and moved through the airport like a zombie on Xanax.

Once on the plane, I collapsed into my window seat and buckled in. The flight didn’t scare me at all.

This was the fastest way home.

CHAPTER 56

I HIT THE ground running and was home within an hour. I was spending some cuddle time with my daughter and gab time with my little sister and darling Brigid and Meredith when Cindy called, saying, “We’re meeting at the clubhouse in thirty minutes. Your excellent presence is requested.”

I checked it out with Cat, who said, “Go. Please go ahead. We’ll be fine.”

Twenty minutes later, with my stomach growling and my bruises throbbing, I breezed through the entrance to a little joint on Jackson Street called Susie’s Café.

The four of us thought of this place as our clubhouse and tried to meet within these ocher-colored, sponge-painted walls every week.

With the catchy beat of steel drums coming from the front room and the aroma of Caribbean-style cuisine fanning out from the kitchen, we had shared years of laughter in “our” booth at the back of the house. And we’d solved a few knotty crimes while we were at it.

I sighed happily once I was inside.

I nodded to the old acquaintances at the bamboo bar and to Susie, who was penning the specials on the whiteboard. I passed through the narrow channel that skirts the pickup window and empties into the smaller back room.

As usual, Claire and Yuki had arrived first and had taken one side of the booth. Also as usual, Yuki had ordered a margarita. After all my years of knowing Yuki, she still didn’t care that tequila put her under the table. In fact, giddiness suited Yuki. Her ringing laughter was one of life’s pleasures.

Claire’s seat was on the aisle, so she stood up and hugged me, saying, “You OK, darlin’?”

“Never better.”

“Right,” said Claire, calling me on my bullshit with just her inflection.

I swung myself down to the seat across from my friends and ordered a beer, and that was when Cindy entered the back room with Richie in her wake.

True, Richie is not in the club, but we all love him dearly, and sometimes testosterone can move our thinking in a different direction.

Cindy sat next to me, and Richie pulled up a chair at the end of the table. Lorraine took our orders for the specials du jour and more beer. Then everyone turned to look at me.

The volume in this place was so high that unless there was a microphone buried in the jerked pork, this was as discreet a venue as possible for a conversation about Joe Molinari, Chinese spies, and a blond government operative who set honey traps.

I spilled the beans to a rapt audience.

“I have it on good authority that Alison Muller—that’s one of her names—is a CIA spy.”

I waited out the “What?” and “Who said so?” from Cindy and Claire, who were both familiar with the names of the victims. And then I said, “The same good authority told me that Shirley Chan was also a spy—for China.”

There were more gasps and OMGs and Richie said, “So what about Michael Chan? Was he a spy, too?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe he got caught in the crossfire. But the same source, and this has been independently validated, dropped a bomb. Joe was in the CIA long before I met him. That makes me think maybe he’s working for the CIA now.”

“That would explain why he hasn’t been in touch,” said Rich. Discussion of Joe as a CIA operative rounded the table a few times; then the conversation turned back to Ali Muller.

Cindy was curious about what kind of woman slept with men in order to betray them. Claire added, “Sex for secrets. And she kills people, right?”

“Psychopath,’” said Yuki. “Or patriot. Maybe she’s both.”

I tried to keep my head in the conversation, to feel the love and the safety in this coziest of places.

But my mind kept veering toward what I hadn’t said. That Ali Muller had worked for Joe. That they had been close. I hadn’t told my best friends in the world the fear that I was harboring, that Ali and Joe were back together again.

Music came from the front room. People were clapping and shouting “Lim-bo. Lim-bo.” I drank my beer. I didn’t even have to form questions in my mind anymore. I ached for my missing husband. I ached for him all over.

CHAPTER 57

CAT AND I had a good long talk that night, and we fell asleep in the big bed. Early the next morning, with promises both ways to stay closer in touch, I kissed my sister and nieces good-bye at the curb.

I took Martha for a good long run to the park and back. Panting and blowing, we returned to the apartment, where I showered, while Mrs. Rose made oatmeal and coffee. Breakfast time for Julie, Martha, Gloria Rose, and me was becoming almost normal, except for the empty sunlit chair where Joe had been sitting with his pancakes more than a week ago.

I drove my car through morning rush out to the airport, this time to meet Conklin for an update on the worst tragedy visited on the city of San Francisco since the great earthquake of 1906. We boarded a little red bus full of cops and journalists, and after zipping across the tarmac, we were deposited at the yawning mouth of the SuperBay at the northeastern turn end of the airport.

The SuperBay was huge, large enough to hold four jumbo jets. But under the lights, laid out on the football-field-sized concrete floor, was a giant, unsolved jigsaw puzzle made up of the blasted wreckage of the Boeing 777.

Vanderleest gave nothing away with his expression, but he was thorough. He walked the large group around the perimeter of the loosely assembled airplane carcass, showing where the tail section had broken from the fuselage; pointing out the fuselage itself, with its many rows of seating; indicating the ignition site, including the fragments of the wing; and showing us the nose of the plane with the intact cockpit, one of the few parts that bore any resemblance to its original form.

Vanderleest capped off his lecture by saying, “Anything that needed analysis was sent to our lab in DC. Investigations like this one typically take a year, sometimes a year and a half, to close. I’m always available to give updates, as needed.”

I asked Vanderleest if there was any news of parties who had fired the missile and he told me, “There are still no credible claims to this—this horror.”

It was a wrenching experience, seeing that total destruction, imagining the people who’d been only moments from a safe landing and reunions with friends and family. The explosion had killed hundreds for no reason anyone could explain, and to date, no one had been charged with any of it.

When we’d seen and heard it all, Conklin and I took the bus back to the domestic parking garage, where we’d left our cars. While in transit, my partner said to me, “Brady and I went to the Chan funerals while you were out.”

“In Palo Alto?”

“Yeah. Small church, but it was packed,” he said. “Lotta crying. I saw some of the people we met out at Stanford. That runner friend of Chan’s. And the department head, Levy, gave one of the eulogies. A lot of people only spoke in Chinese.”

“You didn’t see Alison Muller, by chance?”

“That woulda made it worth the trip. But I think I saw the guy who slammed into you at the NTSB briefing.”

“You think?”

“His face was sort of triangular. Wide forehead. Eyes sort of wide apart. A narrow white scar across his chin.”

“That’s him,” I said. “That’s the guy.”

“He saw me looking at him and just dissolved into the crowd. What’s he got to do with Chan?”

“Maybe he wanted to confirm that Michael Chan is dead,” I said. “Maybe he doesn’t know which Chan is the real one and which is the doppelganger. Fifty bucks says he’s with Chinese intelligence.”

“You know what I think?” Conklin said. “Flight WW 888. That plane flew outta Beijing. Michael and Shirley Chan and the Chinese thugs who’ve been dogging you. They’re all part of the same thing.”

“I buy it, Richie. Now we only need to figure out what this ‘thing’ is.”

CHAPTER 58

AS SOON AS I got to my desk that day, I called Claire and asked, “Any news from Dr. Marshall regarding the whereabouts of Michael Chan, version two?”

Claire said, “This is what she said, and I quote. ‘I am still sorting out body parts. I’ll call you when or if I locate Mr. Chan or parts thereof. Any more questions?’ She’s made herself clear. Still, whatever she says, she’s responsible.”

I had just rung off with Claire when Brenda paged me. I picked up line two and turned to look at Brenda at the same time.

Standing at her desk was a tall, dark, and immaculately dressed man. Brenda’s voice came to me in stereo.

“Mr. Khan is here to see you.”

“Send him back,” I said.

Khalid Khan pushed at the gate and came through our gray and depressing squad room. He sat down in the chair next to my desk and blew his nose into a handkerchief. I could swear he’d been crying.

He said, “It’s hard to admit this, but when you left the house the other day, I knew I’d been an ass. I apologize for the way I spoke to you. No, you don’t have to say anything. Thanks for what you did. I’ve been deluding myself for years, and now that I’m willing to look at the truth, I don’t know where to find it.”

“Tell me what you do know,” I said.

Khan told me his daughter was sure that the woman in the Four Seasons security footage was Alison. Caroline had listed some of the lies Alison had told him, and he was shaken to his soles by her mendacity. Khan told me now of several times when Ali had gone on her “focus downs,” coming back a week later without telling him anything about where she’d been and what she’d done.

“We have always said that what was good for each of us was good for the marriage,” he said now. “That made sense. Ali was never cut out to be a traditional wife, and I loved that about her. And now I’m paying the price for my incredible gullibility. Please tell me what to do.”

I told Khan we were looking for his wife in San Francisco, that Monterey police were looking for her also, and that the FBI was involved because of the four people who were killed in the hotel.

I said, “The crash has sucked up the time of every law enforcement officer in the state, Mr. Khan. But no one has forgotten that Alison is missing. She hasn’t called you or your daughters?”

“No.”

“Before the hotel shootings, had you ever heard of Michael Chan?”

“Never.”

“What about Joe Molinari? Is that name familiar to you?”

“I don’t think so,” said Mr. Khan. “Who is he?”

“A person of interest, that’s all.”

I’m pretty sure my face colored, but Khan didn’t notice.

“I don’t know if I want her back,” he told me with a broken voice, “but I have to talk to her. It just can’t end like this. I need to see her.”

“We want to find her, too, Mr. Khan.”

I was thinking, If I was any good at finding lost spouses, I would find mine. It came together then. Sure. Why the hell not? I would find them both.

CHAPTER 59

I WAS BATHING Julie when the phone rang.

I grabbed it, stabbed the button, and growled, “Boxer.” It was a juggling act, pinning the phone under my chin while keeping my slippery baby in hand.

A voice said, “Mrs. Molinari, this is Agent Michael Dixon from the CIA.”

“Yes?”

My thoughts were as slippery as my daughter. CIA? What the hell was this? Good news or bad? Had they found Joe?

“We’d like to have a few words with you.”

“OK. When?”

“We’re downstairs.”

“Here? Now?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, give me a second. Make that five minutes and then buzz me.”

I rinsed Julie off, wrapped her up in a towel, and from there dressed her in PJs. She was not tired and she was not going to bed, so I put her in the playpen. I left Martha loose, but I got my gun out of the cabinet and tucked it into the waistband of my jeans.

When the intercom buzzed, I told Dixon and his partner to put their badges up to the camera. They did it. And still, I checked them out through the peephole in my door. Satisfied, I undid the chain lock and let the two men inside.

They introduced themselves as Agents Michael Dixon and Chris Knightly from Langley. They were both in their thirties, both in business attire, jackets and ties and well-shined shoes. They weren’t a twin set. Dixon was average height, dark hair, button nose. Knightly was large and blond with an American flag lapel pin.

Dixon was the man in charge.

When they were seated on the wide leather sofa, Dixon said, “I understand from John Carroll that you’re interested in locating Alison Muller.”

“She’s a possible witness,” I said. “She may have been the last to see a victim of a recent homicide.”

“Yes, we understand that she may well have been with Michael Chan.” Dixon went on. “We want to level with you, Mrs. Molinari. Call it interagency cooperation. But in exchange, we need you to back off your inquiries into Alison Muller.”

Really? They didn’t have the authority to take me off my case. If that was what they wanted, they shouldn’t have come to me here. What was up?

I said, “That’s not my call. Not yours, either. Muller is a person of interest in a quadruple homicide. Our case. SFPD.”

“I want to assure you that Muller didn’t kill Michael Chan,” said Dixon. “Muller wanted him alive. We all do.”

“So what happened?” I said, not promising anything.

Knightly looked around the apartment from his seat on the sofa. He got up. Went to the large windows facing Lake Street and looked out. Keeping watch, I thought.

Dixon said, “We’ve been in contact with Muller. She was working Chan, trying to establish if he, like his wife, was in Chinese intelligence.”

“And was he?”

“Muller didn’t know. She had already left the hotel and was walking northeast on Market at the time of the incident. This is documented. She doesn’t know anything about the other victims.”

“I’d like to talk with her myself,” I said. “Officially. Once I’ve cleared her, I’ll be happy to move on.”

Julie started to fuss. I made an educated guess that she needed changing and that she was about to make this need extremely well known.

“That’s not possible,” Dixon said. “She’s undercover on a job. When her current assignment wraps up, we’ll put her in touch with you.”

Pretty much what Khalid Khan had said to me a few days ago. I pressed on.

“What can you tell me about a passenger named Michael Chan who was on WW 888?”

He was lying. But maybe he’d tell me the truth when I asked the question that was most important to me.

“Joe Molinari,” I said. “Do you know where I can find him?”

Knightly returned to the sofa and said, “I know of Molinari, but he’s ancient history. We have no current information about him, I’m afraid.”

“I just want to know if he’s alive. Can you tell me that?”

“Believe me, I would tell you if I knew,” said Agent Knightly of the CIA. “He’s not one of ours.”

Julie let out a wail. The two men put their cards on the kitchen island and let themselves out of the apartment.

What the hell had just happened?

Alison Muller’s colleagues had said she was alive.

And for all I knew, Joe Molinari, my husband, the father of my crying little girl, that man was dead.

CHAPTER 60

AS SOON AS Julie was asleep in her crib, I filled the tub with the hottest water I could bear and got in. But even lavender-scented bubbles couldn’t relax my mind.

Those men from the CIA had lied to me. Maybe they had been in contact with Alison Muller, maybe not. My gut was telling me they just wanted me to stop looking for her, calling attention to her, speaking to the FBI about her. As for what they’d said about Joe, I couldn’t read them. Not for sure.

I imagined Joe, working out of his home office, that small room that he could almost wear like a sweater. Those months when he was home all day with the baby—had he been working for the CIA? Had he been working with her?

The day of the killings in the Four Seasons, had Joe been there because he had been teamed up with Muller? Maybe while she was on the fourteenth floor killing Chan, he had been waiting to get her out of the hotel unseen.

Far-fetched? Maybe. But it was too damned much of a coincidence that the two of them had disappeared at approximately the same time.

I went to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. In the light of the streetlamp coming in through the window, I stared up at the juncture between the walls and the ceiling and wondered now if Joe had been alone in his car when he looked into our camera outside the Chan house.

Had Muller been sitting beside him in the passenger seat? Had the two of them come to the Chan house—not to do their own surveillance, but to take out Shirley Chan? Had our squad car in the driveway delayed Shirley Chan’s murder?

I cannot explain why an idea suddenly jumped into my mind, but it did. I sat up straight in bed.

Joe had taken all of his electronic devices with him before he disappeared—hadn’t he? I’d gone through our bedroom and also Joe’s office. But I hadn’t gone through Julie’s room.

I got out of bed and went to the nursery next door. Martha trotted behind me. I whispered to her to sit, and then I turned on the Finding Nemo lamp on the white-painted dresser. The light from the lamp was pale and yellow, but I could see the whole room. I peeked in on Julie and she was breathing softly. So I began opening her drawers.

I took out folded onesies from the top drawer, baby blankets from the second, diapers from the bottom, and when I didn’t find anything of interest, I put it all back and stepped over to her closet.

I pulled the chain on the closet lightbulb and took stock. Julie had very few clothes needing hangers, but Joe and I both had stored excess clothes here. I grabbed up armloads of coats and ski outfits we never wore, putting them on the floor. Then I took boxes of shoes off the shelf.

Once I had the boxes on the floor, I flipped the lids on the dress shoes, both mine and Joe’s. And then my heart froze solid. On top of the shoes Joe had worn when we got married was a tablet. I’d never seen it before. The charger was in the box with the shoes.

CHAPTER 61

MARTHA LICKED MY face as I plugged in the charger and turned on the tablet. I pushed her away and stared at the box that was requesting a password.

I had no idea what Joe’s password would be. And then the image of a number jumped into my mind. It was the haziest kind of memory because I hadn’t thought about it when I saw it. Now I wasn’t sure if I’d seen it at all. I bolted to Joe’s office and opened the center drawer. I had put all of the contents back after I had tossed it, failing to find clues or evidence of Joe’s whereabouts.

Now I pulled the drawer all the way out. I dumped the take-out menus and pens and paper clips onto the rug, then took the drawer over to the desk lamp and looked at where the bottom met the sides of the drawer.

Something was written in pencil close to the seam, a long line of numbers and letters that added up to nothing.

Like the best kind of password.

I brought the empty drawer to the tablet on the floor of Julie’s room and typed the alphanumeric into the password box on Joe’s page. I got blocked several times. There were eighteen characters in this chain, and I blew it a few times.

The third time, I was slow and deliberate, and I was sure I’d typed in the eighteen characters perfectly.

And still the password was rejected.

I typed in a few obvious combinations of birthdays and names, but no luck. Joe was a spy. Triple threat. CIA, FBI, Homeland Security. He wasn’t using a password he’d written in his pencil drawer. He wasn’t going to use password1234, either. He wouldn’t use his daughter’s name to guard his secrets. Right?

Just for laughs, I typed in JulieAnne, and bam. I was in. Imagine that. Folders populated the little desktop.

It was immediately clear to me that this storage account was for Joe’s personal stuff. The Brooks Findlay file wasn’t there, for instance, nor any of Joe’s freelance clients. I found a file for football scores, and clips from blogs he followed. I found nothing marked top secret. And his contact list didn’t include Alison Muller’s info.

Before giving up, I clicked on the calendar icon, and when it opened, I flashed over the entries for the many empty days and months when Joe had worked from home.

The notes were brief and straightforward, but there were a couple of cryptic entries at the end of March. Joe had taken a trip back east to see his mother, who’d just had surgery to put in a pacemaker. He’d made notes of his flight reservations on this, his personal calendar.

But what I was reading showed me that Joe hadn’t made a round trip from SFO to New York’s JFK. He had booked connecting flights from SFO through JFK to Brandenburg, an airport in Berlin. And he’d noted the confirmation numbers for two seat assignments.

One for J. A. Molinari. And the second for a fellow traveler, Sonja Dietrich.

Joe had gone to Berlin with Alison Muller.

Who was he? I didn’t know my husband at all.

CHAPTER 62

JOAN RONAN MACLEAN was an attractive twenty-five-year-old bartender from Palo Alto who’d come to San Francisco on her own dime to see Conklin and me. She made himself comfortable in the visitor’s chair next to our desks, flipped her sandy-colored hair out of her eyes, and said Michael Chan frequented the Howling Wolf and had been at the bar a couple of nights before he was killed.

According to MacLean, “Chan was drinking alone, and he had more than his usual two beers.”

“How did he seem to you?” Conklin asked.

“Pensive. The bar was kinda empty and he wanted to talk. I speak a little Chinese because I had a Chinese nanny, so we’re kinda friends. But I was completely unprepared for this.”

“Please go on,” Conklin said.

“Yeah, yeah. He told me he was in love with a woman, not his wife, and that they were going to run away to Canada together.”

“Did he mention the woman’s name?”

“He called her Renata one time, and the other times he called her ‘my love.’ I asked him if he was serious about running away, because he has a wife and kids, you know? And he said she was married, too. And he said this lady carried a gun. So I said, ‘She’s a cop?’

“And he said, all dreamy-like, ‘I don’t really know.’”

I asked MacLean, “As you see it, does this affair have anything to do with Chan getting killed?”

“Well. It made me wonder if his wife killed him. Or if his girlfriend did.”

More questions in a case that was nothing but questions. I thanked MacLean for the tip and walked her out to the gate. When I got back to my desk, Conklin was hanging up the phone. He said, “Chi has a lead on the Chinese guys who’ve been dogging you.”

Chi was Sergeant Paul Chi of our homicide squad. He was born here but speaks some Chinese and has cultivated a stable of CIs in and around Chinatown.

I said to Conklin, “What’s he got?”

Conklin tapped on his keyboard and said, “Here you go.”

I was looking at a low-res photo of a broad-shouldered Chinese man, maybe in his twenties, wearing a black T-shirt, sports jacket, and jeans. He’d been snapped getting out of a partially obstructed vehicle that might be a BMW SUV.

“When was that taken?” I asked.

“Yesterday, half past noon, near a noodle shop in Chinatown.”

“What noodle shop? Where, exactly?”

Conklin turned his head and looked up at me. “What do I look like? Google Maps?”

I laughed, went around to my desk, and threw myself down into the chair. I pawed my mouse and opened my browser.

“Name of noodle shop? Or is that too much to ask?”

“Mei Ling Happy Noodles.”

I put the name in, clicked a few times, and got a picture of a noodle shop on Stockton, a major artery through Chinatown. I swiveled my monitor so my partner could see the shop and then the wide view of the street. At midday, the stores and markets on Stockton and the neighboring intersecting streets of Washington and Jackson were fairly seething with traffic and pedestrians.

“So, this was taken noonish,” Conklin said. “Maybe this guy was stopping for lunch.”

“Uh-huh. Noodles to go.”

“I could go for some yat gaw mein,” Richie said.

I was ready to punch out and go home to my child before nightfall for once.

“You mean now?” I said. “How about tomorrow, first thing?”

“That works for me,” he said.

I thought, Little Julie. Here I come.

CHAPTER 63

IT WAS JUST before six p.m. when I headed out to the parking lot on Harriet Street. Rain had been threatening most of the day and was now bordering on torrential. I ran with my head down and my keys in hand. After disabling the alarm, I swung up into the Explorer’s high driver’s seat, which, after ten years of daily use, fits me like my Calvins.

I turned on my lights and got the wipers going, then pulled out to my left, heading along the narrow one-lane street, which was banked by chain-link fences and parking lots. I could see my turn onto Harrison a block away when a car came barreling straight at me through the gloom, hitting its brights when it was only a few car lengths in front of me.

I had no time to think.

I swerved my wheel hard to the right and jammed on my brakes, and at the same time, the oncoming vehicle screeched to a full stop, smashing my left fender and shattering the headlight.

Freaking idiot. Was he insane?

I had my hand on the door handle and was about to get in that driver’s face when another vehicle pulled up on my left, stopping right there. A chain-link fence was on my right, effectively blocking my exit from the passenger-side door. Then brights in my rearview mirror brought it all into sharp focus.

I was completely boxed in. I was trapped.

I whipped my head around to face the driver on my left and was hardly surprised to see the Asian man with the scar on his chin, the one who’d body-blocked me as I was leaving the NTSB meeting.

I yelled, “What do you think you’re doing?”

He grinned, lifted a handgun, and took aim at my face.

I ducked a fraction of a second before a succession of bullets shattered my window. I kept my head down at the level of the dashboard, pulled my gun from my shoulder holster, and fired back. I got off a couple of shots, but the man with the scar ducked, and I didn’t wait to see if I’d hit him.

I jerked the gearshift into reverse and stepped on the gas. I backed up hard and fast into the car behind me. Metal shrieked as the rear of my vehicle and the front of his crumpled from the impact.

At the same time, bullets from the car to my left and the one in front of me came through my windshield, spider-webbing the glass, which fell onto my dash.

I hunched down and shifted into drive, and the Explorer lunged forward. I had to avoid hitting the car that had caved in my left headlight and was still partially blocking the road. I veered to my right, scraped along twenty feet of chain-link fencing, and floored it.

My car filled with light.

I peered over the steering wheel for a split second and saw that the shooter in front of me, taking up his lane and half of mine, had opened his car door and was using it as a shield. His head was haloed in the streetlights behind him, and I could see him very well as he rested his gun on his door frame and took aim.

I stayed bent over the wheel, pedal to the floor. There were a loud crunch and a scream as I hit the shooter’s door with him wedged behind it.

I kept going, flying toward Harrison with driving rain coming through my empty windows. Bullets pinged into my car’s chassis and took out my rear window. One after the other, my rear tires blew out. The gas tank would be next.

My car shimmied and hydroplaned as I came to the end of Harriet, and when I took a hard, jackknifing left turn onto Harrison, I nearly lost control.

Horns blared from all sides and panicky drivers jumped lanes to get out of my way. I couldn’t see much through the rain in my eyes, but the Hall of Justice loomed on my left. I sped to Eighth, taking turns onto one-way streets until I cruised to a creaking stop, halting my battered ride beside two cruisers that were parallel-parked in front of the Hall.

A couple of uniformed cops were standing on the side-walk staring out at the mess I’d made of Bryant Street traffic.

I yelled out to them, “I need some help here.”

My badge was hanging from a ball chain around my neck. I held it up to the window frame.

The cops came over and took a look at me. One said, “Mother of God.” And the other leaned in and asked, “How bad are you hurt?”

My face prickled like I’d been stung by a hundred bees, and I could feel blood trickling down my collar. I was soaked and freezing, but I hadn’t been shot.

“I’m OK,” I said. “There’s been a shooting around the corner on Harriet, couple blocks down. There are multiple heavily armed suspects still on the scene. Call all cars and be very careful. And get an ambulance. Someone got hurt.”

CHAPTER 64

I PHONED CONKLIN from the street, and what I said scared him enough that he and Brady met me before I could reach the front steps of the Hall.

Conklin said, “I’ll take you to the hospital.”

“Thanks, but no way. I wasn’t hit.”

He insisted and I shut him down.

“I’m cold and wet and, yeah, shaken up, but not shot.”

We repaired to Brady’s office forthwith. I gave him my gun and he got on the phone and ordered the armorer to get me a new one. Then he called Jacobi.

Conklin found a blanket in the break room and draped it around my shoulders and was pulling splinters of glass out of my cheeks and hair when Claire knocked on the glass. Who called her? Brady?

Claire took one long look and said, “My God, Lindsay. I just heard. Come with me.”

“What for?” I said. “I’m fine.”

“Come with me, sweetie. Come on.”

I grumbled but followed my doctor friend to the ladies’ room, where she said, “You only get out of going to the hospital if I say so.”

I submitted. I took off my clothes.

Claire gave me a full 360-degree inspection, saying “Oh, my God,” at the sight of my bruises. She turned me gently around, lifted my arms, and ran her fingers over my scalp.

Finally, she said, “If you feel good enough to go home, you get a pass.”

“I should be dead,” I said, my chattering teeth biting my words into syllables. “Those shits knew my movements. They waited for me and were determined to kill me. Why? And now I killed one of them.”

“Come home with me tonight,” Claire said.

“I can’t. I’ll be OK, Claire. Brady will keep eyes on me, put cars in front of my place. I’ll be fine.”

Brady was still on the phone when I returned to his office. I sat with Conklin, and as Brady talked to whomever, I sifted through the events of the last half hour. The best outcome would be if the man I crushed behind his car door was alive so that I could get him to talk. God knew, I wanted answers.

Brady took another call. He listened, said, “Thanks,” then hung up.

He said, “The guy you hit with your car, Boxer—”

“Yes?”

“He walked away. Or his friends scraped him up and threw him into the trunk. There was no corpse on Harriet.”

I had a moment of relief, and then the next thought rolled over me like a tidal wave.

We had no suspects or witnesses, no IDs, no plate numbers. The men who’d attacked me could be heading for LA or Mexico or points east, or hell, they could be idling their engines on Bryant, waiting to take another crack at me.

“Here’s your new gun,” Brady said, handing over a Glock identical to my old one. “The chief ’s on the way down.”

Damn it. Now I was going to have to tell this story to Jacobi.

CHAPTER 65

CHIEF OF POLICE Warren Jacobi is big and gray-haired and he walks with a limp because of two bullets he took to the hip on a bad night in the Tenderloin. I was also shot that night, but unlike Jacobi, I remained conscious and called for help. That night Jacobi and I bonded for life.

Over the last dozen years, Jacobi has been my partner, my subordinate, and now my boss. I stood up when he entered Brady’s small office. He reached out and folded me into a gentle hug.

My eyes welled up and I dried them on his jacket.

“I’m OK. I’m really OK.”

He released me and shook his head.

“Boxer, I want you to listen to me. You’re a target. I don’t know why, and from what I hear, you don’t know, either. And I know you weren’t careless or stupid. Regardless, you’ve been beat up and chased and shot at, and next time these guys get you in their sights—I don’t need to spell it out, do I? So don’t fight me. Don’t make me pull rank. Just do what I say. Take some time off. Leave town until we nail these guys.”

As I listened to Jacobi’s litany, something inside me heated up and boiled the hell over. I went off. I just blew.

“With all due respect, Jacobi, that’s a load of bull. It was bad, but I handled it. That’s what the job is. I hardly have a scratch on me. So stop treating me like a victim. I’m fully functional and absolutely sane. This is my case and I’m on it. OK? OK?”

I went to my desk and typed up a report. I handed it to Brady, then went down to the street and emptied my glove box and got my bag out of the front footwell before my fatally crippled Explorer was loaded onto a flatbed truck and taken out to the forensics lab.

Conklin drove me home. I didn’t talk during the ride, but I grabbed his hand and squeezed it before I got out of his car. And then he came around and opened the passenger door. I gave him a look that should have stopped him.

“Shut up,” he said. “I’m going in with you.”

Once inside my apartment, I greeted our nanny and said good night and good-bye to my partner. I showered, then ate something with tomato sauce, I don’t remember what.

I played blocks with my daughter and put her to bed. After that, I rechecked the locks and the security system and looked out at the patrol cars parked down on the street. I put my gun on the night table, and then I got into bed with Martha and fell asleep. I didn’t think and I didn’t dream.

When I woke up in the morning I was madder than I’d ever been before in my life. I understood now that I was being treated like an orphaned kitten not just because I had been repeatedly attacked and almost killed. It was also because Joe had left me without a word.

The men who’d tried to kill me would answer for what they’d done if it was the last thing I did in my life.

And that went for my husband, too.

CHAPTER 66

OFFICER EVELYN FINLEY drove me slowly and carefully to the Hall that morning, as if she were transporting vintage glass Christmas ornaments. She also walked me through the lobby and waited with me until the elevator came.

“Following orders,” she said.

Damn it.

“Thanks, Finley,” I said. “I can take it from here.”

I rounded Brenda’s desk at the entrance to the bullpen and saw that Conklin, Chi, McNeil, and Brady were in some kind of huddle near Chi’s desk. Apparently, a meeting was in progress. Maybe I hadn’t been purposefully excluded. Maybe it just felt that way.

Conklin waved me over and both he and Brady scrambled to get me a chair. I almost laughed. Instead, I muttered, “Thanks. I’ve got it. I’ve got it.”

Cappy McNeil is almost fifty, carrying too much weight around his middle, but he’s a steady old hand and a very good cop.

His partner, Sergeant Paul Chi, is ten years younger and one of the sharpest cops in the city. The two of them were getting their first look at my face of a million cuts, but they’d already heard about the turkey shoot last night.

Cappy said, “Ahh, sheet, Boxer. This is just wrong.”

He patted my arm and passed me one of his two untouched donuts.

Once I was settled in, Chi resumed his briefing.

“Lindsay, to bring you up to speed, I have a CI who lives over a grocery store on the corner of Jackson and Stockton. He called me last night to say he’s seen about four Asian businessmen, well dressed, driving deluxe vehicles, coming and going at odd hours. They’re apparently based in a crappy apartment building right here.”

Chi pulled up a map on his computer, street view. He stabbed a location on Stockton, middle of the block, east side.

“This is it,” said Chi. “Ten Thirty-Five Stockton. Low-rent joint with a dry cleaner downstairs. Now, the tenant of the presumed crappy apartment is Henry Yee. Two small-time drug busts. He works in the noodle shop over here. Corner of Jackson. He’s subletting his place to these guys, sleeps at the restaurant.

“Now, rumor has it that these men are here on some kind of government business. They’re not into drugs or—”

I stopped him. “Wait. What government?”

“Chinese, I’m guessing, but no one knows,” Chi said. “My CI called last night because last week, he sees these men unloading long, heavy boxes from a black or blue SUV. He didn’t think much of it until last night.

“According to my snitch, around eight p.m. last night, one of those slick Chinese guys parks his SUV on Stockton near the corner of Jackson. The car’s got two busted headlights. And now my snitch is thinking back on those heavy loads that were taken out of the SUV last week and wonders if that stuff wasn’t artillery. My guy’s a junkie, but he’s not stupid. I tend to believe him.”

I said, “Some kind of dark vehicle smashed my front end last night. And then I backed hard into the vehicle behind me. This SUV you’re telling us about had to be one of those cars.”

Brady called Jacobi, who came downstairs and joined us. An hour later, we had a plan.

CHAPTER 67

BY FOUR-THIRTY that afternoon, three teams from Homicide and our SWAT unit were deployed discreetly around Stockton and Jackson, a neighborhood known for its traditional Chinese shops and also for its drug, gambling, and gang activity.

I took it all in from where Conklin and I waited in our parked car on Stockton.

Our focus was on a three-story beige stucco apartment building across the street from us in the middle of the block. Next to the dry cleaner Chi had referred to was a gray-painted door that led to the apartments upstairs.

SWAT SUVs bracketed the apartment building and covered the open stores, their bins of merchandise spilling out to the sidewalks teeming with shoppers and passersby. Traffic stopped and started at the intersections, delivery trucks double-parked, a school bus dropped off children, and laughing tourists came out of a restaurant.

I kept scanning the street.

I could see Lemke and Samuels of our squad, parked at the corner of Washington. Michaels and Wang, also in Homicide, were in their car at the Jackson end of Stockton, watching the noodle shop where the waiter worked.

Brady was across the street from us, leaning against the wall of a ginseng company, reading a paper.

Chi and McNeil were in plain clothes, examining the produce in the corner market across from us, when a blue BMW SUV with a long gash on one side double-parked fifty yards up the block from the apartment house with the gray-painted door.

Brady flicked his eyes toward us.

Conklin and I got out of our car and crossed the street through traffic as Chi and McNeil walked up behind the two Asian men who were heading toward the apartment building.

I was too far from Chi to hear his voice, but I knew he was introducing himself, saying he had a few questions and he’d like to see identification.

The taller of the two men smoothly pulled a gun from his waistband and got off three shots while the other man opened the door to the building. Chi grabbed at his neck and went down.

McNeil dropped behind two cars at the curb and fired on both men, who disappeared through the doorway. SWAT swarmed out of their vehicles in full tactical gear— helmets, shields, armor, and M-16s. That was when automatic gunfire sprayed down on the street from the apartments above.

In the space of a few seconds, an everyday street market scene had turned upside down into panic and utter chaos. Pedestrians shrieked and ran for cover as Brady and McNeil dragged Chi out of harm’s way.

Conklin and I kept moving, throwing open the gray door, running toward the stairs. A trail of blood drops spattered the treads leading up.

I called Wang and told him to pick up Henry Yee, the waiter who lived in the top-floor apartment. Seconds later, SWAT entered the building. The ten of us thundered up the stairs.

CHAPTER 68

CONKLIN AND I were wearing Kevlar under our jackets and had our Glocks in hand. This wasn’t much protection, but I was so pumped on adrenaline, I didn’t care.

When the top-floor hallway was packed with the SWAT force, the commander gave me a nod. Conklin and I took positions on either side of the apartment door.

I knocked and announced, screaming, “Police! Drop your weapons and come out.”

There was no answer, no sound but the pounding of my heart. We stepped aside and SWAT battered the door open and tossed two stun grenades into the room before closing the door again.

A deafening concussion knocked plaster off the ceiling, and a dozen heartbeats later, SWAT stormed the premises. I heard shouts. Automatic rifles chattered in long bursts, and then there was the sound of heavy boots as our team walked the rooms, opened doors, shouted “Clear.”

When the commander said we could do so, Conklin and I entered the small apartment.

The bodies of four armed and very dangerous men were sprawled around the front room. The tac team had done the job they were trained to do. They’d done it by the book.

Bullet holes pocked the walls, and blood had spattered and sprayed and was pooling on the floor.

A half dozen automatic rifles lay on the floor under the windows, along with many open boxes of ammo. And something unusual was on the kitchen table. It was like a metal tube about five feet long, with a scope, a muzzle, a handgrip, and a butt end that was meant to brace against a shoulder.

I’d never seen one before, but I knew a portable missile launcher when I saw it. I was pretty sure it had a range of three miles and was used to take down aircraft.

Two thoughts slammed together in my mind. These men who had been after me since the day of the crash were arms dealers.

Were they involved in what had happened to WW 888?

Counting casualties on the ground, 430 people had been killed in that crash. Had these men taken part in that unspeakable horror?

I turned back to the array of dead men lying shot to pieces in this shabby room. I walked from one to the other, getting an angle on their faces, looking for the one who had made me his personal target, the one who’d leveled his gun at my head last night.

And then I saw him at the far end of the room near the bedroom doorway. After he’d been shot, he’d slid down the wall into a sitting position on the floor and had left a long, wide smear of blood behind him. His head and shirt were entirely bloodied, and his arm and shoulder had taken bullets in several places.

I moved closer. By God, I wanted to be sure.

The man’s closed eyes were widely spaced and there was a thin scar across his chin.

This was the son of a bitch who’d tried to kill me.

I wanted him dead. But I wanted to talk to him even more. I leaned down and grabbed his shot-up arm, hoping he would scream, hoping he was faking it. I got nothing. No scream, no taunts, no answered questions.

But I swear, the way his lips were set in death, he was still smirking.

I released his shoulder and he toppled, dead weight falling sideways onto the floor.

I was still staring at his body when Conklin called my name. He was on the phone. He said to me, “Wang’s on the line. They’ve got that waiter guy, Henry Yee. He’s in custody.”

CHAPTER 69

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS after the takedown on Stockton Street, we were still cleaning up the mess and trying to get answers.

Chi was recovering from surgery and in stable condition. Two pedestrians had been hurt, a woman and her young daughter who had been hit by the spray of gunfire when the men in the apartment opened up on the street.

The press was all over us. It didn’t matter that the shots that had injured the passersby had been fired by criminals. The fallout was all on the SFPD.

Under pressure, Jacobi gave a press conference, saying that military-grade automatic weapons had been seized from apartment 3F at 1035 Stockton, but he didn’t mention the missile launcher and he didn’t take questions, saying only, “I can’t discuss an ongoing investigation.”

No documents or identification had been found on the dead men in 3F. There were also no fingerprint matches, and no one had come forward to claim the bodies. We had too many questions without answers, but we did have the sorry patsy, young Henry Yee.

Conklin and I were with Yee and his lawyer in our small, gray interview room. A camera rolled tape from a corner of the ceiling, and the observation room behind the glass was packed with high-level cops, including Brady, Jacobi, and our DA, Leonard Parisi.

Henry Yee was five feet tall, nearsighted, and pretty much lost. His lawyer, Ernest Ling, was a mild-mannered man who went by the street name of Daddy. Mr. Ling negotiated for Yee, and given Yee’s importance as a material witness, Parisi himself had agreed to drop the gun charge as long as we were satisfied with what Yee told us.

So far, we had established that Yee was twenty years old with two years of high school. He had two small-time drug arrests and no parents.

The lease for apartment 3F had passed to Yee when his mother died. And then, about a month ago, Yee had sublet the apartment to four men from China who paid him eight hundred dollars over the rent for him to sleep elsewhere. Yee worked as a waiter and dishwasher for Mei Ling Happy Noodles and had been sleeping in the storeroom. His subtenants hired him to bring them take-out and do occasional odd jobs. He also stopped by the apartment to change clothes.

Sometimes the four men joked around with him, and he also overheard some of their conversations. So he said.

Yee had been carrying a gun under his apron when Wang and Michaels snatched him up. He had no license to carry, and certainly no need for a gun in his job. The Colt .45 was a gift from his subtenants, and apparently, to Yee, it was a prize.

That gun had been lucky for us, too.

Yee was an adult with a sheet. He was looking at prison time for the illegal possession, and if he could be implicated in the crash of WW 888, he would be eligible for the death penalty.

Daddy Ling had made the best and only deal for his client. Now we needed Henry Yee to tell us everything he knew.

CHAPTER 70

HENRY YEE WAS sipping from a can of Coke, looking at morgue photos of the deceased.

Said Yee, “This one. He’s called Dog Head or Dog. I don’t know his real name. This one is called Jake. This one speaks no English. He’s called Weisei. But this one,” he said, pointing to the picture of the man with the scar, “he goes by Mr. Soo. He is not a gangster. He says he works for the government.”

Conklin asked, “What were the weapons for, Henry?”

“I don’t know,” said Yee. “Mr. Jake told me it was private business.”

I said, “Did these men ever discuss the airplane that went down at SFO?”

“That airplane from Beijing? No, I didn’t hear that.”

I said, “We think they did have something to do with that airplane, Henry. Think hard. Did you hear anything at all?”

Ling said to his client, “Henry. You don’t have to worry. None of those men can hurt you.”

“They didn’t tell me anything,” said Henry Yee.

I said to the lawyer, “Mr. Ling, this isn’t working. Your client has given us his name, rank, and serial number. That’s not the deal we made.”

Daddy Ling said, “He’s afraid it’s going to come back on him. That’s not crazy, Sergeant.”

Ling had a whispered talk with his client, who looked up at me through the thick lenses of his glasses. He nodded and heaved a long sigh.

Then he said, “This is the only thing I know about the airplane. I don’t think it means anything, and please don’t get mad at me.”

I felt a chill, as if we were on the edge of a breakthrough, but I was afraid to trust the feeling. This mutt had been a total disappointment.

“Night before last,” said Yee, “me and Mr. Soo both got home at the same time and I notice that Mr. Soo’s car is all banged up. I say, ‘What happened, Mr. Soo? You all right?’”

“He’s very mad. He got into a car fight with a police lady he calls Dirty Mary.”

Did he mean me?

“Why Dirty Mary? Like Clint Eastwood?”

The kid nodded and went on.

“Anyway, Mr. Soo had already told me after the crash that he needed proof for his boss that some man was on that plane. He said Dirty Mary stopped him from doing his job. That made him look bad. But I think he did find the body,” said Yee.

“What makes you think that?” I asked.

“Like a week and a half ago, I helped him unload his car and I saw a body in the back wrapped in a sheet. I just saw a foot that was all burned. Mr. Soo shut the trunk before I could see more.”

Pictures were coming up in my mind and tumbling end over end. The first time I saw Mr. Soo outside the ME’s office, he’d said he wanted to see his son. I’d turned him away and a bunch of cops had backed me up.

“Was he looking for his son?” I asked Henry Yee.

“No, it wasn’t his son,” said Yee. “It was someone else.”

I thought of the missing victim of WW 888. The body had gotten mysteriously lost at Metropolitan Hospital. I remembered the chaos that night, the exhausted, traumatized people, more corpses than any one morgue could handle.

I could imagine someone disguised in hospital scrubs, looking at rows of bodies on gurneys, reading toe tags. I could imagine someone wheeling a corpse out of the hospital emergency room.

No one would have stopped a person in scrubs. Not that night.

I was breathless, almost faint. I stood up and, placing the flats of my hands on the table, I leaned toward our only material witness.

“Think, Henry. Did Mr. Soo mention the name Michael Chan? Was he looking for the body of Michael Chan?”

“He never said the name,” Yee said.

The kid looked terrified. Of me? Or of retaliation?

Ling said his client had cooperated fully. The interview was over. Yee was released.

I still had questions. Plenty of them.