3rd Degree (Women's Murder Club 3)

My cell phone went off and I grabbed it. Cindy was on the line.

“Are you there, Lindsay?” she asked. “Are you okay?”

“I’m here. What’s up?”

“They took credit for the bombing,” she told me. “Somebody called it in to the paper. The caller said he was August Spies. He said, ‘Three more days, then watch out!’ He said this was just practice.”

Chapter 82

BY LATE AFTERNOON it finally caught up with me that I hadn’t gotten even an hour’s sleep for the second night in three days.

I also started to feel that I was missing something important about the case. I was sure of it.

I called Cindy and Claire together. I’d been so focused on finding Hardaway, I’d missed something else.

Claire had spent the day in the morgue with the grim task of trying to identify the victims of the Rincon Center blast. There were sixteen dead so far, and more to come, unfortunately. She agreed to meet for a few minutes across the street at Susie’s, our familiar corner table.

The minute I hit the street on the way to Susie’s, I could feel the anxiety, see it on faces. Claire and Cindy were waiting for me inside.

“The note about Jill is the key.” I told them my latest theory as we sipped our tea.

“The note said she was part of the state,” Claire said, looking puzzled.

“Not that one. Cindy’s e-mail. It said, ‘This one wasn’t like the others….’”

“This one was personal,” Cindy finished it off.

“You’re thinking Jill had some personal contact with this guy?” Claire blinked. “Like what?”

“I don’t know what I’m thinking. Just that each of these victims was chosen precisely. None of the killings have been random. So what led them to Jill? They tracked her. They cased her home and picked her up. Lightower, Bengosian… Something tied Jill to the two of them.”

“Maybe one of her cases?” Cindy shrugged. Claire seemed unconvinced.

There was a lull in the conversation. We looked around. The silence brought us all to the same place. The empty seat at the table.

“It’s so strange to be here,” Claire said, letting out a breath, “to be doing this, without Jill. To be talking about her.”

“Jill’s gonna help us,” I whispered.

I looked at both of them. A renewed sparkle was in their eyes.

“Okay,” Claire said, nodding, “how?”

“We’re going to look over her old cases,” I said. “I’ll try and get someone on Sinclair’s staff to pitch in.”

“And we’re looking for what exactly?” Cindy narrowed her eyes.

“You got the e-mail. Something personal,” I said. “Just like this case is for us. Look at the faces in here, and out on the street. Somebody has to stop these bastards, these murderers.”

Chapter 83

BENNETT SINCLAIR hooked me up with Wendy Hong, a young prosecutor in his department, and with April, Jill’s assistant. We requisitioned Jill’s casework over the past eight years. All of it!

It was a mountain of paperwork, wheeled up from the law morgue in large laundry-style pushcarts and stacked in Jill’s office in columns of thick, bound files.

So we started in.

By day, I still ran the investigation, trying to close in on Hardaway. But at night, and every other available moment I could find, I went downstairs and plowed through the files. Claire pitched in. So did Cindy. Deep into the night, it seemed Jill’s light was the only one left on in the Hall.