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Prologue
MONDAY
ONE
AT DAWN THAT morning, a man dressed entirely in black nosed his gray Ford sedan up to the curb on Taylor Street. To the east, the morning sun struggled to rise through the clouds over San Francisco Bay. It was still dark but the man, who was now in “Blackout” mode, knew this street as well as he knew his own mind.
He cut his headlights, released the trunk latch, lowered the seat back a few inches and adjusted his video glasses in the rearview mirror. With his unobstructed view of Victorian row houses and the wooden staircase across the street, Blackout waited for Catherine. She was always on time, one of the many things he liked about her.
At twenty-five, Catherine Fleet was a beautiful mother of a baby girl named Josephina, and an integral part of the masterwork he was creating. He wished he could talk with her about it, but there wouldn’t be time. She was leaving her house on Leavenworth now. She would turn down Macondray Lane,the quarter mile of footpath that ran downhill and at a right angle to Taylor.
The lane parted a smattering of trees and hugged the walls of the large homes until it merged with the wooden staircase that ended only yards from the rear of Blackout’s stripped-down cop car.
Catherine would pause there, Josie strapped into her front-facing carrier, and together they would take in the magnificent view of dawn breaking over San Francisco Bay. Moments later, she would head south to Ina Coolbrith Park for their morning walk.
As he rounded off that thought, Blackout saw a flicker of movement in his rearview mirror. Catherine was halfway down the staircase, as regular as a metronome. Her unbuttoned dark coat revealed a garnet-red, snowflake-patterned sweater over dark pants. Her long, dark hair spilled over her shoulders and floated around the redheaded baby’s ears.
Perfect. She was perfect.
Blackout secured his video glasses, worked his gloves over his large hands, and got out of his car. In only a dozen strides he’d reached the foot of the staircase. Catherine looked down briefly, gripping the banister, giving the good-looking young man a brief smile.
Blackout smiled back, took the first two steps upward, snagging the toe of his shoe on the third. As he’d calculated, he tripped and fell facedown spectacularly, sprawling with his arms spread like a large broken bird.
She called out, “Oh, my gosh. Are you all right?”
“I, uh, don’t know,” he said. “I think I slammed my knee on the edge of the riser …”
Blackout was awkwardly working himself up into a crouch when Catherine reached him.
“Can you stand up?”
The concern in her voice sent a wave of pleasure through him as he looked up into her blue eyes, the irises rimmed with gold halos. The baby was awake, beating her fists against the air.
“I’m good,” said Blackout. “Embarrassed, is all. I try to impress with finesse.”
Catherine laughed, saying, “Forget it ever happened,” never seeing the small vial Blackout had secreted in his clenched hand. Called “Down Dog,” it was an inelegant name, but it got the job done. He aimed the sprayer at Catherine Fleet’s golden blue eyes and thumbed the lever.
Her reaction was instant, sharp, pained. She cried, “What did you do?” She sat down hard, tearing up from the pepper spray and palming her eyes. The baby girl was gulping air, exhaling wails that could be heard through brick walls.
Blackout had to move fast, before someone else came down the stairs on their way to the park. He scrambled up and got behind Catherine, cradled her lovely neck between his forearm and biceps. She could barely draw breath, gasping, “Don’t. Hurt. My baby.”
“Don’t worry. She’s in good hands.”
Catherine tried to push off the step, to get away from him, but Blackout held her in place and spoke gently to her as he squeezed.
“Don’t fight me, Catherine. It’ll be all over soon. Shhh, shhhh. I’ve got you.”
In fifteen seconds, Catherine was unconscious. In fortyseconds, a woman who’d been at the peak of life was dead. But the baby was wailing.
Blackout assessed their combined weight at a hundred and twenty pounds. He checked in all directions. They were alone. He gathered up mother and child and carried them twenty yards to his car’s unlatched trunk.
He stowed them without trouble and was reaching inside to kill the baby, when a man’s voice called out.
“Pardon me. Do you need some help there?”
TWO
BLACKOUT TURNED TO see a jogger in shorts and a tennis shirt materialize in the gloom, coming slowly toward him. He had seen him before, a man in his seventies, stiff, arthritic, now winded from climbing the hill out of the park.
