Locked In

MICK SAVAGE

It was after midnight, but he couldn’t sleep. He wished he’d brought along a good book. TV was miserable at this hour.

He’d followed Craig to Big Sur on an impulse, and now he considered the foolishness of it. If Craig found out, he’d be pissed and probably never let him assist in any of his lines of investigation. And he’d heard nothing from the next room but the door opening and closing, a muted conversation, the door opening and closing again.

What a super sleuth he was. No good in the field. That was why Shar kept him chained to his desk.

Shar…

He had the Brandt Institute’s number on speed dial. He pressed the button and, when someone answered, asked about his aunt’s condition. No change, but she’d had a few visitors and, while tired, had seemed to enjoy them. Was Mr. Ripinsky there? Mick asked. No, he’d left a while ago.

No change. Would there ever be a change?

Had to be!

Mick booted up his laptop and began-obsessively, as he had ever since he’d been told of Shar’s diagnosis-to search sites about locked-in syndrome. When that yielded nothing new, he put in a disc of a favorite film-The X-Files: I Want to Believe-hoping it would lull him to sleep.

Pop!

The sound brought him awake slowly, as if he were surfacing from the depths of a swimming pool.

Another pop, then silence. A door, the one to his unit’s left, swung closed on squeaky hinges. He was off the bed and fully alert within fifteen seconds.

Outside it was still dark and a chill sea wind blew fog inland. At first Mick saw no one, then another door opened and a man stepped out. Craig. His astonished eyes connected with Mick’s; he rushed over, grabbed him by the elbow, and shoved him back into his room.

“What the hell’re you doing here?” Craig demanded.

“Same thing you are. What’s happened?”

“I don’t know. A popping sound in the next unit-could’ve been a gunshot.”

“I heard it, too.”

Craig peered through the partially opened door, his head swiveling from right to left. “Don’t think anybody else did. No lights, no people anywhere.”

“Then let’s check it out.”

The door to the unit was unlocked. They pushed through, and Craig nudged the light switch on with his elbow.

Two figures lay sprawled on the bed, naked. They were facing each other, and their heads were destroyed, blood and brain matter splattered on the linens, headboard, and wall. The man held a gun in his limp hand, and the smell of cordite was strong in the small room. No signs of a struggle, just two people… shot. Shot dead.

Mick reeled back, gagging, and left the room. Leaned against the railing of the walkway, his head down, breathing heavily. Sweat chilled on his forehead, and he swallowed hard to keep the rising bile down.

God, now he knew why all those nightmares plagued Shar. That scene in the motel room would haunt him till the day he died.

Craig was still inside. After a few seconds he came out, obviously shaken, looked quickly around, and once again dragged Mick into his room. “You okay?” he asked.

“Not really.”

“I know, guy, but we’ve got to move fast. That’s Amanda Teller and Paul Janssen in there. Supposed to look like a murder-suicide.”

“My God! The supervisor and the state representative?”

“Uh-huh. What I’ve been working on.” Craig’s mouth pulled down grimly. “The shit’s going to hit the fan in a big way when their bodies’re discovered, and we don’t want to get splattered with it.”

Mick didn’t focus on what Craig had said. He asked, “Were they having an affair?”

“No. This was a business meeting. And I think they were murdered and placed like that to make it look like a suicide pact. My damn surveillance tapes must’ve run out while I was sleeping. The pops we heard indicate the gun was equipped with a silencer, but it’s gone now.”

“Man, we better call the police.”

Craig shook his head. “No, neither of us wants to be here when they’re found. And that won’t be for a few hours. Since nobody but us heard the shots, it’s safe enough to take off, put some distance between this place and us. We’ll meet up at Monterey. I know a diner there that’s always open.”

The thought of food made Mick’s stomach lurch and he grimaced.

“Hold on,” Craig said. “I know you want to puke, but you’ll be surprised how fast your appetite comes back. Besides, you gotta eat. Now, here’s what you do: you’ve paid in advance?”

“Yes.”

“Registered under your own name?”

“No.”

“Good. Leave the key in the room, roll your bike out of here and up the highway a ways before you start it. The diner in Monterey is called Lulu’s, on Munras Avenue. Wait there for me.”

“You’re not leaving yet?”

“Pretty quick. There’re a few things I’ve got to do.”

Mick stood still, numb. Craig gave him a nudge. “Go. Get your stuff and leave now!”

SHARON McCONE

Ma arrived on Hy’s arm at ten in the morning. She was wearing a smart blue dress and carrying a bunch of yellow roses-my favorites. But when she looked at me she started to cry and Hy, rolling his eyes, helped her into the chair and took the flowers.

“Can I touch her?” Ma asked him through her tears.

“Of course. She can see you and hear you. You can look into her eyes and ask her yes-or-no questions. One blink yes, two blinks no.” He sounded weary, as if he’d repeated this to her many times. “I’m going to get a vase for the roses.”

He fled. Ma started to cry. She’d cried all through dinner with Hy last night, he’d told me. The hell of it was, I couldn’t put out my arms to hold her, or say something funny that would soon jolly her out of it. The past thirteen days had defined the word “impotence” in depth for me.

Hy came back, removed the dark red roses he’d brought me the day before, and replaced them with Ma’s. Their delicate yellow petals reminded me of the ones he’d sent me weekly at the office for years until, as our relationship deepened, he’d changed the standing order to a darker and darker red; they still came-in fact, some might be sitting on my desk at the pier right now.

The pier… No, don’t think about that now. Bad enough to have these jumbled flashbacks.

Suddenly Ma gave a strangled cry and threw herself on my chest. Grabbed my head with both hands and stared into my eyes. “You really are there, my precious baby! I know you are!”

I won’t be if you crush me!

Hy lifted her off and set her back in the chair. “Kay,” he said, “you’ve got to calm yourself. You’re upsetting Sharon.”

Sobs. “How can I upset her? She just lies there and… Oh!” A wail.

God, I wish I could get up and smack her!

And then, like a messenger of the deity whose name I’d just invoked, my other mother walked into the room. Saskia Blackhawk. She smiled at Hy and me, but went straight to Ma.

“Kay, don’t cry. Sharon’s here with us. Just ask her if she is.”

Ma, her makeup ruined by tears, looked hesitantly at me. “You are with us, aren’t you, darling?”

I blinked yes.

Ma sank back into the chair, then gave me a tremulous smile.

“Kay,” Saskia said, “I noticed a pretty little atrium garden when I came in. Why don’t we go out there and talk about what we’re going to do for our daughter?”

Ma nodded, clearly eager to be out of my presence. Hy watched them go, shook his head, and said, “Thank God Saskia’s plane was on time. I don’t think either of us could’ve taken much more of that… caterwauling.”

I blinked.

“I have another surprise,” he added. “And a pleasant one.”

He turned to the door, and a man entered. Slender and stooped, with gray hair in a long ponytail. He held a cowboy hat in his long artist’s fingers, and his dark eyes were calm and compassionate as they met mine.

Elwood Farmer, my birth father. The impossible had happened-he’d been lured off the rez in Montana.

JULIA RAFAEL

Sunday morning. Normally she would’ve taken Tonio to the park and then come home to one of her sister’s big dinners. But now she was at the pier, digging deeper into her files, as Shar’s intense gaze last night had commanded her to do.

Something always escapes your notice the first few times around. Usually a small thing that helps the big things make sense.

Over and over during her probationary period with the agency, her boss had told her that.

On a legal pad she printed Larry Peeples’s name. Linked it with an arrow pointed to Haven Dietz’s. Below Larry’s she drew another arrow and linked it to Ben Gold, the boyfriend.

Julia paged through the file to the transcript of the initial interview that she’d held here at the pier with Gold. He and Larry had been together two years, and Ben had had dinner with Larry the day before he disappeared. They’d met at work, the Home Showcase in Union Square.

Julia scribbled down, “Reinterview Ben.”

Back to Dietz. She’d worked for WKP Associates, a money management firm. She’d been good at her job, monitoring the portfolios of several high-profile clients, and was in line for a promotion at the time of the attack.

The attack had been a particularly vicious one, as indicated by the severity of Dietz’s injuries. The police had contacted many of her friends and associates, but none of them could name anyone who held a grudge against her. Julia had reinterviewed those she could reach, but many of them had left the area, and after a year memories had faded.

She picked up the phone and called Dietz to remind her of their appointment to continue their conversation tonight; she’d tried to meet with her last night, but Dietz had refused-it was Saturday and she had plans.

Bullshit, Julia had thought. This from a woman who seldom left her apartment? Dietz was losing interest in the case, and maybe it was a sign that she wanted to put the attack behind her and move on. But if the Dietz investigation had something to do with Shar getting shot, she’d press on in spite of the client’s best interests.

Haven sounded surly and hungover when she answered the phone. Probably her plans for the night before had involved a bottle. Yes, all right, Julia could come over that night, but not till after eight. A friend was coming for an early dinner.

Julia agreed, even if it meant another evening without being able to read to Tonio.

She ended the call, then sat back and stared at the thick files.

Not likely that Larry Peeples-with or without the cooperation of Ben Gold-had taken a branch of Home Showcase for 100,000 dollars in small bills. He’d worked in the stockroom, had no access to money. Ben worked the sales desk, but Julia knew from Sophia’s experience as a clerk at Safeway that the cash drawer had to balance out to the penny every day. Besides, most people paid by credit card.

She supposed Larry and Ben could’ve worked a computer scam to skim money, but that took smarts like Mick’s or Derek’s. Ben-a model and wannabe actor on the side-didn’t have that kind of brainpower, and Larry had been described as kind of dim by Haven Dietz. Even Larry’s parents seemed aware of his limitations.

So why had he hidden the money in the tack room? And possibly appeared last night to reclaim it?

Maybe he was afraid the bills had been marked, or the serial numbers noted. Maybe he’d left them there till he’d thought it was safe to spend it. Maybe he’d disappeared because he was afraid of being found out. But wasn’t six months long enough? Was the quiet, loving son his parents had described the kind of man who could do such a cruel thing to his folks and his lover?

She called Home Showcase and learned that Ben Gold was working the day shift. Then she set out for Union Square.

RAE KELLEHER

Angie Atkins, a prostitute found dead in an alley off Sixth Street three years ago. Angie’s friend Callie O’Leary, who had hooked up with a sleazy attorney and abandoned her fleabag hotel room. Rae might never find O’Leary. Sad fact, but women in the sex trade often disappeared or were randomly killed and their bodies never identified. Some simply moved on. Others-the lucky ones-retreated into lives of respectability.

So which kind was Callie?

Rae was sitting at the desk allotted to her in the office shared by Thelia Chen and Diane D’Angelo, Thelia’s assistant whom Shar had hired last December. Chen was superefficient, a former analyst at Bank of America, with a wide range of contacts within the city’s financial world; she was descended from an old, respected Chinatown family and could tell stories of the history of the Chinese in California in which her own people were personally involved.

D’Angelo, a CPA, was something of a puzzle: she was very reserved, didn’t speak of her life outside the office, and generally… well, didn’t fit with the agency culture. Rae had sneaked a look at her personnel file and found she was a member of a well-to-do Peninsula family, had gone to an exclusive Bay Area private school and to Yale, then worked three years for a major New York City accounting firm. Unspecified personal reasons were cited for her return to the Bay Area. From her address in fashionable Cow Hollow, Rae assumed she didn’t really have to work and was getting a kick out of playing at being a private investigator.

Of course, Rae couldn’t criticize her for that: she didn’t need to work either.

But need wasn’t relevant to her situation, or Ricky’s. They were both driven people. Poor most of their lives, once they’d found their respective niches they’d poured everything they had into their work. Being able to do the thing you loved was rare-a gift that shouldn’t be squandered.

Besides, work had gotten her out of the house on a Sunday when Ricky, two of his band members, four of the kids, and Charlene and her husband, Vic, were having a barbecue.

Talk about extended families…

Angie Atkins, on the other hand, had had no family of any kind, no history. Today’s throwaway woman with, probably, only a made-up name that had already faded in the SFPD’s files. Impossible to find her killer.

No, not impossible. She was going to close this one. And maybe find a link to Shar’s shooting.

MICK SAVAGE

He sat in a booth at Lulu’s Diner in Monterey, repeatedly turning his coffee cup in its saucer. In spite of what Craig had told him about one’s appetite returning quickly, the smell of bacon, eggs, toast, and pancakes made him queasy. Pictures of the dead man and woman-only flashes, but vivid-kept appearing in his mind.

He’d never venture out into the field again. A desk, a monitor, a keyboard-those were the things he needed to look at. Not bodies and bloodstains. Leave that stuff to the pros with the strong stomachs.

Traffic whizzed by on Munras Avenue, a long street on the edge of the downtown area that seemed mainly populated by motels and eateries. Low-budget tourist heaven. The fog was thick here-although not as thick as farther south-and people were bundled up and walking quickly along the sidewalk. Getaway weekend for a lot of people from the Bay Area, where today the sun was predicted to shine.

This location, Mick reflected, was uncomfortably close to the quaint seaside town of Carmel, where he and Sweet Charlotte had gone for a supposedly romantic winter vacation. They’d checked into a little bed-and-breakfast on a side street, had lunch at an expensive trattoria, window-shopped. He’d bought her a necklace she’d admired at a jewelry store-all the time thinking of how surprised she’d be at the diamond ring in his jacket pocket-and at sunset, on the white sand beach at the end of Ocean Avenue where wind-warped cypress grew, he’d proposed to her.

She’d said no. In fact she’d been planning to wait till the end of the weekend to tell him she’d be moving out of his condo next week. She needed some space, she said.

Mick never took the ring out of his pocket. They’d walked silently back to the B &B, collected their things, and driven straight back to the city. Next day, Charlotte had started packing her belongings; she’d already found a place on Potrero Hill. Mick returned the ring to Tiffany’s later that week.

And had vowed never again to set foot in Carmel.

Now he tried to blank out, lose himself in the flow of vehicles on Munras, but unpleasant images of both the crime scene and the abortive trip to Carmel persisted. He was grateful when he saw Craig’s SUV pull into the lot.

Craig came inside, looking like the ordinary tourist in search of breakfast. He raised a hand to Mick and came back to the booth. A waitress appeared quickly, and he ordered something called the Seaside Special, raised his eyebrows at Mick.

“Toast,” Mick said. “No, make that an English muffin. And a glass of milk.” When the server departed, he leaned toward Craig and asked, “Took you a long time.”

“Flat tire a few miles down the coast.”

Mick glanced around; nobody was paying any attention to their conversation. “What were those things you had to do in Big Sur?”

“Take another look at… the people. And search for a document she made him sign.”

“That… thing, you’re sure it wasn’t murder-suicide?”

“I’d stake my life on it. When I went back to the room I took a closer look at them. Needle marks on their necks, probably some kind of fast-acting sedative. Made it easier to move him to her room and set up the scene beforehand. Any good ME will spot them immediately.”

“So the shooter doesn’t care if it comes out that it was murder?”

“All he wanted was that document-he got it-and a clean getaway. The initial news reports will create a commotion that’ll overshadow what the autopsy reveals. And by that time the story’ll be off page one.”

Their food arrived. Mick took a sip of milk. Better.

He asked, “But how did the shooter get in? They wouldn’t’ve left their doors unlocked.”

“No dead bolts-remember? Those old snap locks are flimsy. Or he could’ve gotten hold of a passkey; that clerk who checked me in didn’t look as if she was above taking a bribe.”

“You think it was a man who did it?”

“A man, or maybe a woman with a male partner. Janssen was big, would’ve been hard for most women to carry. Hard to drag, even.”

Mick bit into his English muffin. If it stayed down, he might consider ordering a real breakfast. “So why’re you investigating Teller and Janssen?” he asked.

“I’ll tell you that when we get to a more secure location.”

SHARON McCONE

Elwood sat in the chair next to me, his gaze gentle on mine.

“I can feel your spirit, Daughter,” he said. “I can feel your fear. But also your determination and hope.”

Well, that’s a hell of a lot better than wailing and hurling yourself on my chest and nearly crushing me.

“I can also feel your anger. At the one who did this to you, but-worse-at those like Kay who indulge their own emotions at the expense of yours. Or those who treat you as a person forever changed.”

I blinked once.

“You must let go of that anger. People are fallible, often weak, but they love you. Focus it instead on the one who did this to you.”

Blink.

Elwood touched my arm. First time I’d ever had comforting physical contact with my birth father. Tears blurred my gaze.

“Anger is powerful and good, if not misused,” he added. “You must tap into your roots, feel the rage and the power of those who have lived before you.”

I blinked, and the tears trickled down my face.

“Your great-grandmother, I understand, knew anger and became a warrior woman. She found the courage to leave the Indian agent who had taken her for his own and abused her, to accompany a kind white man to California and build a new life. Your grandmother on my side was a woman who accepted nothing-poverty, lack of education, abandonment-on other than her own terms. Your mother, Saskia, she’s brave and smart, has argued before the United States Supreme Court-and won every case. And your people, the Shoshone, go on and on against all odds.”

My emotions were on a roller-coaster ride again. Elwood’s hand touched my forehead, then brushed my tears away.

“It’s in your blood, Daughter,” he said. “You will continue to fight this, and you will win.”

I must have slept because I didn’t remember Elwood leaving. One minute he was talking to me, the next I felt someone holding a cool cloth to my face and opened my eyes to see Saskia. As ever I was struck by our resemblance to each other and to my half sister Robin. Put the three of us together in a photo, and you’d see one individual aging well through different stages of life.

She smiled at me. “Rough morning?”

I blinked.

“Your mother is… not emotionally stable these days, and your condition has somewhat unhinged her. Your doctor prescribed a mild tranquilizer, and Hy took her back to her hotel. She’ll be here again tomorrrow.”

Why is she unstable?

Saskia had seen the question in my eyes. “Her husband has been diagnosed with bladder cancer. And she has been having dizzy spells and weakness in her limbs. Most of her problems, I think, are in response to his condition.”

Ma hasn’t told me any of this! Nobody’s told me. What’s wrong with them? Do they think I can’t take upsetting news?

Again Saskia understood. “Neither of them wanted anyone to know or to worry. Just as you wish you could go through this ordeal in private. But that’s a mistake, Sharon. Your life and health don’t belong exclusively to you; those who love you have a big stake in your future.”

Obligations to others? Fuck that!

“And they can help you through this.”

Well… maybe.

Saskia and Elwood, they were both so insightful in their different ways. And Pa was wise, too: he had left me the documentation to find out who I really was. Ma: she took me in as a tiny baby, loved me, and never treated me as if I weren’t her flesh and blood.

Hy-he was and always would be my lover and my best friend.

My stepfather, Melvin Hunt. Bladder cancer-my God! He and Ma would need my support, but how could I give it to them from a hospital bed? I had to get better.

Rae and Ricky and the kids. Especially Mick. Ted and Neal. Craig and Adah. Julia. Charlene, Vic, Patsy, and John. Patrick. All the others who were family, bloodlines not withstanding.

Saskia is right: my life belongs to them as much as it does to me.

My eyelids were getting heavy again. My birth mother said, “Rest now. You’re not alone, Sharon. Not ever.”

JULIA RAFAEL

Union Square was teeming with people clutching bags from the department stores and specialty shops. Many were tourists who had come unprepared for a San Francisco summer and shivered in shorts and T-shirts. In spite of their discomfort, the scene was lively. Cable cars rumbled and clanged on Powell Street, people hanging off the sides and, in some cases, waving energetically. Pigeons flocked to a woman who stood in the square, tossing them bread. There were long lines at the discount ticket office for plays and concerts. Julia could feel the crackling energy.

Although she’d lived most of her life in the city, as a child and young adult Julia had seldom come downtown; the Mission district was her turf-a closely defined and confined neighborhood. Many of San Francisco’s poorer areas were like small cities unto themselves, their residents rarely venturing past their limits, except to go to work-if they had work.

Besides, what would’ve been the point in coming here? Bus fare was expensive, and Mission district families like Julia’s didn’t have the money to shop in the stores, to eat in the restaurants, to go to the theaters. She remembered one time when her sister Sophia had brought her to see the annual Christmas tree all decorated in the square: the tree had been nice, but it was the people who fascinated her-well dressed and carefree, the women smelling of expensive perfumes and the men of aftershave, many of them getting out of cabs and limousines or turning their beautiful cars over to valet parkers. It was an exciting experience, but after enjoying a gingerbread man Sophia bought her from a street vendor, Julia had been glad to go home to the Mission. It was where she felt comfortable.

But now, she realized, all that had changed. Sure, she had a crappy car, but she also had parked it in the garage under the square, on her expense account. She was wearing a good leather jacket-almost paid for-and a pair of stylish jeans and boots. Best of all, she was a woman with a business to go about, and a State of California private investigator’s license to prove it. And last night-much as she’d hated the silence-she’d spent the night as a guest of a Sonoma Valley vintner.

Don’t let it go to your head, chica, you’re only the hired help.

But it was a lot better than what she used to do when men hired her.

The light changed, and she crossed the intersection. The big Home Showcase store on Stockton Street was crowded with shoppers inspecting the specialty food items, glassware, china, and linens. Julia angled toward the sales desk, briefly slowing her pace to admire a set of candlesticks that she knew Sophia would love. Maybe she’d buy them for her birthday; that way they could use them on the Thanksgiving table…

Ben Gold was behind the desk, wrapping up a cut-glass vase and a bunch of multicolored dried flowers. He handed the shopping bag to the customer and turned expectantly to Julia. His smile faded when he saw her, and his handsome features sharpened; alarm showed in his bright blue eyes.

“Is it news?” he asked. “About Larry?”

“Can you take a break?”

He glanced around, motioned to one of the other employees on the floor. “Fifteen minutes. No more.”

They went out onto the sidewalk and stood beside a window displaying slow cookers and books on using them. Ben crossed his arms on his chest, an intricately braided silver bracelet on his left wrist gleaming in the sun. He tilted his blond head and waited as if for some crushing blow.

Julia said, “I haven’t found Larry, no. But something’s come up and I need to ask you some additional questions.”

“What happened to your nose? And your eyes-they’re kinda black.”

“Car accident.” She waved dismissively.

“You oughta drive more carefully. Bad karma around your agency. Your boss-I read in the paper that she was shot. How is she?”

“She’s… not good.”

“Is she going to live?”

“They don’t know. Right now she’s stabilized.”

He shook his head. “This city, the violence. Does she remember what happened to her?”

“I don’t know. She can’t communicate at present. About my questions…?”

“Yes?”

“Was Larry happy in his work here?”

“Not really. I mean, stocking shelves-how many of us are content with that kind of work? At least I get to interact with customers and I’ve got outside interests and future prospects. I think I told you I’m moving to LA next week. It’s only a couple of commercials, but I’ve got an agent and he promises me more work. But Larry, he’d been kicked out of three colleges and had no future except going back to the Sonoma Valley and learning the wine-making business under his father’s thumb.”

“Are those your words or his-‘under his father’s thumb’?”

“His.”

“I thought he was close to his parents.”

“He was, but the life up there can be confining, and his dad can be extremely demanding.”

“But still he’d given his notice here and was moving home.”

“It was the money, that’s what finally got to him.”

“The money?”

“Well, sure. That’s a successful vineyard his old man has, and very valuable land. Besides, his parents offered him a bribe to come home-a hundred thousand dollars, cash. Larry claimed he was going to collect and then the two of us would head for Tahiti or South America, but I didn’t believe him.”

“You didn’t tell me this before.”

Gold averted his eyes, fiddling with his bracelet, a flush spreading up his neck. “It’s tough to admit you’ve been dumped. But dump me was what Larry did. Took his hundred thou and split without me. He’s probably having a great life someplace-with somebody else.”

Except that the hundred thousand had been hidden in his parents’ tack room since he disappeared.

And Julia seriously doubted it had come from the Peeples.

RAE KELLEHER

The lead she’d been seeking was in Angie Atkins’s file, buried deep, where Rae’s eyes-tired since the night Shar was shot-hadn’t noticed it before. A notation in the police report of the personal property on Atkins’s body: “1 high-school class ring.”

Jesus, why hadn’t the cops followed up on that? And what high school was it from?

Sunday. She had only two contacts on the SFPD, and she doubted either would be on duty or eager to access the information. But Adah could: she was no longer on the job, but she could navigate the system.

“Hell yes,” Adah said when Rae called her. “Anything to narrow down who attacked Shar. But it’s totally illegal. Will you visit me in prison?”

“Every week, with a file baked into hash brownies.”

“Good woman.”

Rae hung up the receiver and drummed her fingertips on the desktop while looking around the office. Water stains at the top of the far wall, carpet showing wear. Today when she’d come up the stairs to the catwalk they’d creaked ominously. Shar, with the help of her powerful attorney friend Glenn Solomon-who seemed to have something on everybody in city government-had negotiated a good deal with the port commission for an extended lease, but maybe it was time to think of moving on. She’d have to talk to Shar about it-

Shit! She couldn’t.

Phone. Adah.

“The ring was from Acalanes High School, class of oh-six.”

“Acalanes?”

“East Bay. Near Walnut Creek, I think.”

“How’d they miss that?”

“Dead hooker, overload of cases, and they probably didn’t care all that much.”

“You wouldn’t’ve missed it.”

“I don’t know, maybe toward the end I would’ve. I was getting to the point where I didn’t give a shit, either.”

“Well, thanks for running the check.”

“No problem. Craig’s been off on some lead since Friday night. I got so bored this afternoon that I went to the animal shelter and came back with two kittens.”

“I was wondering if you’d ever get another after Charley died. And now two!”

“Tortoiseshells-sisters, around six months old. Lots of energy. They’re tearing the place apart.”

“What’re you calling them?”

“That One and the Other One, till Craig gets back to consult.”

“Well, good luck. And thanks again.”

Damn! Why had she stumbled on this lead on a Sunday? In summer, no less, when school was out and staff members only came in to work on a sporadic basis?

Rae broke the connection and turned to her keyboard. Googled Acalanes High School, and got its address on Pleasant Hill Road in the East Bay suburb of Lafayette. The school’s site had a list of people to contact for various types of information: Rae copied the page. Then she began to search the East Bay phone books.

“Information on students and former students is confidential,” Jane Koziol, counseling secretary of the high school, said when Rae reached her at her home number in Walnut Creek. “But if this girl has been murdered… You say you want me to identify a photograph?”

“Yes. Apparently she wasn’t using her real name. Her family hasn’t been notified of her death, and the closure would be very important to them.”

“… And you’re a licensed private investigator?”

“Working with the Bay Area Victims’ Advocates.”

“All right. I have a fax machine. Send me your credentials and the photograph. If the girl graduated in oh-six, it’s likely I’ll recognize her.”

“I can fax a copy of my license and the photo in a few minutes.”

“Fine. Where can I reach you?”

Rae gave the agency’s phone number.

“I’ll be in touch.”

When Koziol called back an hour later, she sounded shaken. “I’m sorry it took so long to get back to you, but I decided to talk with my attorney first.”

“No problem. It’s what I would’ve done.”

“The girl in the photograph is Alicia Summers. I… God, I can’t believe it!”

“What can you tell me about her?”

“She disappeared a couple of months after she graduated. The family is well-to-do, they live in the Lafayette hills, and her father’s a lawyer, involved in the Pro Terra Party. You’ve heard of them?”

“Environmentalists? Aren’t they the ones who run candidates on a third-party basis?”

“Yes. Alicia was a good student until her senior year, then her grades fell off radically. I tried to work with her, but she wasn’t responsive. All she would tell me was that school didn’t matter any more, nothing did.”

“Did you ask her why?”

“Of course I did. But she refused to talk about it.”

“What about her parents-did you consult with them?”

“Her mother. She complained of Alicia’s unexplained absences on weekends and sometimes on weeknights.”

“Had she asked her daughter about those?”

“Yes-and she’d gotten the same response I did. After a while she didn’t press the issue. If anything, she seemed… intimidated by Alicia.”

“Intimidated? In what way?”

Koziol hesitated. “Alicia had the upper hand in the relationship. I think her mother felt that if she confronted her, she’d lose her.”

“And the father? Did you speak with him?”

“No. Lee Summers is too important a man to speak with a mere high-school counselor.”

“Did you consider sexual abuse as a factor in Alicia’s problems?”

“Oddly enough, I didn’t. I know it’s the first thing a counselor would suspect, but from her body language and the way she talked, it didn’t fit into the equation.”

“What did?”

“… Disillusionment. Something in her experience had opened her eyes to the world in a way a person of her age and development couldn’t deal with except by giving up.”

“I didn’t tell you before, but she was working as a prostitute in the city when she died.”

“Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. That’s giving up as much as any woman can, isn’t it?”

SHARON McCONE

This evening I’m working on moving my toes. Toes, because dexterity on the rudders with one’s feet is essential to flying.

First one, then another. Concentrating hard, because I’m going to beat this paralysis. What Elwood said about my great-grandmother, how she became a warrior woman-I’ll never forget that.

I’m at war, too.

I closed my eyes, pictured my right toe. Willed it to move.

Nothing.

Okay, I thought, left toe.

Still nothing.

Frustration welled up again. Why was I putting myself through this? It was hopeless. I was trapped inside myself, a well-wrapped mummy, with no sensation except my raging emotions. And those…

Once, in a rented beachfront place on the island of Hawaii, Hy and I had been awakened by an earthquake. The house had shaken violently, gone still, then shaken again almost as hard. We looked outside, saw the sea was placid, but could feel its roiling potential. Fled to higher ground, along with all the neighbors.

The tsunami we’d feared never happened, although we later found out that we were within three miles of the quake’s epicenter at sea. But its innate rage and desire to destroy everything in its path charged the air, and a day later we cut our stay short and returned home.

Now a rage like that had invaded my body and threatened to consume what remained of my rationality.

What had happened to me? Where was the woman who had soared above the Sierras and Crater Lake, thrilled to controlled spins, loved and married a man whom some people, myself included, considered “still dangerous”? The woman who had braved a paramilitary encampment, a clandestine border crossing, a child rescue on an isolated Caribbean island?

Where was I?

No. Don’t you go there.

Right toe. Concentrate.

… Can’t.

Wait a while and try again. For now, concentrate on the verbal reports given to you today.

Julia had said that Larry Peeples told his lover his parents were giving him a hundred thousand dollars to return home and learn the winery business; instead he was planning to run off with Ben Gold and the money. But that hadn’t happened.

Rae had identified the hooker who’d been stabbed in the alley off Sixth Street. She was the daughter of a well-to-do and politically connected East Bay family. Rae had notified the SFPD who, after verifying her information, would contact the parents. Rae hoped to meet with them tomorrow, but till then was pursuing leads about the father’s involvement in the Pro Terra Party.

The Pro Terra Party. Hy didn’t like them. They ran candidates for local office around the state on an environmental stance, but he was dubious as to their motives and actual commitment to the movement. A stealthy money and power grab cloaked in altruism, he suspected. They lost more often than they won, but they were making gains: their most notable success had been with the election of State Representative Paul Janssen of San Francisco.

It would be interesting to see what Rae reported tomorrow.

Nothing from Mick or Craig. Curious.

I was tired. Too many visitors in too little time. Too many things to absorb. Soon Hy would arrive for his evening visit. I’d rest till then.

No, I wouldn’t. Not until I tried again… and again… and again to make my toes move.

HY RIPINSKY

He was going to be late seeing Shar, but she would understand. The one thing that had remained constant through all of this was their mutual psychic connection. It had been strong from almost the first day they’d met, and while it may have faltered at times during their relationship, it now tugged at him, taut as wire. He knew it tugged at her, too.

All afternoon he’d been at home, on the phone and Internet, talking and e-mailing with friends and informants around the world. He’d run searches trying to connect any of the cases the agency folks were working with his wife’s shooting. No definite links, but a whisper here and there.

Yes, I’ve heard the theory that she was attacked by someone looking for information… No, it probably wasn’t personal, but who knows?… Sometimes people are in the wrong place at the wrong time… She did have enemies. Couldn’t’ve helped but have, in her position… She’s received a lot of high-profile publicity over the years… That pier was featured in a nationally syndicated piece about unusual working environments… Maybe somebody was following her. That classic MG she insists on driving is distinctive… Let me call around to some of my contacts and get back to you…

Hy got into his vintage blue Mustang, which was parked in the driveway, backed out, and flicked on the radio as he turned down the street.

News broadcast. Special report.

San Francisco Board of Supes President Amanda Teller and State Representative Paul Janssen had been found dead in an apparent murder-suicide at a lodge near Big Sur. Mystery surrounded the crimes: as yet there was no explanation as to what they were doing there. Although they had checked into separate units, they were found together on Teller’s bed. Stay tuned for further details…

Amanda Teller.

Hadn’t Shar done some work for her about a year ago?

Worth checking out. And right away.

Shar would have to wait for him a little longer.

He called Ted Smalley at home and then set his course for Pier 24½, where Ted could access the records from the office computer system.

SHARON McCONE

I was expecting Hy but it was Mick and Craig who came into my room. They were arguing in the soft voices that this place seemed to bring out in people. Well, most people. Not Ma and not me; she shrieked and I had no voice.

Mick said, “This is the secure location where we’re gonna talk?”

“As secure as they get, man.”

“But what about Shar? She’s sick, she needs her rest.”

Stop talking about me as if I weren’t here!

“She also needs to hear this, and I don’t want to go over it twice.” Craig came around the bed, looked me in the eyes. “Shar? You okay to listen to a long story?”

I blinked. Damn right I was. Maybe my body wasn’t spearheading the investigation this time, but my mind was as sharp as ever.

Both of them sat down, Craig in the armchair and Mick in a folding chair he dragged in from outside.

Craig said, “Amanda Teller, president of the Board of Supes, and State Representative Paul Janssen were shot to death in a motel near Big Sur early this morning.”

I wanted to exclaim, “What? Why?” All I could do was rivet my gaze on his and wait.

“It was set up to look like a murder-suicide, but I don’t think it was. More likely a double homicide.”

He went on to tell me what he and Mick had witnessed at the Spindrift Lodge, ending with, “You know I’ve been investigating possible malfesance at city hall for the mayor’s office. I think these killings are connected to that.”

I remembered the case. One of the mayor’s closest aides and confidants, Jim Yatz, had summoned me to his office in early June and asked me to take on an undercover operation. He didn’t specifically know what the mayor was looking for, but there was some concern about certain confidential documents going missing. Yatz provided me with a list of them; they seemed innocuous enough to me: drafts of general plans for city land use, an updated rent control proposition, budget proposals. Some of the documents had been handwritten in draft, others were computer files that had subsequently been deleted. I offered the services of our computer forensics department to recover them, but Yatz turned that down. Find out who was doing it, that was all the mayor wanted.

Yatz, a burly, dark-haired man in a well-tailored blue suit, had struck me as poorly informed about the missing documents and the mayor’s concerns. And he was a gatekeeper-no way I was going to get in to see the mayor personally, even though I’d met him a number of times at environmental fund-raisers Hy and I had attended. Finally, though, I decided we’d take the case, if for no other reason than to protect the city’s administration, which, for the most part, I supported.

Since I was too well known around the Bay Area, I suggested to Yatz that Craig handle the investigation. But after he and I met with Yatz, we decided Craig had too many contacts in city government to go unrecognized either; he would supervise and send in someone else to do the actual fieldwork. Diane D’Angelo, our newest hire, was his choice because of her polish and business background.

For two weeks Diane worked in the mayor’s office as a temporary replacement for his executive secretary, who was on vacation. She saw nothing out of the ordinary, and no documents disappeared until her last day there. This one was classified as a confidential communication between Amanda Teller and the mayor; no details of its contents were given to us. I ended my direct involvement at that point, though I’d kept myself apprised by reading Craig’s reports, which basically posited that someone was playing political games of no consequence.

Well, games or not, this one had had monumental consequences. Amanda Teller, a forty-year-old woman with an impressive record of service to the community, and Paul Janssen, age fifty-two, a maverick who was challenging the status quo in our mired-down state government, were both dead. And under circumstances that could destroy their legacies.

Craig went on, “Do you recognize the name Harvey Davis?”

Amanda Teller’s campaign manager and a close aide. I blinked.

“Three weeks ago he contacted me. He’d heard I was working for the mayor and said that he had information that would shake up local government. He didn’t want money for it and he didn’t want to be named as the one who blew the whistle. He passed along minor details about Teller-with whom he seemed very disillusioned. Frankly, I thought he was getting off on acting like he had important inside information. Then on Friday he told me Teller and Janssen were scheduled to meet at Big Sur yesterday. Now they’re both dead, Davis, too.”

Craig continued his narrative, telling me about the Davis hit and his subsequent visit to the man’s condo. When he detailed the explicit sexual content of the DVDs he’d found there my senses reeled and I went into a kind of brain lock.

Craig said, “I don’t know where he got those DVDs, but I suspect Teller had copies, too. The conversation between her and Janssen that I recorded reeks of blackmail.”

I just stared at him.

Mick said, “She’s exhausted. Let’s come back in the morning.”

I’m not exhausted, just shocked. Because of that investigation I did for Amanda Teller a year ago, I may have set this thing in motion. And I’ve got no way of communicating what I know.

“… Right,” Craig said. He stood. “Tonight Mick and I will go over the DVDs and my surveillance tapes. We’ll be back tomorrow with a more detailed report. We’ll also play the videos for you.”

I blinked, then closed my eyes. I needed time to process this.

Feet clanging on metal-my feet going up the catwalk at the pier. Echoes resonating off the flat roof.

Elusive, flickering light. Sudden motion.

Collision with a strong body. Falling, reaching out.

Fingertips grazing metal.

Flash!

Chains?

Pain. Darkness.

Now. A life without speech or motion.

The silent scream welled up, and I cursed what I’d become.

JULIA RAFAEL

Flashing lights disturbed the dusk as she drove along Twentieth Avenue in the city’s normally peaceful Richmond district, going to her appointment with Haven Dietz. She felt a prickling at the base of her spine as she realized the emergency vehicles were congregated at Dietz’s three-story brick apartment house.

People milled around outside the police barriers. Julia pulled her car into a red zone near a fire hydrant and ran down the sidewalk, pushed past gawkers, then stopped when she saw a gurney with a body bag being loaded into an ambulance. A young, heavy-set cop was standing guard behind the yellow crime scene tape. She went up to him, and… oh, shit.

Matthew Griffin. He used to work out of the Mission district precinct, and he’d busted her two times for prostitution.

He recognized her at once. “Julia Rafael. What’re you doing here?”

She took out one of her agency business cards and extended it to him. “Working. A woman who lives in that building is my client.”

Surprisingly, he took a long look at the card. “I heard you went straight. That’s a good agency. McCone has always been somebody who takes a chance on people. How’s she doing since the shooting?”

“About the same. She’s aware, but can’t move or speak.”

“Jesus, what a shame.”

He didn’t know the half of it. Shar had given her the chance of a lifetime, had stood by her when she almost blew it. She owed her-and then some.

Julia let out a deep breath, asked, “Who’s the victim?”

“Woman named Haven Dietz.”

“Oh, no…”

“She your client?”

“Yes.”

He raised the tape. “That man over there in the black coat is Lt. Dave Morrison. Tell him what you know about this.”

She ducked under the tape, moved forward. Griffin said, “Julia?”

“Yes?”

“I’m glad you turned your life around.”

“Thank you. I am, too.”

Lt. Morrison knew nothing of her history and treated her as a professional. He glanced curiously at her scabbed-over nose and blackened eyes, but instead of commenting he listened to her account of the Haven Dietz case and then took her up to the apartment. It had been searched, Dietz’s belongings dumped from drawers and hurled around, and there were bloodstains on the carpet and a spatter pattern on the wall. Shot by an intruder, the lieutenant said.

Looking at the bloody wall made Julia gag, and Morrison gave her a concerned look.

Well, Shar would have gagged, too, maybe, but she wouldn’t’ve thrown up, and Julia wasn’t going to either.

She swallowed hard, asked, “Did she surprise a burglar?”

“On the surface it would appear that way. But experience tells me someone was looking for something specific.”

The hundred thou hidden in the Peepleses’ tack room?

She said, “I had an appointment with Dietz for eight o’clock.” She checked her watch. “Right about now. I wanted to make it earlier, but she said she was having someone over for dinner. Any sign of that?”

“Nothing’s been cooked, and there’re no takeout containers. I’d say that kitchen hasn’t been used for anything other than microwaving and coffee-making in quite a while. We’ll check it out more thoroughly. You have any idea what the perp might’ve been looking for?”

Julia shook her head.

“Another theory I have is that her attacker returned to finish his job.”

“After a year?”

Morrison shrugged. “It was a vicious attack, indicating extreme anger or psychosis. In the minds of people like that… Well, for a lot of them, it’s never finished until the victim’s dead.”

“He used a knife last time. Would he have been likely to switch to a gun?”

“You can’t predict what people like that’ll do.”

Julia looked around the trashed apartment, blocking out the bloodstains. The furnishings were old and worn; there were no pictures or mementoes; it felt like the lair of an animal who had dug in and was waiting to die.

And now she had.

RAE KELLEHER

The Pro Terra Party. Founded in 2002 by environmentalists Cheryl Fitzgerald and Don Beckman. They’d had a falling-out in 2004, and Beckman quit the party; Fitzgerald left in 2006, for unspecified personal reasons. Since then Pro Terra had been run by a board of directors, of which Lee Summers, the dead woman’s father, was chairman. Their most notable political win had been Paul Janssen’s election to the state house of representatives in 2008.

Rae Googled Cheryl Fitzgerald. The woman had been flying below the search engine’s radar since she left the party and took an executive position with a Silicon Valley firm that developed alternative energy sources. Don Beckman had died of a heart attack in 2005. Rae went to one of the search engines the agency subscribed to for more information on Fitzgerald. She was still with Alternative Resources, whose office address was in Cupertino. Rae noted that down, then did a search for Lee Summers.

He had an impressive background: bachelor’s degree in prelaw from Stanford, law degree from Harvard. He’d made partner at one of San Francisco’s prestigious appeals firms in record time. His personal life was unblemished: he’d been married to his wife, Senta, for twenty-four years; was a regular churchgoer; was a member of two country clubs; served on the boards of various charities. Alicia had been the couple’s only child. Five years ago Summers had cut back on his legal practice to devote his energy to the Pro Terra Party, and had been instrumental in Representative Paul Janssen’s victory.

All squeaky-clean. Which made Rae uncomfortable. Everybody had something to hide. She certainly did.

Well, maybe that was specious reasoning. If she Googled herself, there would be no mention that in her teens she had been the primo slut of her hometown, Santa Maria. But the details of her very public affair with Ricky would be duly noted…

She moved on to another search engine and dug deeper.

Aha! In 2008 Lee Summers’s wife had filed for divorce, but withdrawn the petition two weeks later. Irreconcilable differences had apparently been reconciled. Or a compromise-given that he was involved in an intense political campaign-had been made. Just about the time Alicia had left home and become a prostitute here in the city.

Maybe that high-school counselor’s intuitions were wrong. Maybe Rae should rethink the abuse angle.

The phone rang. Rae grabbed it before the call could go to the office machine. Jane Koziol, the Acalanes High School counselor she’d just been thinking of.

“I’ve been in touch with Alicia’s mother, Senta Summers,” she said. “She’d like to talk with you. Would tomorrow afternoon at two be okay?”

“Of course.” Abuse, just as she’d suspected.

Koziol gave her directions to the Summerses’ house in the Lafayette hills and said she’d meet her there.

The timing was perfect. In the morning Rae could drive to Cupertino and appear at Cheryl Fitzgerald’s office first thing, when the woman’s and her gatekeepers’ guards were apt to be low, and go from there to Lafayette for the meeting with Mrs. Summers.

HY RIPINSKY

The file on the Teller investigation is gone,” Ted said to Hy.

“Shit.”

“I happen to know a very capable computer forensics expert who can retrieve it.”

“Mick? He’s been incommunicado since last night.”

“Derek’s almost as good as he is.” Ted was already on the phone, hitting the fast dial. “Hey, Derek, I need you at the pier… Forensic job on our own system… Okay, see you then.” He replaced the receiver and said to Hy, “He’ll be here in half an hour.”

Hy was silent, distracted.

“You okay?”

“Do I look okay?”

“No.”

“Neither do you.” Ted’s Western-style shirt was rumpled, and he hadn’t trimmed his usually neat goatee.

Ted said, “None of us is. Shar… it scares me to death. Neal and I went by today, but they wouldn’t let us see her-doctors, nurses, visitors backed up out the door.”

“Try late at night or early in the morning. There’re no restrictions on visiting hours.”

“But I don’t want to disturb her.”

“Believe me, you won’t. In spite of not being able to move or talk, her energy’s still high. Seeing the people she loves keeps her going.”

Ted nodded. Hy knew he wanted to ask about Shar’s condition, but was hesitating because he thought it would upset him.

He said, “As recently as a few days ago I wouldn’t have believed it, but McCone’s not only fully aware, she’s working her own case.”

“What? How?”

“She’s taking verbal reports from everybody, and I can tell she’s focused on the facts and theories they’re giving her. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s the one who puts it all together and IDs the perp. And then finds a way to communicate it to the rest of us.”

“My God. You can’t stop the woman, can you?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never dared try.”

“Okay,” Derek Ford said, “I’ve got it.”

The tall, slender Eurasian leaned forward, gazing intently at the computer screen, his thick black hair flopping onto his forehead. He hit the save command, said, “All yours,” and stood. He was urban chic, perfectly groomed and outfitted, even on Sunday, with a tattoo of linked scorpions around his neck and numerous silver earrings.

Hy took the chair Derek had vacated. On the screen was the first page of the standard agency report form: client name, address, phone numbers; case number; operative assigned. Client request: deep background on Lee Summers, the Pro Terra Party, and Representative Paul Janssen. The client: the late Amanda Teller.

Hy scrolled down and read on.

SHARON McCONE

Julia and Rae arrived with their reports shortly after Craig and Mick left.

My night nurse, Melissa, preceded them, asking if I was up to having more visitors. I blinked. The frequency of visitors tired me, but it also made me feel a connection to the world I’d involuntarily left behind.

They were still there at ten o’clock when Hy arrived with the information that the file on the background investigations Amanda Teller had requested last year had been deleted from the office’s system but recovered by Derek. Hy had read it and found it was a simple background check on people Teller had considered potential political allies or adversaries.

But it had been deleted. Now I had a lot more to process.

If I could talk, or even write, I would’ve brainstormed with the three of them. Explained the connections I sensed, even if I couldn’t back them up. Asked them to look for the missing pieces. But for some reason Julia wasn’t reading the signals I was trying to give her with my eyes-probably exhausted from nonstop working. And Rae was reading too much into them. It made me afraid for her; she had a tendency to stray unprepared into dangerous territory.

Hy, on the other hand, understood. We were closely attuned to each other, as always. “You’re putting something together, but you need more facts.”

Blink.

“Well, maybe tomorrow…” He lapsed into silence as Rae and Julia gathered their things and left.

Hy looked discouraged, slouched in the armchair, his hair tousled and his cheeks stubbled. His cellular rang, and he checked it, said he had to take the call, and went out into the corridor. Since the shooting my hearing had become more acute-a compensation for the loss of other functions. Hy probably thought he was out of my earshot.

“Weathers, what d’you want?… No, nothing yet… I said I’d call you if I had a problem. Where did you get this number?… Well, don’t call it again.”

Weathers.

There was a pilot at North Field by that name. Flew a small jet, and Hy had always gone out of his way to avoid him. Come to think of it, Weathers went out of his way to avoid Hy. So why was Weathers calling him now?

I tried to remember what Hy had told me about the man. Couldn’t come up with anything. If he had talked about Weathers it’d been a long time ago and I hadn’t retained any of it.

Hy returned, sat back down. Instead of explaining the phone call, he said, “I’m going to sleep here tonight. Your brother’s driving me crazy. He keeps concocting preposterous revenge schemes for when we find out who did this to you.”

Revenge…

And right then I remembered that I did know something about Weathers-first name Len. Hy had known him in Thailand, was surprised when he turned up in the Bay Area. Avoided him because he suspected Weathers had become a professional killer.

Oh God, no, Hy! Don’t do it that way!