4th of July (Women's Murder Club 4)

Chapter 64

I HADN’T SEEN THE bodies, and the labs from this savage double homicide wouldn’t start trickling in for days. Still, I ignored the chief’s sarcasm and told him what my gut had already told me.

“There were two killers,” I said.

Stark’s head jerked back. He practically spat, “Bullshit.”

“Look,” I said. “There was no sign of a struggle, right? Why didn’t Joe try to overpower his assailant? He was big. He was a bear.

“Try it this way,” I went on. “Joe was taken out of the room at knifepoint—and he cooperated because he had to. Killer number two was still in the bedroom with Annemarie.”

The chief’s eyes darted around, looking at the scene from a new angle, imagining it the way I saw it.

“I’d like to see the kid’s room,” I said.

When I stepped across the threshold, I could see from his stuff that Anthony Sarducci was a smart kid. He had good books, terrariums full of healthy creepy-crawlers, and a high-powered computer on his desk. But what got me most interested were the indentations in the carpet where the desk chair normally stood. The chair had been moved. Why was that?

I swung my head around and saw it just inside the doorway.

I thought about that cop standing sentry outside the Sarducci house and made a mental leap.

The child had heard nothing.

But what would have happened if he had?

I pointed out the chair to the chief.

“Anyone move this chair?” I asked.

“No one’s been inside this room.”

“I changed my mind,” I told him. “There weren’t two intruders here. There were three. Two to do the killings. One to manage the boy if he woke up. He sat right over there in that chair.”

The chief turned stiffly, walked down the hall, and returned with a young female CSU tech. She waited by the door with her roll of tape until we had stepped out of the room. Then she cordoned it off.

“I don’t want to believe this, Lieutenant. It was bad enough when we were dealing with one psycho.”

I held his gaze. Then, for just a second, he smiled.

“Don’t quote me, now,” he said, “but I think I just said we.”

Chapter 65

IT WAS LATE IN the afternoon when I left the Sarducci house. I drove southeast along Cabrillo, my mind buzzing with the details of the crime and my conversation with the chief. When he confirmed that the Sarduccis, like the other double-murder victims, had been whipped, I told him that I’d had a brush with these murderers myself.

I told him about John Doe #24.

All the dots between the Half Moon Bay murders and my John Doe hadn’t been connected yet, but I was pretty sure I was right. Ten years on homicide had taught me that though MOs might change over time, signatures always stayed the same. Whipping and slashing in combination was a rare, possibly unique signature.

The light was red as I approached the intersection just a few blocks from the Sarduccis’. As I braked, I glanced into the rearview mirror and saw a red sports car coming up behind me very fast. I expected the car to stop, but it didn’t even slow down.

I could not believe what I saw next. My eyes were pinned to the rearview mirror, watching as the car kept coming toward me on a collision course.

I leaned on my horn, but the car just got bigger in my rearview. What the hell was going on? Was the driver on his freaking cell phone? Did he see me?

Adrenaline shot through me, and time splintered into fragments. I stepped on the gas and jerked the wheel to avoid the collision, driving off the road and onto a front lawn, taking out a garden cart before coming to rest at the base of a Douglas fir.

I jerked the Explorer into reverse, tearing up the lawn before getting back onto the roadway. Then I took off after the fast-disappearing maniac who’d almost driven through my backseat. Who hadn’t stopped to check on the wreck he almost caused. The asshole could have killed me.