AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What are the charges, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“How do you like attempted murder for starters?”
“You’ve got to be kidding. I didn’t touch her.”
“Yuki was wired, buddy. You teed her up for a dive off this cliff. We’ve got it all.”
Conklin squeezed the bracelets tight enough to make Twilly yelp. I called for a medevac, sat with my arms around Yuki as we waited for the chopper to arrive.
“Lindsay?” Yuki asked me. “I got it . . . on my watch . . . didn’t I?”
“You sure did, honey,” I said, hugging my friend, so very grateful that she was alive.
While I held her, another part of my mind was turning it all over. We had Twilly in custody for the attempt on Yuki’s life, but the reason we’d tailed him was because of what he’d hinted to Yuki this morning: that he’d killed Michael Campion.
What he’d told Yuki in the last ten minutes contradicted that.
Conklin stooped beside us, said, “So this was all a trap? He set Yuki up to create an ending for his book?”
“That’s what that psycho said.”
And he’d almost done it. Now the ending was him. His arrest, his trial, and, we could always hope, his conviction.
Yuki tried to speak, but ragged sounds came from her throat.
She was struggling to breathe.
“What did he give you, Yuki? Do you know what drug?”
“Water,” she said.
“The medics will give you water in a minute, honey.”
Yuki’s head was in my lap when the chopper’s arrival sounded overhead.
I looked down to shield my eyes — and saw a glint in the path. I shouted over the racket.
“Twilly drugged the water. Is that what you mean, Yuki? He put it in the water?”
Yuki nodded. Moments later Conklin had bagged the evidence, two plastic water bottles, and Yuki was in a carry-lift up to the chopper’s belly.
Part Five
BURNING DESIRE
Chapter 100
HAWK AND PIDGE left the car around the corner from the huge Victorian house in Pacific Heights, the biggest in a neighborhood of impressive, multi-multimillion-dollar homes, all with stunning views of the bay.
Their target house was imposing and yet inviting, so American it was iconic — and at the same time, completely out of reach for everyone but the very wealthy.
The two young men looked up at the leaded windows, the cupolas, and the old trees banked around the house, separating it from the servant quarters over the garage and the neighbors on either side of the yard. They had studied the floor plans on the real estate brokers’ Web site and knew every corner of every floor. They were prepared, high on anticipation, and still cautious.
This was going to be their best kill and their last. They would make some memories tonight, leave their calling card, and fade out, blend back into their lives. But this night would never be forgotten. There would be headlines for weeks, movies, several of them. In fact, they were sure people would still be talking about this crime of all crimes into the next century.
“Do I look okay?” Pidge asked.
Hawk turned Pidge’s collar up, surveyed his friend’s outfit down to the shoes.
