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

“Sorry, Lindsay. No body.”

“So we don’t know if her throat was slit.”

“No.”

I put my chin in my hands. It was frustrating to be so close to the very heart of this horror show and yet have not one decent lead to run with.

But one pattern was clear. The murders were coming closer together. My John Doe had been killed ten years ago, the Whittakers eight years later, the Daltrys a month and a half ago. Now two double homicides in one week.

Joe sat down on the little stool next to mine. He took my hand, and we stared at the notes tacked to the corkboard. When I spoke, my voice seemed to echo in the girls’ small room.

“They’re ratcheting up their timetable, Joe. Right now, they’re planning to do it again.”

“You know this for a fact?” Joe said.

“I do. I can feel it.”

Chapter 78

I AWOKE TO THE jarring sound of the bedside phone. I grabbed it on the second ring, noticing that Joe was gone and that there was a note on the chair where his clothes had been.

“Joe?”

“It’s Yuki, Lindsay. Did I wake you?”

“No, I’m up,” I lied.

We talked for five minutes at Yuki’s trademark warp speed, and after we hung up, there was no falling back to sleep. I read Joe’s sweet good-bye note, then I pulled on some sweats, put a leash on Martha, and together we jogged to the beach.

A cleansing breeze whipped in off the bay as Martha and I headed north. We hadn’t gotten very far when I heard someone calling my name. A small figure up ahead came running toward me.

“Lindseee, Lindseee!”

“Allison! Hey, girl.”

The dark-eyed little girl hugged me hard around the waist, then dropped to the sand to embrace Martha.

“Ali, you’re not here alone?”

“We’re having an outing,” she said, pointing to a clump of people and umbrellas a ways up the beach. As we got closer, I heard kids singing “Yolee-yolee-yolee,” the theme song from Survivor, and I saw Carolee coming toward me.

We exchanged hugs, and then Carolee introduced me to “her” kids.

“What kind of mutt is that?” an eleven- or twelve-year-old with a sandy mop of Rasta hair asked me.

“She’s no mutt. Sweet Martha is a border collie.”

“She doesn’t look like Lassie,” said a little girl with strawberry curls and a healing black eye.

“Nope. Border collies are a different breed. They come from England and Scotland, and they have a very serious job,” I said. “They herd sheep and cattle.”

I had their attention now, and Martha looked up at me as if she knew that I was talking about her.

“Border collies have to learn commands from their owners, of course, but they’re very smart dogs who not only love to work, they feel that the animals in the herd are theirs—and that they are responsible for them.”

“Do the commands! Show how she does it, Lindsay,” Ali begged me. I grinned at her.

“Who wants to be a sheep?” I asked.