About the book:
A gripping new thriller featuring psychologist Alex Delaware from the Number One New York Times bestselling master of suspense.
Ellie Barker is a self-made millionaire by the age of forty, and is obsessed with reopening the coldest of cases: the decades-old death of the mother she never knew. She hires LAPD homicide lieutenant Milo Sturgis to help.
Twenty-five years ago Ellie's mother was found with a bullet in her head in a torched Cadillac that has overturned on infamously treacherous Mulholland Drive. No physical evidence, no witnesses, no apparent motive. And a slew of detectives have already worked the job and failed.
This is a case that calls for the insight of brilliant psychologist Alex Delaware. And as he and Sturgis begin digging, the mist begins to lift. There are too many coincidences. Facts turn out to be anything but. And as they soon discover, very real threats are lurking in the present...
EXTRACT:
CHAPTER 1
My best friend, a seasoned homicide detective, is a master
of discontent.
Some say Milo Sturgis enjoys the cold comfort of a sour mood.
Grumbling, grimacing, and mumbled curses peak during the muddled
middle of murder investigations, when promising leads break
their promises. He always gets past it; his solve rate is near- perfect.
Which is why his bosses tolerate the biliousness, messages ignored,
memos tossed in the trash unread.
I’ve come to think of Milo as allergic to obedience, wonder if it’s
rooted in his rookie days when gay cops didn’t “exist” in the department
and he had to look over his shoulder and write his own rulebook.
But I could be wrong. Temperament’s a strong factor in determining
personality so it could just be the way he is. I wonder what his baby
pictures look like. Imagine him as one of those infants who look as
though they’ve been weaned on sour pickles.
Like a lot of things, we don’t talk about it.
He doesn’t call me in on all of his cases, just the ones he terms “different”
once he’s gotten his bearings. This time, he didn’t wait.
I picked up his phone message when I returned from an eight a.m.
run up Beverly Glen. “Misery lusts for company, I’m coming over. If it’s a
problem, text me.”
I left the door unlocked and headed for the shower. Before I took
two steps, the bell rang.
He’d called from the road.
“Open.”
He barreled through, convex gut leading the way, head lowered,
bulky shoulders piled up around his neck like a muscular shawl.
A charging bull if a bull could find an aloha shirt that fit.
He took a moment to stoop and pat the head of my little French
bulldog, Blanche, murmured, “At least someone’s smiling,” and continued
toward the kitchen.
Blanche cocked her head and looked up at me, expecting clarification.
When I shrugged and followed him in, she gave a world- weary
sigh and padded along.
Milo’s usual thing is to raid the fridge and assemble snacks worthy of
construction permits. This time he filled a coffee cup, sat down heavily
at the table, and tugged at the aloha shirt as if aerating his torso. The
shirt was sky- blue polyester patterned inexplicably with cellos and bagels.
He wore it tucked into baggy khaki cargo pants that puddled over
scuffed desert boots.
My true love is a master artisan. She’d designed the kitchen to be
sunlit from the south, and this morning’s glow was kind to Milo’s pallid,
pockmarked face. But nothing could mask the cherry- sized lumps
rolling up and down his jawline.
I filled a mug and settled across from him. “Now I’m scared.”
“By what?”
I pointed to his cup. “No food.”
“Sorry for defying your expectations.” His lips curled but the end
product wasn’t a smile. “Maybe I had a big breakfast? Maybe I’m showing
discretion?”
“Okay.”
“That was a shrink okay if I’ve ever heard one— which is fine, I
need therapy.”
I said nothing.
He said, “There it is, the old strategic- silence bit . . . sorry, I’ll dial
it down.” He breathed in and out. Pressed mitt- like palms together.
“Namaste or whatever. Glad I caught you.” Sip. “Hoping you’re free
today.” Sip. “Are you?”
“Appointments from two to five.”
“That’ll work.” He picked up his cup, put it down. “I plead guilty
to acute petulance. But it’s called for.”
“Tough case.”
“It should be so simple.” Sausage fingers drummed the table. Another
long inhale– exhale. “Okay, here’s the deal. Just got a mega- loser
shoved in my face like I’m a goddamn rookie. Thirty- six- year- old unsolved.
We’re talking freezer burn.”
“There’s a new cold- case campaign?”
“No, there’s just this. Listen to the chain of command, Alex. An
equally rich buddy of Andrea Bauer— remember her?— sits next to a
relative of the victim at a rich persons’ thing. Bauer butts in, she’s connected
to the cops, can help. Instead of calling me directly, Bauer contacts
a state assemblyman. He hands off to the mayor who can’t even
clear the goddamn sidewalks of garbage, couple of cops downtown just
got typhus at a homeless encampment.”
He pushed his cup to the side. Lowered a fist to the table but
stopped short of contact.
“City’s returning to the Dark Ages but Handsome Jack’s got time
to personally contact the chief who punts to Deputy Chief Veronique
Martz who calls me yesterday just as I’m about to go off- shift. Important
meeting, her office, can’t be handled over the phone. I drive eightysix
minutes downtown, cool my heels in her waiting room for another
twenty, finally get ushered into her sanctum for the ninety seconds it
takes for her to give me the victim’s name and the basics and warn me
not to argue.”
I said, “Thin file?”
“She didn’t have the goddamn file, locating it is part of my assignment.
I asked where the basics came from. She said there’s a coroner’s
summary, I should ask for that, too. I called Bauer to ahem thank her.
She’s in Europe.”
Andrea Bauer was the widow of a developer who’d left her a couple
hundred million bucks’ worth of real estate. Her home base was an estate
in Montecito but she owned board- and- care facilities for mentally
challenged adults in several states. Last year one of her charges had been
murdered along with five other human victims and two dogs. A week
after closing the case, Milo had received a Rolex from Bauer. Against
the rules. He’d groused, “Steel, not gold?” and sent it back.
I said, “Maybe you should’ve kept the watch.”
He stared at me. Cracked up. Brought the cup back to arm’s reach
and drank.
As he ingested caffeine, his shoulders lowered a bit. Running his
hand over his face, he shot up, went to the fridge and pulled out an
apple, sat back down and chomped. “Don’t say a thing. This is for the
pepsin. Good for digestion.”
One bite later: “Thirty- six years.”
I said, “Look at it this way: You’re the A- student who got rewarded
with extra homework.”
“The bright side, huh?”
“You said you wanted therapy. Who’s the victim?”
“Woman named Dorothy Swoboda, all Martz could tell me is she
was found shot to death on Mulholland east of Coldwater. Which isn’t
even my shop, it’s Hollywood Division. Which I noted to Martz. Only
to be ignored. Google gives up nothing on it, only thing I’ve found is
in the Times archives. Twenty- four years old, found in her car over the
side of a cliff, everything burned up. Nothing in the article about murder,
the implication was a one- vehicle accident.”
I said, “Maybe a bullet was found at autopsy and the paper didn’t
follow up.”
“That would be par for the course,” he said. “Even back then, you’re
not Natalie Wood or O.J. or Baretta, who cares?”
“Who’s the relative?”
“Swoboda’s daughter, woman named Ellie Barker. Her, Google
likes. She made a fortune from exercise wear, sold out a couple years
ago for gazillions.”
“How old is she?”
His eyebrows arched. “Thirty-nine.”
“Three at the time,” I said. “She probably has no memories of
Mommy.”
“Exactly, Alex. This isn’t a police thing, it’s a psych thing, that’s one
reason I’d like you along when I talk to her. Maybe you can slide some
insight her way and she’ll realize she needs you more than me.” His
smile was an off- center crescent. “Think of it as a potential high- end
referral, we both come out ahead.”
“What are the other reasons you want me there?”
“Just one,” he said. “Turn on the laser, give me your impression of
her, so I know who I’m dealing with. Ultra- rich folk expect the world
to spin around them. If she’s unbalanced on top of that, it could get
nasty when I fail.”
“When not if.”
“I’m being realistic. You know what usually solves the oldies: DNA,
bad guy’s in CODIS. Thirty- six- year- old homicide, the body burned to
a crisp? What’s the chance any bio- material was there in the first place,
let alone collected. This is a woman who can activate politicians with a
phone call. I don’t give her what she wants, she’s not gonna be charitable.”
“A woman who lost her mother at three might be more humbled
than you think.”
He finished the apple. “You’ve made a new friend without meeting
her?”
“Just pointing out possibilities.”
He got up, tossed the core in the trash. “Fine. I’ll give her a chance.
But the case may not give me one.”
“When are you due to meet her?”
“Forty- five minutes, Los Feliz.”
“If we leave now, barely enough time to get there.”
“So she’ll wait,” he said. “Good moral training.”
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by Jonathan Kellerman
A gripping new thriller featuring psychologist Alex Delaware from the Number One New York Times bestselling master of suspense.
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