16th Seduction (Women's Murder Club 16)

“Is there a picture?” Cindy asked.

There was. But the dead-in-a-plane-crash scientist Connor Grant didn’t look like anything like our Connor Grant. I stared at the photo of the chief mourner, William Tilley. He wasn’t Connor Grant’s twin, but I thought he looked more like our Connor Grant than the dead man.

I googled Tilley’s name and four thousand William Willy Bill Billy Tilleys popped up.

So where were we? We had a collection of articles citing the violent, fiery deaths of several people who didn’t actually link up. What did these people mean to Connor Grant?

Why did he collect stories of this type of tragedy?

Were they his victims?

We weren’t going to be able to chase down all these deaths tonight. After six hours of dedicated hard work, we’d crossed off every last box, found semi-intriguing tidbits that added up to not much of anything and certainly not a dirty bomb to drop on my enemy.

“Thanks for the really good try,” I said.

The girls said that they were sorry, and we hugged all around before cleaning up and leaving for home.

I thought about Grant on the drive back to Lake Street. Had we been looking for something that didn’t exist? Was Connor Grant exactly who he said he was—a high school teacher with a deep and far-reaching mind? If so, why did I persist in feeling that he had scammed all of us by getting away with mass murder? Was Grant a mystery that would never be solved?

He still had me in the stocks with his IAB complaint, but as for what I had on him?

I still didn’t have even a clue.

CHAPTER 89

THE MAN WHO was spending his last twenty-four hours as Connor Grant counted out his cash. He had forty-five dollars in fives, eight singles, and some loose change. He wanted to use all of it before he got on the plane.

He had been staying inside his suite at the middle-of-theroad businessmen’s Travelers’ Inn for the last two days. No one knew where he was—not his lawyer, not the cops, not the school. He had wanted this little cushion of alone time in order to rest up before his big farewell to the City by the Bay.

He had spent the time well, lying in the middle of the big bed, listening to his playlist of favorites on his iPhone. Room service on demand. Memories on demand, too.

He took his time and reviewed the five years he’d spent in San Francisco. He thought about the kids in his classes at Saint Brendan, and by count, he remembered every one of them.

He remembered meals with ocean views, cable car and ferry rides, books he’d read by the fire in his little house. He thought of women he had slept with and their stories, and he didn’t skip over the conversations or the good-byes.

He sipped his Scotch and played his music, unspooled the images in his mind. He wanted to save the best for last, and then it was there. He remembered building the compression bomb with a fire extinguisher, filling it with gas, adding the perchlorate, leaving the bomb under the skirts of the space travel exhibit, which was a few yards from the spiral staircase that went up to the dome.

He remembered packing the fistful of C-4 with a timer into the cyborg exhibit at the front of the Welcome Gallery, so that the doors would blow twenty-five minutes after the big compression bomb detonated.

And he thought about that girl he’d paid for a couple of hours earlier that day. Irish, he thought. Reserved. Modest, even. She’d needed the money and he had needed her. Win-win.

While the sunset came on outside his windows, “Grant” let the rest of that evening play unedited through his mind. He remembered with crystal clarity that he had been standing on the Embarcadero not far from Pier 15 as the timer set off the compression bomb. The size and scope of the blast had been beyond his expectations. The shower of glass seemed to turn the air to ice, freeze it so that it reflected the light and the roaring magnificence as the building fell to its knees.

Images overlapped: the destruction still unfurling, overlaid with the screaming of fire engines and of the crowds, so many people. That explosion was one of the pinnacles of his life.

The two months in jail had passed quickly as he prepared for the trial. He had relished in the planning of it, and it had exceeded his dreams in the execution. It had been so easy, and even hilarious to watch the faces of the prosecution as he turned the jury into his best friends.

Too bad he wouldn’t be here for Lindsay Boxer to get the boot from the SFPD. The humiliation would devastate her, but for him, the complaint had just been a distraction while he planned his next move.

Grant finished his Scotch and looked at the room service menu. He ordered, and while he waited, there was one thing he wanted to do before checking out tomorrow. He wanted to thank his friend Dylan Mitchell, the great Haight himself. He picked up his burner phone and composed an e-mail.

&nb

sp; Haight, I’m a leavin’, on a jet plane. Thank you for your guidance, inspiration, encouragement. Couldn’t have made glass rain under a setting sun without you.

Grant

He sent the message, and it was answered immediately.