The 9th Judgment (Women's Murder Club 9)

“Put the money inside,” said the Lipstick Killer.

Again, I followed his directions, transferring the money from Tyler’s special briefcase, stacking the bills, closing the locks, all the while raging—I was helping a psycho get away with holding up a city. I couldn't help thinking about the Nazis putting the screws to Paris in World War II.

“Slide Mr. Tyler’s briefcase under the Lexus to your left,” the killer said. “Just another precaution, princess. In case there’s a tracking device in there.”

“There’s no tracking device,” I said, but there was. Tyler’s case had a GPS built into the handle.

“And take off your shoes,” the killer said. “Slide them under the car with the case.”

I did what he said, thinking how Jacobi would follow the GPS signal to this parking lot and find the case—and it would be a dead end.

“Feel like going for a ride?” my constant companion asked me.

“I’d love to,” I said with false brightness.

“I’d love to, what?” said WCF.

“I’d love to, sir,” I answered.

I got into the driver’s seat and started the car.

“Where to?” I asked, sounding to myself as though I were already dead.

Chapter 63

“WELCOME TO THE mystery tour,” the killer told me.

“Which way do you want me to go?”

“Take a left, princess.”

I looked at my watch. I’d been wearing the devil around my neck for what seemed like forever, and I still knew nothing about him, nothing about what he intended to do. Since our genius “follow the money” plan had been canceled by the killer, my brain was on overdrive, trying to come up with another. But how could I? I didn’t know where this guy was going to execute the drop.

I left the parking lot and drove past the Asian Art Museum. The killer told me to follow Larkin. I glanced at the rearview mirror, seeing nothing that looked like an unmarked car.

No one was following me.

I took Larkin into the Tenderloin, threading the Impala through the roughest section in San Francisco, the dark streets crammed with hole-in-the-wall bars and girlie shows and rent-by-the-hour hotels. Jacobi and I had been shot in an alley not far from here, and we both almost died.

I passed streets I’d worked as a uniformed cop, a first-class pizzeria that I’d introduced Joe to a while ago, and a bar where Conklin and I sometimes came to wind down after a double shift. I turned onto Geary and drove past Mel’s Drive-in, where I used to hang out with Claire when we were both rookies, the two of us laughing away our frustration at being females in a man’s world.

I felt tears gathering in my eyes, not from the hoops the killer was making me jump through but from nostalgia, the aching memories of times with my good and beloved friends, and from the feeling that I was visiting sweet scenes from my past for the last time.

The disembodied voice of a man who’d wasted three young mothers and their small children spoke once again.

“Hang the phone over the rearview mirror, lens pointing at you.”

I was at a stoplight at the intersection of Van Ness and Geary. As soon as I hung the phone on the mirror and looked into the pea-sized camera’s eye, the Lipstick Killer said, “Take off your blouse, sweetmeat.”

“What’s this, now?”

“I told you. No questions.”

I understood. He was checking me for a wire. First my purse, then my jacket, my shoes, and the briefcase. Now this.

I took off my blouse.

“Throw it out the window.”