“Jason Twilly just told me he knows who killed Michael Campion, Lindsay, but he wants me to think that he did it. That he killed Michael. Lindsay! Maybe he did.”
Twilly’s rented Mercedes was in her rearview mirror as Yuki circled the block. She ran a red light, took a sudden turn into an alley — and when she was sure she was no longer being followed, she parked in a fire zone outside the Hall.
She flashed her ID at the security guard, ran through the metal detectors, then took the stairs to the squad room on the third floor. She was panting when she found Lindsay waiting for her at the gate.
“Don’t worry,” Lindsay told her. “I’ve got your back.”
Chapter 94
TWO HOURS after leaving the Hall of Justice, Yuki packed an overnight bag and headed out of town. She tried to shake the echo of Twilly’s voice as she drove over the Golden Gate Bridge toward Point Reyes.
Could Twilly really have killed Michael Campion? If so, why would he do it?
And why would he tell her?
She turned on the radio, found a classical station, dialed it up loud, and the music filled the car and her mind. It was a beautiful afternoon. She was going to Rose Cottage, to walk in the surf and remember that she wasn’t a quitter.
That she wouldn’t quit on this.
As she got onto Highway 1, she let the incomparable beauty of the place take her over. She switched off the radio, buzzed down all the car windows so she could hear the thundering waves break over the huge rocks below her. Moist ocean air whipped her hair away from her eyes and brought blood into her cheeks. She looked out over the blue, blue sea that stretched out to the horizon — no, out to Japan — and she breathed in the fresh air, consciously exhaled, letting the tension go.
In the small town of Olema, she turned off Highway 1, passed the little shops at the intersection, and from there negotiated the back roads by memory. She glanced down at her new wristwatch. It was only two thirty in the afternoon, plenty of sunlight left in the day.
The sign spelling out ROSE COTTAGE ¼ MILE was almost hidden by the roadside flora, but Yuki caught it and made the turn through a forested glen and up an unpaved road that climbed the hillside. The rutted road became a driveway that looped in front of the manager’s cabin just ahead.
The manager, a tall, blond-haired woman named Paula Vaughan, welcomed Yuki back to Rose Cottage. They exchanged pleasantries as Vaughan ran Yuki’s credit card through the machine. And then the manager made the connection, saying, “I was just watching the news. Too bad you didn’t win.”
Yuki looked up, said, “You’ve got takeout menus, right? The Farm House does takeout?”
Minutes later, she opened the front door to Rose Cottage, dropped her bags in the larger of the two bedrooms, and opened the sliders to the deck. The Bear Valley hiking trail passed to the right of the cottage, climbed upward four hundred feet through a wooded area, opening at the top of a ridge to a brilliant ocean view.
She’d hiked this trail with Lindsay.
Yuki changed into jeans and hiking shoes. Then she unsnapped the locks on her briefcase, took out her new Smith & Wesson .357 handgun, slipped it into one pocket of her Windbreaker, put her cell phone in the other. But before she could leave for her nature walk, there was an insistent knock on the door.
And the booming in her chest started all over again.
Chapter 95
JASON TWILLY WAS WEARING chinos and a navy blue sweater and had a leather bag hooked over his right shoulder. He looked handsome, urbane, as if he’d just stepped from the pages of Town & Country, and his crooked smile had lost its menace.
“What are you doing here, Jason?”
Yuki kept the door open about four inches, just enough to see and hear him. And she clamped her hand around the gun in her pocket, felt the power of that little weapon, knowing what it could do.
“Hey, you know, Yuki, if I didn’t like you so much, I’d be really hurt. I spend most of my life fending women off, and you keep slamming doors in my face.”
“How’d you find me?”
“I waited for you to leave your apartment and followed you. Wasn’t that hard. Look, I’m sorry I got rough this morning.” He sighed. “It’s just that I’m in trouble. I took a huge advance on this book and the money’s gone.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah. Sports betting. A little weakness of mine.” Twilly added a dash of boyish charm to his smile. “To be honest, it’s more than a little weakness — and it’s kind of snowballed lately. See, I’m telling you this so you understand. Really nasty people want their money back. And they don’t care if my book crashes.”
“Not my problem, Jason.”
“Wait. Wait. Just listen, okay? I can’t give back the advance, you understand, and I’ve got these debts. All I need is your feelings, your insight, your own true words — that’s where we’ll find a satisfying ending to the Michael Campion story.”