Sidney Sheldon’s Angel of the Dark: A gripping thriller full of suspense

Sidney Sheldon’s Angel of the Dark: A gripping thriller full of suspense Sidney Sheldon Tilly Bagshawe The master storyteller’s legacy continues. An elusive and shadowy killer is on the prowl, codenamed the Angel of Death.When an elderly multimillionaire is found brutally murdered in Hollywood, and his young wife raped and beaten, the police assume the motive is robbery.A decade later, in different cities around the globe – St Tropez, London and Hong Kong – three almost identical killings take place within 5 years of each other. In all cases the victim is male, wealthy, elderly and newly married, and his wife is found at the scene either raped or assaulted.It soon becomes clear that this is one killer.Codenamed Angel of Death by the police, is she avenging some long-forgotten misdeed, or does she have other motives? Who will be her next victim, and how can the Angel of Death be prevented from striking again? Sidney Sheldon’s Angel of the Dark TILLY BAGSHAWE For my sister, Alice His wings are gray and trailing, Azrael, Angel of Death, And yet the souls that Azrael brings Across the dark and cold, Look up beneath those folded wings, And find them lined with gold. —ROBERT GILBERT WELSH, “AZRAEL” (1917) Table of Contents Title Page (#u2bc56168-2d02-56c7-8029-5d30136caba1) Dedication (#ue2708295-d7ed-5a35-9eb2-2310fc7a8edd) Epigraph (#u46ae8508-9e2a-5a4c-9d1f-cb4064317990) Part I (#ufc8b5c78-8d99-514b-b98c-33b58f57f683) Chapter One (#u8e117dfe-2c09-5aad-bef4-12e8f6ce984e) Chapter Two (#u102c1b6f-498f-5e31-a406-4c3732ce12f0) Chapter Three (#uc7c551a5-3572-5d1d-a1fc-f67e2fa5d787) Chapter Four (#uc6bb0ee7-3e37-52d8-b800-6e13a07c20eb) Chapter Five (#u0f3c7f31-72a0-5b64-9efc-262467c5f149) Chapter Six (#ua795ddeb-3590-578d-bdd1-5a7fd503ed83) Chapter Seven (#u4cce5351-20f4-548d-ad74-79d6bc80199d) Chapter Eight (#u885820de-e047-5b0e-80e5-4d40d2a8affb) Chapter Nine (#uba0b4204-80c5-54ec-b6be-2bb7b2562d54) Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo) Part II (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo) Part III (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-One (#litres_trial_promo) Part IV (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Two (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Three (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Four (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Five (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Six (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo) Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo) Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo) Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo) About the Authors (#litres_trial_promo) Also by Sidney Sheldon and Tilly Bagshawe (#litres_trial_promo) Copyright (#litres_trial_promo) About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo) PART I CHAPTER ONE LOS ANGELES 1996 HE GOT THE CALL AT AROUND nine p.m. “Unit 8A73. Come in, please.” “Yeah, this is 8A73.” The patrolman yawned into the radio. It had been a long, boring night making the rounds in West Hollywood and he was ready for his bed. “What’s up?” “We got a 911. Female. Hysterical.” “Probably my wife,” he joked. “I forgot our anniversary yesterday. She wants my balls in a jar.” “Your wife Spanish?” “Nope.” “Then it ain’t her.” He yawned again. “Address?” “Four-twenty Loma Vista.” “Nice neighborhood. What happened, the maid forgot to put enough caviar on her toast?” The operator chuckled. “Probably a DV.” Domestic violence. “Probably?” “The lady was screaming so much it was tough to make out what she was saying. We’re sending backup, but you’re closest. How soon can you guys be there?” The patrolman hesitated. Mickey, his partner, had ducked out of their shift early to hook up with yet another skank on Hollywood Boulevard. Mickey got through hookers the way that other men got through socks. He knew he shouldn’t cover for him, but Mickey was so goddamn charming, saying no to the guy was like trying to swim against a riptide. What to do? If he admitted he was alone, they’d both get canned. But the alternative—showing up solo at a DV—wasn’t an appealing prospect either. Violent husbands were not usually the LAPD’s biggest fans. Fuck it. “We’ll be there in five.” Mickey’s skank had better be worth it. FOUR-TWENTY LOMA VISTA TURNED OUT TO be a vast, sprawling, Spanish Mission-style 1920s estate, perched high in the Hollywood Hills. A discreet, ivy-clad gate set into a fifteen-foot wall gave little clue of the opulence that hid behind it: a dramatic, sweeping driveway and gardens so enormous and perfectly manicured they looked more like a country club than the grounds of a private residence. The patrolman barely registered the fancy real estate. He was looking at a crime scene. Open gate. Front door ajar. No signs of forced entry. The place was eerily quiet. He drew his weapon. “Police!” No answer. As the echo of his own voice faded, from somewhere above him he heard a low moaning sound, like a not quite boiling teakettle. Nervously, he mounted the stairs. Goddamn you, Mickey. “Police!” he shouted again, more loudly this time. The moaning was coming from one of the bedrooms. He burst in, gun drawn. What the fuck? He heard a woman screaming, then the sickening crunch of his own skull as it slammed against the floor. The wooden boards were as slick as an oil spill. But they weren’t slick with oil. They were slick with blood. DETECTIVE DANNY MCGUIRE FROM HOMICIDE DIVISION tried to hide his frustration. The maid was making no sense. “?Pudo haber sido el diablo! ?El diablo!” It’s not her fault, Detective Danny McGuire reminded himself. The poor woman had been alone in the house when she found them. No wonder she was still hysterical. “?Esa pobre mujer! ?Qui?n pod?a hacer una cosa terrible como esa?” After six years in homicide, it took a lot to turn Detective Danny McGuire’s stomach. But this had done it. Surveying the carnage in front of him, Danny was aware of the In-N-Out burger he’d eaten earlier fighting its way up into his esophagus in a desperate bid for freedom. No wonder the officer who’d arrived at the scene had lost it. In front of him was the work of a maniac. If it weren’t for the crimson sea of blood seeping into the floorboards, it might have looked like a burglary. The bedroom had been ransacked, drawers opened, jewelry boxes emptied, clothes and photographs strewn everywhere. But the real horror lay at the foot of the bed. Two bodies, a man and a woman. The first victim, an elderly male in his pajamas, had had his throat slashed in such a repeated, frenzied manner that his head was almost completely severed from his neck. He’d been bound, trussed almost, like an animal in an abattoir, with what looked like climbing ropes. Whoever killed him had tied his mutilated corpse to the naked body of the second victim, a woman. A very young, very beautiful woman, judging from the taut perfection of her figure, although her face had been so badly beaten it was hard to tell for sure. One glance at her bloodied thighs and pubic area, however, made one thing abundantly clear: she had been violently raped. Covering his mouth, Detective Danny McGuire moved closer to the bodies. The smell of fresh blood was overpowering. But that wasn’t what made him recoil. “Get a knife,” he said to the maid. She looked at him blankly. “Cuchillo,” he repeated. “Now! And someone call an ambulance. She’s still breathing.” THE KNIFE WAS PRODUCED. GINGERLY DANNY McGuire began cutting through the ropes binding the man and woman together. His touch seemed to rouse the woman. She began crying softly, slipping in and out of consciousness. Danny bent low so his mouth was close to her ear. Even in her battered state, he couldn’t help but notice how beautiful she was, dark-haired and full-breasted with the soft, milky skin of a child. “I’m a police officer,” he whispered. “You’re safe now. We’re gonna get you to a doctor.” As the ropes loosened, the old man’s head lolled grotesquely against Danny’s shoulder, like some hideous Halloween mask. He gagged. One of his men tapped him on the shoulder. “Definite burglary, sir. The safe’s been emptied. Jewelry’s gone, and some paintings.” Danny nodded. “Victims’ names?” “The house belongs to Andrew Jakes.” Jakes. The name was familiar. “He’s an art dealer.” “And the girl?” “Angela Jakes.” “His daughter?” The cop laughed. “Granddaughter?” “No, sir. She’s his wife.” Stupid, thought Danny. Of course she’s his wife. This is Hollywood, after all. Old Man Jakes must have been worth a fortune. At last the ropes gave way. Till death us do part, thought Danny as Angela Jakes literally tumbled free from her husband’s corpse into his arms. Slipping off his overcoat, Danny draped it over her shoulders, covering her nakedness. She was conscious again and shivering. “It’s all right,” he told her. “You’re safe now. Angela, isn’t it?” The girl nodded mutely. “Can you tell me what happened, sweetheart?” She looked up at him and for the first time Danny saw the full extent of her injuries. Two black eyes, one so swollen that it had closed completely, and lacerations all over her upper body. Scratch marks. Danny thought, She must have fought like hell. “He hurt me.” Her voice was barely a whisper. The effort of speaking seemed to exhaust her. “Take your time.” She paused. Danny waited. “He said he would let Andrew go if … if I …” Catching sight of her husband’s bloodied corpse, she broke into uncontrollable sobs. “Someone cover him up, for Christ’s sake,” Danny snapped. How was he supposed to get any sense out of the girl with that horror show lying right next to her? “We can’t, sir. Not yet. Forensics isn’t finished with the body.” Danny flashed his sergeant a withering look. “I said cover him.” The sergeant blanched. “Sir.” A blanket was draped over Andrew Jakes’s body, but it was too late. His wife was already in deep shock, rocking back and forth, eyes glazed, muttering to herself. Danny wasn’t sure what she was saying. It sounded like: “I have no life.” “Is the ambulance here yet?” “Yes, sir. Just arrived.” “Good.” Detective Danny McGuire moved away out of the victim’s earshot, beckoning his men around him in a tight huddle. “She needs a doctor and a psych evaluation. Officer Menendez, you go with her. Make sure the medical examiner sees her first and we get a full rape kit, swabs, blood tests, the lot.” “Of course, sir.” Tomorrow, Detective Danny McGuire would question Angela Jakes properly. She was in no fit state tonight. “You’d better take the maid with you while you’re at it,” he added. “I can’t hear myself think with her wailing in my ear.” A skinny, blond young man with horn-rimmed glasses walked into the room. “Sorry I’m late, sir.” Detective David Henning might be a card-carrying nerd, but he had one of the best, most logical, deductive brains on the force. Detective Danny McGuire was delighted to see him. “Ah, Henning. Good. Call the insurers, get me an inventory of everything that was taken. Then check out the pawnshops and Web sites, see what shows up.” Henning nodded. “And someone get on to the security provider. A house like this must be alarmed up the wazoo, but it looks like our killer just strolled on in here tonight.” Officer Menendez said, “The maid mentioned that she heard a loud bang of some sort around eight p.m.” “A gunshot?” “No. I asked her that, but she said it was more like a piece of furniture falling over. She was on her way upstairs to check it out, but Mrs. Jakes stopped her, said she’d go up herself.” “Then what?” “Then nothing. The maid went upstairs at eight forty-five p.m. to bring the old man his cocoa as usual. That’s when she found them and called 911.” His cocoa? Danny McGuire tried to visualize the Jakeses’ married life. He pictured a rich, lecherous old man easing his arthritic limbs into bed each night beside his lithe, sexy young bride—then waiting for his maid to bring him a nice cup of cocoa! How could Angela Jakes have borne being pawed by such a decrepit creature? Danny imagined the old man’s bony, liver-spotted fingers stroking Angela’s breasts, her thighs. It was irrational, but the thought made him angry. Did it make somebody else angry too? Danny wondered. Angry enough to kill? EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, DETECTIVE DANNY McGuire drove to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He felt excited. This was his first big murder case. The victim, Andrew Jakes, was a scion of Beverly Hills high society. A case like this could propel Danny’s career into the fast lane if he played his cards right. But it wasn’t just his career prospects that Danny was excited about. It was the prospect of seeing Angela Jakes again. There was something uniquely compelling about the young Mrs. Jakes, something beyond her beauty and that violated, made-for-sex body that had haunted Danny’s dreams last night. All the circumstantial evidence suggested that the girl was a shameless gold digger. But Danny found himself hoping that she wasn’t. That there was some other explanation for her marriage to a man old enough to be her grandfather. Danny McGuire loathed gold diggers. He did not want to have to loathe Angela Jakes. “How’s the patient?” The duty nurse outside Angela Jakes’s private room eyed Danny suspiciously. “Who’s asking?” Danny flashed her his badge and most winning Irish smile “Oh! Good morning, Detective.” The nurse returned his smile, surreptitiously checking his left hand for a wedding band. For a cop he was unusually attractive: strong jaw, lapis-blue eyes and a mop of thick black Celtic curls that her own boyfriend would have killed for. “The patient’s tired.” “How tired? Can I question her?” You can question me, thought the nurse, admiring Danny’s boxer’s physique beneath his plain white Brooks Brothers shirt. “You can see her as long as you take it easy. She’s had some morphine for the pain in her face. Her left cheekbone was fractured and one of her eyes is quite badly damaged. But she’s lucid.” “Thank you,” said Danny. “I’ll be as quick as I can.” For a hospital room, it was luxurious. Tasteful oil paintings hung on the walls. A Wesley-Barrell upholstered chair stood in the corner for visitors, and a delicate potted orchid quivered by the window. Angela Jakes was propped up against two down pillows. The bruises around her eyes had faded from last night’s uniform plum to a dark rainbow of colors. Fresh stitches across her forehead gave her the disconcerting look of a dressmaker’s dummy, but still she remained quite astonishingly beautiful, alluring in a way that Danny could not remember ever encountering before. “Hello, Mrs. Jakes.” He held up his badge again. “Detective McGuire. I’m not sure if you remember. We met last night.” Angela Jakes smiled weakly. “Of course I remember you, Detective. You gave me your coat. Lyle, this is the policeman I was telling you about.” Danny spun around. Standing stock-still against the wall behind him was probably the most handsome man Danny had ever seen this side of a movie screen. Tall and olive-skinned, with the perfect, aquiline features of a hunter, jet-black hair and blue eyes, flat and almond-shaped like a Siamese cat’s, he scowled at Danny disapprovingly. He was wearing an expensively tailored suit, and when he moved it was like watching oil spread across a lake, smooth and fluid, almost viscous. Danny placed him instantly. Lawyer. His upper lip curled. With a few honorable exceptions, Detective Danny McGuire was not a fan of lawyers. “Who are you and what are you doing here? Mrs. Jakes is not supposed to have any visitors.” “Lyle Renalto.” The man’s voice was practically a purr. Walking over to Angela Jakes’s bedside, he placed a proprietary hand over hers. “I’m a family friend.” Danny looked at the two preposterously attractive young people holding hands and drew the inevitable conclusion. Yeah, right. And I’m the Queen of Sheba. Family friend, my ass. “Lyle was Andrew’s attorney,” said Angela. Her voice was low and husky, nothing like the frightened whisper of last night. “Conchita called him last night to let him know what happened and he came straight here.” She squeezed Lyle Renalto’s hand gratefully, her eyes welling with tears. “He’s been amazing.” I’ll bet he has. “If you’re up to it, Mrs. Jakes, I’d like to ask you a few questions.” Lyle Renalto said curtly, “Not now. Mrs. Jakes is too tired. If you submit your questions to me, I’ll see that she answers them once she’s rested.” Danny instantly bridled. “I don’t believe I was talking to you, Mr. Renalto.” “Be that as it may, Mrs. Jakes has just been through an indescribably harrowing ordeal.” “I know. I’m trying to catch the guy who did it.” “Quite apart from witnessing her husband’s murder, she was violently raped.” Danny was losing patience. “I’m aware of what happened, Mr. Renalto. I was there.” “I didn’t witness Andrew’s murder.” Both men turned to look at Angela, but her attention was focused wholly on Danny. Feeling a ridiculous sense of triumph, he moved toward her bedside, edging Renalto aside. “Would you like to tell me what you did witness?” “Angel, you don’t have to say anything,” the attorney butted in. Danny raised an eyebrow at the endearment. “Angel was my husband’s pet name for me,” Mrs. Jakes explained. “All his friends used to call me that. Not that I am an angel, by any means.” She smiled weakly. “I’m sure I could be quite a trial to poor Andrew at times.” “I highly doubt that,” said Danny. “You were telling me about last night. About what happened.” “Yes. Andrew was upstairs in bed. I was downstairs reading.” “What time was this?” She considered. “About eight, I suppose. I heard a noise from upstairs.” “What sort of noise?” “A bump. I thought Andrew might have fallen out of bed. He’d been having these spells recently. Anyway, Conchita came running in, she’d heard the noise too, but I said I’d go up. Andrew was a proud man, Detective. If he were …” She searched around for the appropriate word. “If he were incapacitated in any way, he wouldn’t have wanted Conchita to find him. He’d have wanted me.” “So you went up alone?” She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes, bracing against the memory. Lyle Renalto stepped forward. “Angel, please. There’s no need to upset yourself.” “It’s all right, Lyle, really. The detective needs to know.” She turned back to Danny. “I went up alone. As I was walking into the bedroom someone hit me from behind. That’s the last thing I remember, the pain in my head. When I woke up, he was … he was raping me.” “Can you describe the man?” asked Danny. He knew from experience that the best way to calm emotional witnesses was to stick to the hard facts. Once you started with all the “I know this must be distressing for you” bullshit, the floodgates opened and you’d lost them. Angela Jakes shook her head. “I wish I could. But he wore a mask, a balaclava.” “What about his build?” “Most of the time he was behind me. I don’t know. Stocky, I guess. Not tall, but he was certainly strong. I fought, and he hit me. He said if I didn’t let him keep doing it, he would hurt Andrew. So I stopped fighting.” Tears streamed down her swollen cheeks. “Where was your husband at this time? Did he try to help you? To raise the alarm?” “He …” A look of confusion came over her face. She glanced at Lyle Renalto, but he looked away. “I don’t know where Andrew was. I didn’t see him. On the bed, maybe? I don’t know.” “It’s all right,” said Danny, sensing her anxiety levels rising. “Go on. You stopped fighting.” “Yes. He asked me for the combination of our safe and I gave it to him. Then he raped me again. When he’d finished, he knocked me out a second time. When I came to … the first thing I remember is you, Detective.” She looked Danny in the eye and he felt his stomach lurch, promptly forgetting his next question. Lyle Renalto smoothly took advantage of the silence. “Conchita, the Jakeses’ housekeeper, told me that all Angela’s jewelry was taken and a number of valuable miniatures. Is that correct?” Before Danny could respond that he wasn’t in the habit of leaking sensitive information about a murder inquiry to “family friends,” Angela blurted out angrily, “I don’t care about the damn jewelry! Andrew’s dead! I loved my husband, Detective.” “I’m sure you did, Mrs. Jakes.” “Please find the animal who did this.” Danny cast his mind back to last night’s crime scene: the blood-soaked floor, the old man’s all-but-severed head, the disgusting, obscene scratches on Angela Jakes’s thighs, buttocks and breasts. Animal was the right word. THERE WAS NO SIGN OF THE pretty nurse outside Angela Jakes’s room. As Danny stood waiting for the elevator, Lyle Renalto oiled up to him. “You don’t have a very high opinion of attorneys, do you, Detective?” The lawyer’s tone had switched from hostile to ingratiating. Danny preferred hostile. Nevertheless, it was an unusually perceptive comment. “What makes you think that, Mr. Renalto?” Lyle smiled. “Your face. Unless, of course, it’s just me, personally, whom you dislike.” Danny said nothing. Lyle went on. “You’re not alone, you know. My father hated lawyers with a passion. He was crushingly disappointed when I graduated law school. I come from a seafaring family, you see. As far as Pa was concerned, it was the United States Naval Academy or nothing.” Danny thought, Why’s he telling me this? The elevator arrived. Danny stepped inside and pressed G but Lyle stuck an arm out to hold the doors. His film-star features hardened and his cat’s eyes flashed in warning. “Angela Jakes is a close friend of mine. I won’t have you hounding her.” Danny lost his temper. “This is a murder inquiry, Mr. Renalto, not a game of twenty questions. Mrs. Jakes is my key witness. In fact right now, she and her maid are my only witnesses.” “Angela didn’t see the man. She told you that already.” Danny frowned. “I thought Mr. Jakes was a close friend of yours too. I’d have thought you’d want us to find his killer?” “Of course I do,” snapped Lyle. “Or perhaps you weren’t quite as close to Andrew Jakes as you were to his wife. Is that it?” This seemed to amuse Lyle Renalto. “For a detective, I must say you’re a pretty poor judge of people. You think Angel and I are lovers?” “Are you?” The attorney smirked. “No.” Danny desperately wanted to believe him. “This is a triple felony, Mr. Renalto,” he said, removing the attorney’s arm from the elevator door. “Rape, robbery and murder. I strongly suggest you do not attempt to obstruct my investigation by coming between me and the witness.” “Is that a threat, Detective?” “Call it what you like,” said Danny. Renalto opened his mouth to respond but the elevator doors closed, denying him the last word. Judging from his twitching jaw and the look of frustration etched on his handsome face, this wasn’t something that happened very often. “Good-bye, Mr. Renalto.” FIVE MINUTES LATER, BACK ON WILSHIRE Boulevard, Danny’s cell phone rang. “Henning. What have you got for me?” “Not much, sir, I’m afraid. Nothing in the pawnshops, nothing online.” Danny frowned. “It’s still early days.” “Yes, sir. I also checked out Jakes’s will.” Danny brightened. “And?” “The wife gets everything. No other family. No charitable causes.” “How much is everything?” “After taxes, around four hundred million dollars.” Danny whistled. Four hundred million dollars. That was quite a motive for murder. Not that Angela Jakes was a suspect. The poor woman could hardly have raped and beaten herself. Even so, Danny thought back to the words Angela had murmured repeatedly to herself last night: I have no life. With four hundred million in the bank, she certainly had a life now. Any life she wanted. “Anything else?” he asked his sergeant. “Just one thing. The jewelry. A little over a million bucks’ worth was taken from the safe and Mrs. Jakes’s jewelry box.” Danny waited for the punch line. “And … ?” “None of it was insured. Seven figures’ worth of diamonds, and you don’t add it to your homeowner’s policy? Seems strange, don’t you think?” It did seem strange. But Danny’s mind wasn’t focused on Andrew Jakes’s insurance oversights. “Listen,” he said, “I want you to run a check for me on a guy named Lyle Renalto. R-E-N-A-L-T-O. Says he was Old Man Jakes’s lawyer.” “Sure,” said Detective Henning. “What am I looking for, exactly?” Detective Danny McGuire said honestly, “That’s the problem. I have no idea.” CHAPTER TWO MARRAKECH, MOROCCO 1892 THE LITTLE GIRL GAZED OUT OF the carriage window at streets teeming with filth and life and noise and stench and poverty and laughter, and felt sure of one thing: she would die in this place. She had been sent here to die. She had grown up in luxury, in privilege and above all in peace, in a sprawling palace in the desert. The only daughter of a nobleman and his most favored wife, she had been named Miriam, after the mother of the great prophet, and Bahia, which meant “most fair,” and from her earliest infancy had known nothing but praise and love. She slept in a room with gold leaf on the walls, in a bed of intricately carved ivory. She wore silks woven in Ouarzazate and dyed in Essaouira with ocher and indigo and madder, shipped in at great expense from the Near East. She had servants to dress her, to bathe her, to feed her, and more servants to educate her in the Koran and in music and poetry, the ancient poetry of her desert ancestors. She was beautiful inside and out, as sweet-faced and sweet-tempered a child as any noble father could wish for, a jewel prized above all the rubies and amethysts and emeralds that adorned the necks and wrists of all four of her father’s wives. The palace, with its cool, shady courtyards, its fountains and birdsong, its plates of sugared almonds and silver pots of sugary mint tea, was Miriam’s whole world. It was a place of pleasure and peace, where she played with her siblings, sheltered from the punishing desert sun and all the other dangers of life beyond its thick stone walls. Had it not been for one terrible, unexpected event, Miriam would no doubt have lived out the rest of her days in this blissfully gilded prison. As it was, at the age of ten, her idyllic childhood ground to an abrupt and final halt. Miriam’s mother, Leila Bahia, left her father for another man, riding off into the desert one night never to return. Miriam’s father, Abdullah, was a good and honorable man, but Leila’s betrayal broke him. As Abdullah withdrew increasingly from life and the day-to-day business of running his household, the other wives stepped in. Always jealous of the younger, more beautiful Leila and the favoritism Abdullah showed to their child, the wives began a campaign to get rid of Miriam. Led by Rima, Abdullah’s ambitious first wife, they prevailed on their husband to send the child away. She will grow into a serpent, like her mother, and bring ruin on us all. She looks just like her. I’ve already seen her making eyes at the servant boys, and even at Kasim, her own brother! In the end, too weak to resist, and too heartbroken to look his favorite daughter in the face—it was true, Miriam did look exactly like Leila, right down to the soft curve of her eyelashes—Abdullah acquiesced to Rima’s demands. Miriam would be sent to live with one of his brothers, Sulaiman, a wealthy cloth merchant in Marrakech. The child wept as the carriage clattered through the palace gates and she left the only home she had ever known for the first, and last, time. Ahead, the desert sands stretched out before her, apparently endless, a bleak but beautiful canvas of oranges and yellows, modulating from deep rust to the palest buttermilk. It was a three-day ride to the city, and until the walls of the ancient battlements loomed into view, they passed nothing but a few nomads’ huts and the occasional merchant caravan weaving its weary way across the emptiness. Miriam had started to wonder if perhaps there was no city. If it was all a wicked plan by her stepmothers to throw her out into the wilderness, like they did to criminals in the poems Mama used to read her. But then, suddenly, she was here, inside this anthill of humanity, this wild mishmash of beauty and ugliness, of minarets and slums, of luxury and destitution, of lords and lepers. This is it, thought the terrified child, deafened by the noise of the clamoring hands banging on the carriage as they passed, trying to sell her dates or cumin or ugly little wooden dolls. The apocalypse. The mob. They’re going to kill me. BUT MIRIAM WASN’T KILLED. INSTEAD, NOT twenty minutes later, she found herself sitting in one of the many ornate waiting parlors in her uncle’s riad close to the souk, sipping the same sweet mint tea that she was used to at home and having her hands and feet bathed in rosewater. Presently a small, round man with the deepest, loudest voice Miriam had ever heard waddled into the room. Smiling, he swooped her up into his arms and began covering her with kisses. “Welcome, welcome, dearest child!” he boomed. “Abdullah’s daughter, well, well, well. Welcome, desert rose. Welcome, and may you prosper and flourish evermore in my humble home.” In reality, Uncle Sulaiman’s riad was anything but humble. Smaller in scale than her father’s palace, it was nevertheless an Aladdin’s cave of sumptuous wealth, beauty, and refinement, all paid for with the proceeds of the younger brother’s thriving textile business. And Miriam did flourish there. Unmarried and childless, her uncle Sulaiman came to love her as his own daughter. For the rest of his life Sulaiman remained grateful to his brother, Abdullah, for bestowing on him so great and priceless a gift. If it were possible, he loved Miriam more than her natural parents had done, but Sulaiman’s love took a different form. Where Abdullah and Leila had protected their daughter from the dangers of the outside world, Sulaiman encouraged Miriam to savor and explore its delights. Of course, she never left the riad unaccompanied. Guards went with her everywhere. But under their watchful eyes she was free to roam through the vibrant buzzing alleyways of the souk. Here were sights and sounds and smells that she had read about in storybooks brought phantasmagorically to life. Marrakech was a delicious assault on every sense, a living, breathing, pulsing city that filled Miriam’s tranquil soul with excitement and curiosity and hunger. As she grew into her teens, more beautiful with each passing day, her love affair with the city intensified to the point where even a proposed vacation to the coast caused her to feel irritated and impatient. “But why do we have to go, Uncle?” Sulaiman laughed his booming, indulgent laugh. “You make it sound like a punishment, dearest. Essaouira is quite beautiful, and besides, no one wants to stay in Marrakech in high summer.” “I do.” “Nonsense. The heat’s unbearable.” “I can bear it. Don’t make me leave, Uncle, I beg you. I’ll devote twice as much time to my studies if you let me stay.” Sulaiman laughed even louder. “Twice nothing is nothing, dearest!” But, as always when Miriam really wanted something, he gave in. He would go to the coast for two weeks alone. Miriam could stay home with her guards and her governess. LATER, JIBRIL WOULD REMEMBER IT AS the moment his life began. And the moment it ended. The sixteen-year-old son of Sulaiman’s chief factor, Jibril was a happy, outgoing child, seemingly without a problem in the world. Pleasant-looking, with curly brown hair and a ready smile, he was also bright academically, with a particular aptitude for mathematics. His father harbored secret hopes of Jibril one day founding a business empire of his own. And why not? Morocco was becoming more cosmopolitan, its inhabitants more socially mobile than they had ever been. Not like it had been in his day. The boy could have the world at his feet if he wished it, as bright and glittering a future as he chose. Unbeknownst to his father, Jibril had secret hopes of his own. None of them revolved around business. They revolved around the incandescent, radiant, utterly lovely form of Sulaiman’s niece, Mistress Miriam. Jibril first met Miriam the day she arrived at the riad as a frightened ten-year-old. Then thirteen and a kind boy, sensitive to others’ pain, Jibril had taken Miriam under his wing. The two of them quickly became friends and playmates, spending endless happy hours roaming the souk and squares of the city together while Jibril’s father and Miriam’s uncle worked long hours in the company offices. Jibril couldn’t say exactly when it was that his feelings toward Miriam had changed. Possibly the early arrival of her breasts, shortly after her twelfth birthday, had something to do with it. Or possibly there was some other, nobler reason. In any event, at some point during his fifteenth year, Jibril fell deeply, hopelessly, obsessively in love with his childhood playmate. Which would have been as wonderful a thing as could have happened, had it not been for one small, but undeniable, problem: Miriam was not in love with Jibril. Tentative allusions to his feelings were met with peals of laughter on Miriam’s part. “Don’t be ridiculous!” she would tease him, pulling him by the hand in a way that made Jibril want to melt with longing. “You’re my brother. Besides, I’m never getting married.” Memories of her mother’s flight and her father’s despair still haunted her. Uncle Sulaiman’s happy independence seemed a far safer, more sensible option. Jibril wept with frustration and despair. Why had he ever behaved like a brother toward her? Why had he not seen before what a goddess she was? How would he ever be able to undo the damage? Then one day, it happened. It was during the weeks that Miriam’s uncle Sulaiman was away on vacation in Essaouira. Jibril returned to the riad after his morning’s studies to find smoke pouring out of the windows. You could feel the heat from a hundred yards away. “What’s going on?” Jibril’s father, his face and hands blackened with soot, coughed out an answer. “It started in the kitchens. I’ve never seen flames spread so fast. It’s a miracle we got everybody out of there.” Huddled around them was a throng of frightened household staff, some burned and weeping, others coughing violently. They’d been joined by numerous neighbors and passersby. Soon the crowd was so big that it was difficult for the men with water buckets to fight their way through. Jibril’s heart tightened in panic. “Where’s Miriam?” “Don’t worry,” said his father. “She left early this morning to go to the baths. There’s nobody in the house.” But just as he spoke, a figure appeared at an upper window, arms flailing wildly. It was hard to make out who it was through the thick, acrid clouds of smoke. But Jibril knew instantly. Before his father or anyone could stop him, he darted into the building. The heat hit him like a punch. Black smoke filled his lungs. It was like inhaling razor blades. Jibril fell to his knees, blinded, utterly disoriented. I have to get up. I have to find her. Help me, Allah. And God did help him. In later years, Jibril described the feeling as some unseen person taking him by the hand and physically pulling him toward the stone stairwell. He had no idea how, in that hell, he fought his way to Miriam, how he lifted her in his arms like a rag doll and carried her downstairs through the flames and into the street. It was a miracle. There was no other word for it. Allah saved us because He wills us to be together. It is our destiny. When Miriam opened her eyes, and looked into the eyes of her rescuer, Jibril’s prayers were answered. She loved him. He was a brother no more. WHEN SULAIMAN RETURNED HOME TO HIS gutted riad, his only thought was for his beloved Miriam and how close he had come to losing her. He summoned Jibril to his study. “My boy, I owe you my life. Tell me how I can repay you. What gift can I give in gratitude for your heroism? Money? Jewels? A house of your own? Name it. Name it and it is yours.” “I want no money from you, sir,” said Jibril humbly. “I ask only for your blessing. I intend to marry your niece.” He smiled, and Sulaiman could see the love light up his eyes. Poor boy. “I’m sorry, Jibril. Truly, I am. But that is not possible.” Jibril’s smile crumpled. “Why not?” “Miriam is of noble birth,” Sulaiman explained kindly. “When her father entrusted her to my care, it was on the understanding that she would one day make an alliance befitting her class and status in life. I have already chosen the gentleman. He’s older than Miriam, but he is well respected, kind—” “NO!” Jibril couldn’t contain himself. “You can’t! Miriam loves me. She … she won’t do it.” Sulaiman’s expression hardened. “Miriam will do as I ask her.” Jibril looked so forlorn that the old man relented. “Look. I said I am sorry, and I meant it. These are the ways of the world, Jibril. We are all prisoners, in our different ways. But you must forget about my niece. Ask me for something else. Anything.” Jibril did not ask. How could he? There was nothing else he wanted. He tried to tell himself that he still had time to persuade Sulaiman. The older man might change his mind. Miriam might indeed refuse to wed the man to whom she had been unknowingly betrothed, though he knew in his heart that this was a vain hope. Miriam loved Sulaiman like a father, and would never bring dishonor on herself or her family by disobeying him, especially not in so grave a matter as marriage. Not even Jibril’s own father could help him. “You must forget the girl, son. Trust me, there will be scores of others. You have a bright future ahead of you, backed by Sulaiman’s money, if only you’d take it. You’ll be able to afford a house full of wives!” Jibril thought darkly, Nobody understands. And though Miriam tried to comfort him, assuring him that she would always love him no matter whom she married, it was cold comfort for the boy, who burned for her body with all the fiery intensity of a volcano. At last the day came when all Jibril’s hopes died. Miriam was married to a sheikh, Mahmoud Basta, a paunchy, bald man old enough to be her father. If she was distraught, she hid it well, maintaining a serene grace throughout the ceremony, and afterward, when she bid good-bye to her second, much beloved home. The newlyweds lived close to the city, in the Basta family palace at the foot of the Atlas Mountains, and Miriam was able to visit her uncle Sulaiman’s house often. On these visits, she would sometimes see the hollow-eyed Jibril staring at her from across a room, pain etched on his face like a mask. At these times she felt pity and great sorrow. But the emotions were for Jibril, not for herself. Mahmoud was a kind husband, loving, indulgent and decent. When Miriam gave him a son at the end of their first year of marriage, he wept for joy. Over the next five years, she gave him three more boys and a girl, Leila. Over time, Miriam’s children came to fill the void that had been left by her doomed love for Jibril. Watching them play while their doting father looked on, she sometimes felt guilty that she was so happy, while Jibril, she knew, remained broken and lost. She had heard through friends that he drank heavily, and spent his days in the hookah bars and whorehouses of the souk, squandering all the money her uncle had given him. The last time Miriam saw Jibril was at her husband’s funeral. Mahmoud, who had never reined in his fondness for baklava and sweet Moroccan wine, died of a heart attack at the age of sixty-two. Miriam was forty, with a fan of fine lines around her eyes and a comfortable layer of fat around her hips, but she was still a beautiful woman. Jibril, on the other hand, had aged terribly. Shrunken and stooped, with the broken veins and yellow eyes of a heavy drinker, he looked twenty years older than he was, and was as sad and embittered as Mahmoud had been happy and generous-spirited. He staggered over to Miriam, who was standing with her eldest son, Rafik. She realized immediately that he was drunk. “So,” Jibril slurred, “the old bashtard’s gone at lasht, is he? When can I come to you, Miriam? Tell me. When?” Miriam blushed scarlet. She had never felt such shame. How could he do this? To me, and to himself? Today of all days. Rafik stepped forward. “My mother is grieving. We all are. You need to leave.” Jibril snarled. “Get out of my way!” “You’re drunk. Nobody wants you here.” “Your mother wants me. Your mother loves me. She’s always loved me. Tell him, Miriam.” Miriam turned to him and said sadly, “Today I have buried two of my loves. My husband. And the boy you once were. Good-bye, Jibril.” THAT NIGHT, JIBRIL HANGED HIMSELF FROM a tree in the Menara Gardens. He left a one-word note: Betrayed. THE YOUNG GIRL PUT THE BOOK down, tears welling in her eyes. She had read the story hundreds of times before, but she never grew tired of it and it never failed to move her. Sure, she lived in 1983, not 1892; and she was reading the book in a grim, freezing-cold children’s home in New York City, not some Moroccan palace. But Miriam and Jibril’s tragic love still spoke to her across the ages. The girl knew what it felt like to be powerless. To be abandoned by one’s mother. To be treated like an object by men, a prize to be won. To be shoved through life like a lamb to the slaughter, with no say whatsoever in her own destiny. “Are you okay, Sofia?” The boy put a protective, brotherly arm around her. He was the only one she’d told about the book, the only one who understood her. The other kids in the home didn’t understand. They mocked her and her old, dog-eared love story. But he didn’t. “They’re jealous,” he told her. “Because you have a family history and they don’t. You have royal blood in your veins, Sofia. That’s what makes you different. Special. They hate you for that.” It was true. Sofia identified with Miriam’s story on another level, too. A blood level. Miriam was Sofia’s great-grandmother. Somewhere inside of her, Miriam’s genes lived on. The book Sofia held in her hands, her most prized possession, was not some fairy tale. It was true. It was her history. “I’m fine,” she told the boy, hugging him back as she pulled the thin rayon blanket up over both of them. Even here, pressed against the radiator in the recreation room, it was bitterly cold. I am not nobody, she told herself, breathing in the warmth of her friend’s body. I am from a noble family with a romantic, tragic history. I am Sofia Basta. One day, far away from here, I will fulfill my destiny. CHAPTER THREE THE PARKER CENTER IN DOWNTOWN L.A. had been the headquarters of the United States’ third-largest law enforcement agency since the mid-1950s. Made famous by the 1960s television show Dragnet, the drab, nondescript concrete-and-glass building on 150 North Los Angeles Street housed, by 1996, some of the most expensive, state-of-the-art technology found in any police station in the nation, everything from retina recognition scanners to thermal imaging cameras. The Detective Bureau was particularly well equipped, with incident rooms lined with banks of computers and storerooms stocked with a veritable buffet of surveillance gadgetry. Unfortunately Detective Danny McGuire was too junior in rank for his investigation to be considered worthy of one of these rooms. Instead the six-man team that made up the Jakes homicide investigation had been stuffed like bad-tempered sardines into a windowless hole in the basement, with nothing but a whiteboard and a couple of leaky pens to fire their deductive instincts. Standing in front of a chipped whiteboard, pen in hand, Danny scrawled a few key words: Jewels. Miniatures. Insurance. Alarm. Background/Enemies. “What have you got for me?” Detective Henning spoke first. “I talked to five jewelers, including the two in Koreatown you suggested, sir. All said the same thing. The Jakes pieces would’ve been broken up and the stones either reset into rings or sold loose. Chances of us recovering an intact necklace or pair of earrings are nil. Unless the job was done by some random junkie who doesn’t know any better.” “Which it wasn’t.” “Which it wasn’t,” Henning agreed. One of the few certainties they had established was that whoever broke into the Jakes mansion was a pro, familiar with the estate’s complex alarm system and able to disable it single-handedly. He’d also managed to subdue two victims, raping one and killing the other, with minimal disturbance and in a frighteningly short space of time. Angela Jakes was convinced she had never met her assailant before. He was masked, but she hadn’t recognized his voice or the way he moved. Nonetheless, Detective Danny McGuire was certain that the man they were looking for had inside knowledge of the family. This was no opportunistic burglary. “The art angle’s a little more promising,” said Detective Henning. Danny raised a hopeful eyebrow. “Oh?” “Jakes was a dealer, as we know, so naturally enough the house was stuffed with valuable paintings, most of them contemporary.” “Wow,” another officer chipped in sarcastically. “I don’t know how you keep coming up with these insights, Henning. You’re like gold dust, man.” Everyone laughed. Henning’s status as McGuire’s teacher’s pet was a running joke. Henning ignored the interruption. “If the killer really knew his art, he’d have gone for the two Basquiats hanging in the study, or the Koons in one of the guest bedrooms.” Someone said, “Maybe they were too heavy? The guy was on his own.” “We’re quite sure about that, are we?” asked Danny. “Yes, sir,” said Detective Henning. “Forensics confirmed there were only one set of prints found in the house besides those of the family and staff. But in any case the paintings weren’t heavy. All three were small enough for one man to carry and they had a combined value of over thirty million dollars. But our guy chose the miniatures, just about the only antiques in Jakes’s collection.” “Were they valuable?” asked Danny. “It’s all relative. They were worth a couple hundred thousand each, so maybe a million bucks in total. They’re family portraits from the nineteenth century, mostly European. The market for them is pretty small, which makes them our best bet by far on the tracing-stolen-goods route. I got the name of a local expert. He lives in Venice Beach. I’m meeting him this afternoon.” “Good,” said Danny. “Anyone else?” The rest of the team reported their “progress,” such as it was. The climbing ropes used to bind the couple were a generic brand that could have been purchased at any camping or sporting-goods store. The knot the killer used to bind the couple together was complicated—a double half hitch—another sign, if they needed it, that they were looking for a professional criminal. But other than that there was precious little physical evidence of any worth. The blood and semen tests didn’t match any in the nationwide database. “What about Jakes’s background? Anything circumstantial that might help us?” The short answer to that was no. Andrew Jakes’s business dealings had been clean as a whistle. He was a prominent philanthropist, not to mention a significant donor to the LAPD’s Policemen’s Benevolent Association. Danny thought, I knew I’d heard the name somewhere. Strange a charitable guy like that left nothing to good causes in his will. The old man had no known enemies, and no family, close or otherwise, other than an ex-wife he’d divorced more than twenty-five years earlier who was now happily remarried and living in Fresno. The door opened suddenly. Officer John Bolt, a shy redhead and one of the most junior members of Danny’s team, burst into the room clutching a piece of paper. Everybody looked up. “Mrs. Jakes’s lawyer just released a statement.” The mention of Lyle Renalto made Danny’s shoulders tense. Detective Henning’s background search on Renalto had come up with nothing out of the ordinary, but Danny’s suspicions lingered. “Don’t keep us in suspense, Bolt. What does she say?” “She’s giving away all the money she inherits from her husband’s estate to children’s charities.” Danny said, “Not all of it, surely?” Bolt handed Danny the paper. “Every penny, sir. Over four hundred million dollars.” Reading the statement, Danny felt a strange sense of elation. I knew she wasn’t a gold digger. I just sensed it. I gotta learn to trust my instincts more. AN HOUR LATER, DANNY PULLED UP outside the gates of a large, neo-Tudor mansion in Beverly Hills. Twenty-twenty Canon Drive was the address Angela Jakes gave when she was released from the hospital. It belonged to a friend. “I can’t go back to Loma Vista, Detective,” she’d explained to Danny. “It’s too painful. I’ll stay with a friend until the estate is sold.” A uniformed maid showed Danny through to a warm, sunny sitting room filled with overstuffed couches and big vases of heavily scented freesias and lilies. It was a feminine room, and Angela Jakes looked quite at home in it, walking over to greet Danny in bare feet and jeans. It was now two weeks since the attack and the bruises to her face had mellowed to a soft apricot yellow. For the first time Danny could see the color of her eyes: a rich, liquid brown, like melted chocolate. No woman had a right to be that beautiful. “Detective.” She shook his hand, smiling. Danny felt his mouth go dry. “Is there any news? Have you found him yet?” “Not yet.” A flicker of disappointment crossed her face and Danny felt disproportionately upset. Angela Jakes was the last woman on earth he wanted to disappoint. “We’re still in the early stages of our investigation, Mrs. Jakes,” he assured her. “We’ll find him.” Angela sat down on one of the couches and gestured for Danny to do the same. “Please, call me Angela. Can I get you anything? Some tea perhaps.” “I’m fine, thank you.” Danny loosened his tie. Is it me, or is it hot in here? “I wanted to ask you a couple more questions if I may. About your marriage.” Angela looked perplexed. “My marriage?” “The better the picture we can build up of your life together, the easier it’ll be for us to figure out who might have done this. And why.” She considered this, nodding thoughtfully. “All right. Well, what would you like to know?” “Let’s begin at the beginning. How did the two of you meet?” “At an art class at UCLA.” Her eyes lit up at the memory and Danny thought, My God, she really did love him. “It wasn’t a regular degree course or anything. Just a night class I was taking. I used to enjoy art when I was in high school. Not that I was ever very good at it.” It astonished Danny how such a gorgeous woman could have so little self-confidence, but Angela Jakes always seemed to be putting herself down. “Where did you go to high school?” he asked idly. “Beverly Hills High. Why?” “No reason. Just curious. It’s a bad habit we detectives have.” “Of course.” She smiled again. Danny’s stomach flipped like a pancake. “Anyway, Andrew came to UCLA to give a talk about the art business. How to get a gallery to look at your work, that sort of thing. What attracts collectors. He was so smart and funny. We just clicked right away.” Danny tried to picture Old Man Jakes and an even younger version of Angela “just clicking.” It wasn’t easy. “Did your husband have any enemies that you were aware of?” “None.” Her tone was firm, almost defiant. “You’re sure?” “Quite sure. Andrew was a sweetheart. Everybody loved him.” Not everybody. Danny tried another tack. “On the night of the murder, I don’t know if you remember this, but you kept saying something.” “Did I?” “Yes. You repeated the same words over and over.” She looked at him blankly. “‘I have no life.’ That was the phrase you used. Can you think why you might have said that?” She hesitated. “Not really. Only that when I met Andrew, he gave me a life. He rescued me. So perhaps I said ‘I have no life’ because I knew it was the end.” “The end?” “The end of the peace and happiness I had known with Andrew. But I don’t remember saying those words, Detective. I don’t remember anything except Andrew and the blood. And you.” “You say your husband rescued you? From what?” asked Danny. Angela stared awkwardly into her lap. “An unhappy situation.” Danny knew he ought to press her, but he couldn’t bear to upset her again. Clearly she didn’t want to talk about it. She’ll tell me when she’s ready. “I see. And what about you, Mrs. Jakes?” “Me?” “Was there anyone who might conceivably have held a grudge against you, personally?” Angela Jakes thought about this for a moment. “You know, I never thought so. Although, as you can imagine, Detective, with an age difference like the one between me and Andrew—over fifty years—people are quick to judge. I know there were many in Andrew’s social circle who distrusted me. They assumed I was after his money. I imagine you thought the same thing.” “Of course not,” lied Danny, avoiding her eyes. “I tried to persuade Andrew to leave me out of his will, to prove to people our marriage was never about money. But he wouldn’t hear of it. He said the naysayers were bullies and one should never give in to bullies.” “Is that why you gave all his money to charity? To prove people wrong?” She shrugged. “Maybe that was part of it, subconsciously.” “Did your husband know that you were planning to give everything away when he died?” “No.” She shook her head. “It might have hurt his feelings. Andrew wanted me to have the money, and I wanted him to be happy. But the truth is, I have no use for that sort of wealth.” Without meaning to, Danny raised an eyebrow. Angela Jakes laughed, a warm, mellifluous laugh, like honey oozing off a spoon. “You look dubious, Detective. But really, what on earth would I do with four hundred million dollars? I like to paint, I like walking in the canyons. Those things don’t cost millions. Far better for it to go to people who need it, who can really make use of it. In some small way, it makes me feel as if what happened wasn’t entirely in vain.” She looked down at her hands again and Danny could see she was fighting back tears. Instinctively, he reached out and put a hand over hers. He was embarrassed to admit it, but the intimacy felt wonderful. Electric. “What the hell’s going on?” Danny jumped. Lyle Renalto’s voice had shattered the mood like a stone crashing through a windshield. “What are you doing here?” the lawyer demanded. As he stood in the doorway, Renalto’s handsome features were twisted into an angry mask and his shoulders thrust aggressively forward. He was wearing an identical suit to the one he’d worn at the hospital, with a pale blue silk tie that matched his eyes. Danny didn’t think he’d ever been less pleased to see a person in his entire life. “A police interview is going on,” he replied coldly. “And as usual, Mr. Renalto, you’re interrupting. May I ask what you’re doing here?” “That’s easy,” Lyle replied, “I live here. Didn’t Angel tell you?” Danny turned to Angela. “He’s the friend you’re staying with? You never mentioned it.” She shrugged. “You never asked. Lyle was kind enough to offer me a place to stay while I recuperate. As I told you, he’s been a tremendous support through all of this.” Lyle Renalto said curtly, “If you’re done harassing Mrs. Jakes, Detective, I’ll be happy to show you out.” “Detective McGuire is not harassing me,” said Angela. “He’s been perfectly polite.” “Hmm.” Renalto sounded unconvinced. Ignoring him, Danny said, “I have one more question for you, Mrs. Jakes, if you don’t mind. You mentioned that you first met Mr. Jakes at an art class.” “That’s right.” “May I ask what your name was at that time?” Angela glanced nervously toward Lyle Renalto. “My name? I don’t understand.” “Your maiden name,” Danny explained. “Before you and Mr. Jakes were married.” “Oh!” She looked palpably relieved. “I wondered what on earth you meant for a moment.” She fixed Danny with the chocolate eyes for a third and final time. “Ryman. My maiden name was Ryman.” THE ROOM WAS SMALL AND DRAB and claustrophobic, and the smell of day-old Chinese takeout was overpowering. Detective Henning thought: Stolen art isn’t the booming business the media makes it out to be. Roeg Lindemeyer, an art fence turned occasional police informer, lived in a dilapidated single-story house in one of the more run-down Venice walk-streets, narrow, pedestrian-only alleyways that ran between Ocean Avenue and the beach. A few blocks farther north, 1920s “cottages” like Roeg’s had been renovated by hip, young West L.A. types and were changing hands for seven hundred grand or more. But not here. This was Venice Beach as it used to be: dirt-poor. Roeg Lindemeyer’s “showroom” was as seedy and impoverished as any junkie’s squat. “So? Have you seen any of them?” Henning watched impatiently as Lindemeyer leafed through the insurance photographs of the Jakes miniatures. The fence was a wizened hobbit of a man in his midfifties, his fingers black with tobacco stains. He left thumbprints on each of the images. “What’s it worth to ya?” With distaste, the young detective pulled two twenty-dollar bills out of his wallet. Lindemeyer grunted. “Hundred.” “Sixty, and I won’t report you for extortion.” “Deal.” Greedily, the older man stuffed the cash into his pocket and handed back the now smeared photographs. “So?” Detective Henning repeated. “Have you seen those miniatures on the black market or haven’t you?” “Nope.” “That’s it? ‘Nope’? That’s all you got for me?” Lindemeyer shrugged. “You asked me a question. I answered it.” Henning made a lunge for his money. Lindemeyer cringed. “Okay, okay. Look, Detective, if they was for sale, I woulda seen ’em. I’m the only guy on the West Coast who can move that niche, Victorian shit. You know it and so does everybody else. So either your boy’s skipped town or he ain’t selling. That’s real information, man. Maybe he wanted ’em for personal use.” A psychopathic, homicidal rapist with a love for obscure nineteenth-century portraiture? Detective Henning didn’t think so. “Maybe he had a buyer lined up already,” he mused aloud. “Then he wouldn’t have needed your services.” “Mebbe.” “Do you know of any prominent collectors who might commission a job like this?” “I might.” Lindemeyer eyed the sergeant’s wallet. It was going to be a long and expensive afternoon. “COULD YOU DO ME A FAVOR and check again?” Detective Danny McGuire flashed the receptionist the same winning smile he’d used on the nurse at Cedars, but this time to no avail. “I don’ need to check agin. I checked awready.” Today’s gatekeeper at the government records office on Veteran was black, weighed around two hundred pounds, and was plainly in no mood to take shit from some dumb-ass Irish cop who figured he was God’s gift to women. “We got no records for no Angela Ryman. Not Ryman RY, not Reiman REI, not any Angela Ryman. No births, no marriages, no deaths, no Social, no taxes. Not in California.” Danny’s mind was flooded with doubts. One by one, he tried to rationalize them away. Maybe she was born out of state. Maybe she and Jakes got married in the Caribbean, or in Paris. Folks with that kind of money don’t just run down to city hall like the rest of us. The marriage certificate could be anywhere. It doesn’t mean anything. Even so, walking into the administration offices of Beverly Hills High School half an hour later, the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach remained. “I need the records of a former student.” He tried to force some optimism into his voice. “She would have graduated eight or nine years ago.” The male clerk smiled helpfully. “Certainly, Detective. What was the young lady’s name?” “Angela Ryman.” The smile faded. “Well, I’ve been here ten years and that name doesn’t ring a bell with me.” He opened up a tall metal filing cabinet and pulled out a drawer marked Ru–Si. “I don’t suppose you have a picture?” Danny reached into his briefcase. He handed the man a shot of Angela that his officers had taken from the house. She was wearing her wedding dress and looked even more radiant than usual, her perfect features aglow with love and joy, her dark hair swept back from her milk-white face, her chocolate-brown eyes dancing. The clerk said, “Oh my. Now, that’s a face I wouldn’t forget in a hurry. No, I’m sorry. That girl was never here.” “YOU’RE HURTING ME!” Lyle Renalto was gripping Angela Jakes by the shoulders so tightly that his fingernails bit into the flesh. “I’m sorry, Angel.” He released his grip. “But you have to get out of here. Now, today, before he comes back.” Angela started to cry. “But I … I haven’t done anything wrong.” “Of course you haven’t,” said Lyle more gently. “I know that. You know that. But McGuire won’t understand.” Angela hesitated. “Are you sure he won’t? He seems like such a nice guy.” “I’m sure,” said Lyle firmly. Pulling an overnight bag out of the closet, he handed it to her. “Get some clothes. We may not have much time.” DETECTIVE DANNY MCGUIRE WOKE AT FIVE in the morning. He’d gone to bed at two and barely slept. His mind was racing. Angela Jakes had lied to him. About her name and about her education. What else had she lied to him about? And why? Why would she fake a name and a past to the man who was trying to catch her rapist and her husband’s killer? A man who was trying to help her? There could only be one reason. Angela Jakes must have something in her past that she was ashamed of. Deeply ashamed of. The obvious thought popped into Danny’s mind: Had she been a hooker back in the day? Was that the “unhappy life” Andrew Jakes had rescued her from? It was a familiar enough story in L.A.: young, beautiful, small-town girl comes to Hollywood with dreams of making it as an actress. Falls on hard times. Hooks up with the wrong crowd … Yet whenever Danny pictured that angelic face, those eyes so full of trust and goodness, he couldn’t bring himself to believe that Andrew Jakes had picked up his bride on Hollywood Boulevard. He hadn’t believed Angela Jakes was a gold digger either, even when all the evidence pointed to it. I was right about that. I gotta trust my instincts more. But what were his instincts telling him now? That was the problem. He had no idea. After leaving the high school yesterday, he’d driven around for an hour, trying to figure out his next move. The obvious way to go would have been to drive back to Lyle Renalto’s place and confront Angela on the spot. With any other witness, Danny wouldn’t have thought twice. But he couldn’t bring himself to grill the lovely Mrs. Jakes in front of her odious attorney, who would doubtless insist on remaining glued to her side. If she did have guilty secrets, and who of us didn’t, she deserved a chance to confess them in private. Danny would understand. After everything she’d just been through, he owed her that much sensitivity at least. So instead Danny had driven back to the station house to brainstorm with the rest of the team. Only it was actually more of a shit storm. Every lead his men had been chasing seemed to have turned into a dead end. Henning’s Venice art expert had come up with a big fat doughnut on the miniatures. The insurance scam angle looked less and less promising, as the only people who could possibly benefit from a staged robbery would be the Jakeses themselves, one of whom was dead, while the other had given away all her money. Two of Danny’s officers had been checking out the lucky charities on the receiving end of Angela Jakes’s generosity. Both seemed totally kosher, with sparklingly transparent accounts. A sophisticated computer program had gone through every violent rape in the L.A. area in the past five years, looking for any connection with art or jewelry thefts, or any connection at all that might link one of those suspects to the Jakes crime scene. Nothing. It was the same story with forensics. Prints: nothing. Semen analysis: nothing. Danny pulled on a pair of sweatpants and stumbled into the kitchen to fix himself a strong cup of coffee. It was still dark outside. The tree-lined, suburban street in West Hollywood where Danny had lived for the past six years was empty and as silent as the grave. Was Angela still asleep? Danny pictured her, dark hair spilling over a soft white pillow, her glorious body warm and naked beneath Lyle Renalto’s sheets. Was she in the guest bedroom? Christ, he hoped so. He remembered Lyle’s contemptuous comment at the hospital: “For a detective, you’re a pretty poor judge of people. Angela and I aren’t lovers.” Detective Danny McGuire hoped with all his heart that Renalto’s words were true. He looked at his watch: 5:20. If I drive over there now, they’ll still be asleep. I can see for myself which beds were slept in. He jumped into the shower. IT WAS SIX A.M. ON THE dot. The same uniformed maid who had been on duty yesterday answered the door. Danny thought, Poor woman. How early does she have to be at work? The maid looked at Danny and thought, Poor man. How early does he have to be at work? “I’m looking for Mrs. Jakes.” “Mrs. Jakes not here.” “Okay, look, I know Mr. Renalto’s your boss. And I know he’s not exactly thrilled about my questioning Mrs. Jakes, especially at this time in the morning. But this is a murder investigation. So I need you to please wake Mrs. Jakes, and Mr. Renalto if you have to.” “No, you don’t understand. She not here. She leave last night. You’re welcome to come in and search the house if you no believe me.” Unfortunately Danny did believe her. His heart began to race unpleasantly. “Left? Where did she go?” “I don’t know. She have a suitcase. Mr. Renalto drive her to the airport.” Danny’s career flashed before his eyes. I should have come straight back here yesterday. I would have caught them. Now my key witness has flown the coop to God only knows where. “What about Renalto? Did he leave with her?” The maid looked surprised by the question. “Of course not. Mr. Renalto, he is here. He is asleeping upstairs.” Danny pushed past her, bounding up the ornately carved staircase two steps at a time. Double doors at the end of the corridor clearly led to the master bedroom. He kicked them open. The sleeping figure under the covers didn’t stir. “Okay, asshole. Where is she?” Danny marched toward the bed. “And you’d better have a good fucking answer or I am going to book you for obstruction of a murder investigation and personally see to it that you never practice law in this town again.” Grabbing the heavy silk counterpane, Danny yanked it off the bed. And really, really wished he hadn’t. CHAPTER FOUR TWO YEARS EARLIER … SOFIA BASTA HUNG UP THE PHONE and hugged herself with happiness. Her husband was coming home. He’d be here in an hour. Husband. How she loved saying the word, turning it over in her mind and on her tongue like a piece of succulent candy. They were married now. Actually married. Frankie, her only friend through the long, dark, desperate years in New York. Frankie, the most beautiful, brilliant, perfect man on earth. Frankie, who could have had anyone, had chosen her, Sofia, to be his bride. Most mornings she still woke up and felt nervously for her wedding band, unable quite to believe her good fortune. But then she reminded herself. I am Sofia Basta, great-granddaughter of Miriam, a Moroccan princess. I’m special. Why shouldn’t he have chosen me? Their apartment was modest, a two-bedroom condo in the Beverly Hills postal district, but Sofia had made it warm and welcoming, delighting in creating the perfect nest for Frankie to come home to. Brightly colored cushions and throws adorned the couch in the living room, which was flooded all day long with blazing California sunshine. How Sofia loved that sunshine, after eighteen grim, overcast years in New York! The grimy city, the loneliness of the children’s home. Sofia’s life had been a nightmare back then. But it all seemed like a dream now, a story that had happened to someone else. And what a story it was. Sofia’s mother, Christina, had been a drug addict and sometime hooker, as ill equipped to take care of her children as she was to take care of herself. But it had not always been like that. Christina Basta grew up in great wealth, first in Morocco and later in Paris, where her parents sent her to an exclusive girls’ boarding school. Tall and slender as a gazelle with creamy skin and mellow, searching brown eyes, the spitting image of her grandmother Miriam, Christina quickly caught the eye of the Parisian modeling scouts who hung around the Rue Du Faubourg looking for fresh talent. By sixteen years of age Christina was working almost full-time. By eighteen she was living in New York, sharing a model apartment with three other girls from her agency and indulging in all the myriad pleasures the city had to offer. Christina Basta’s burnout was rapid and catastrophic. First came cocaine. Later it was heroin. At twenty, after one missed job too many, Christina was dropped by her agency. By now estranged from her family, and too proud to ask for help, she turned instead to “boyfriends” to fund her ever-growing habit—in reality dealers and pimps, who dragged her deeper and deeper into hell. Sofia and her twin sister, Ella, were the result of Christina’s third pregnancy. Christina had tried to abort them, as she had the other babies, but the procedure was botched and both babies survived. Born in the Berwind Maternity Clinic in Harlem, and abandoned there by their mother that same night, the Basta twins spent a few short weeks together before Ella, the prettier baby of the two, was adopted by a local doctor and his wife. From then on, Sofia began her life as she was destined to continue it: alone. But not completely. When Sofia was six years old and living at the St. Mary’s Home for Girls in Brooklyn, the staff at the home received word, via a top-flight Madison Avenue law firm no less, that Sofia’s mother had died. Christina had left a “small bequest” to her daughters. As the doctor and his family had moved away, taking Ella with them, it was decided that the bequest should go to Sofia. “It’s not very substantial,” the lawyer explained, to the great disappointment of the head of St. Mary’s. “It may have sentimental value, though, perhaps when the child is older. There’s a book, an old book. And a letter.” The book was the one that recounted the love story of Miriam and Jibril, which a few years later Sofia and Frankie would spend so many happy hours poring over together. The letter was from Sofia’s mother, explaining that the book was not some legend, but the true story of one of Sofia’s ancestors, a relic of a past that Sofia had never known, and detailing the circumstances of her birth. Frankie had seen the letter. Sofia had shown it to him in her teens. He was the only one she trusted and he understood that the book and the letter changed everything for the orphaned Sofia. Overnight, she had gone from being nobody, the unwanted spawn of a hooker and her pimp, to being somebody, somebody special, a royal Moroccan princess tragically separated from her beautiful twin. Of course, the other kids in the home made fun of her, told her that her book was a load of horseshit, that there was no twin, no exotic royal past. But Frankie helped Sofia see past their envy and their mockery. He was her rock, her salvation, her only friend, and the book was her most treasured possession. To this day, Sofia wasn’t sure what had drawn Frankie to her. Perhaps it was that he was an orphan too, a genuine orphan, like her. Most of the kids in the home had families, just not ones that could take care of them. Frankie and Sofia had no one. But in other ways they were wildly different. Where Sofia had always been lonely and friendless, envied by the girls in the home for her beauty and harassed by the boys for the same reason, Frankie was adored by everyone, staff and kids alike. Handsome—my God, he was so handsome!—smart, funny, charismatic, he could make you feel special merely by casting his ice-blue eyes in your direction. Frankie cast his eyes in Sofia’s direction a lot. But not in the same, frightening, predatory way that the other boys did. Frankie’s attentions were nobler, gentler somehow, and infinitely more precious than the others’ testosterone-fueled advances. Sofia was flattered but frustrated. She longed for him to touch her, but he never made a move. She had begun to despair that he ever would. And then one day a miracle happened. They were reading the book together in the rec room, as they so often did. Frankie loved the book almost as much as Sofia. He thought Miriam’s story was wonderfully romantic and questioned Sofia endlessly about her family history and her long-lost twin, Ella. But on this day, he asked a different question. The most wonderful, unexpected, unhoped-for question. And of course Sofia had said yes, and Frankie had promised her that as soon as they were married, he would be with her, physically, as a man and wife should be. From that point on, in her own mind at least, Sofia Basta’s life had been transformed into one long fairy tale. She and Frankie married on her eighteenth birthday and moved out of the orphanage to a minuscule studio apartment in Harlem, where, as promised, Frankie had made love to her for the first time. It was the happiest four minutes of Sofia’s life. For the next two years Sofia worked as a waitress while Frankie went to school. He was so smart he could have been anything he wanted to be, a doctor, a lawyer, a businessman. He was offered the job in L.A. before he’d even graduated, that’s how smart he was. They moved to California, packing one single suitcase of possessions and waving good-bye to New York as happily as two people ever had. Los Angeles was everything Sofia had dreamed it would be and more. In fact her life now was so perfect, she felt guilty when she complained about anything—like Frankie having to travel for work or stay late at the office. Or like the fact that, so far, they’d been unable to conceive a child. Although this probably had something to do with how rarely her husband wanted to make love to her. “I want it to be special,” Frankie explained. “It won’t be if we let it become routine.” Sofia tried to convince Frankie that it would be special for her no matter how many times they did it, but he wouldn’t be moved. Sofia told herself she shouldn’t let it bother her too much. He showed her his love in so many other ways—taking intimate photographs, burning up with jealousy when other men paid her attention, complimenting her constantly on her clothes, her perfume, her hair. The sexual side would come, in time. She’d finished baking a batch of cookies and was in the middle of changing the sheets on their bed when she heard Frankie’s key in the door. Squealing with delight, she flew into his arms. “Baby.” He kissed the top of her head. “Did you miss me?” “Of course I did. Every second! Why didn’t you tell me earlier that your flight was today? I’d have come to LAX to meet you.” “I know you would’ve. I wanted to surprise you.” Frankie looked at his adoring young wife and congratulated himself, once again. Sofia’s beauty never failed to surprise him. After only a few days away from her, she seemed to have grown more lovely, more perfect. She was an angel. The thought of another man touching her put murderous thoughts into Frankie’s head. Yet he knew with absolute certainty that he could never be the lover she wanted. It was a problem. That night in bed, feeling her frustration as she lay next to him, Frankie asked, “Do you ever think about sleeping with other men?” Sofia was horrified. “No! Of course not. I’d rather die. How can you ask me that?” “You’d really rather die?” He looked at her with an intensity she’d never seen before. Sofia thought before answering, then said yes, because it was the truth. She wouldn’t have been able to live with herself if she betrayed Frankie. He was her life now, the breath in her body. “Good,” said Frankie. “In that case there’s a man I want you to meet. An important man.” Slowly, he reached down between her legs. Sofia moaned helplessly. It had been so long since he’d touched her. Please ... please don’t stop. But Frankie did stop, pulling his hand away and placing a finger over Sofia’s lips. She could have wept. “I want you to be nice to this man. Do everything that I tell you to do. Even if it’s hard.” “Of course, darling.” She reached for him. “You know I’ll do anything for you. But what did you have in mind?” “Don’t worry about it now. I’ll set it up. You just do as I ask.” Frankie rolled on top of her. To Sofia’s astonishment, he was hard. Sliding inside her, he gave five or six short thrusts and climaxed almost instantly. For a while neither of them spoke. Then Sofia asked quietly, “What’s his name?” “Hmm?” “This man you want me to meet. What’s his name?” In the darkness, Frankie smiled. “Jakes. His name is Andrew Jakes.” CHAPTER FIVE LYON, FRANCE 2006 MATT DALEY LOOKED AT HIS WATCH. He had spent the last half hour sitting on an uncomfortable couch in a drab waiting room, deep within Interpol’s headquarters in Lyon. The building, looming over the river on the Quai Charles de Gaulle, was a shrine to ugly functionality, a place built by bureaucrats, for bureaucrats. A data analyst’s wet dream, thought Matt, noting the total absence of artwork or even an occasional colored rug or vase of flowers anywhere in the maze of corridors he’d seen so far. No wonder the staff look so depressed. In fairness, he was basing this assessment on a sample of two people. The dour young Frenchman who had issued him his visitor’s pass and led him to the office of the man he’d flown halfway across the world to see, and that man’s secretary, a woman whose battle-ax features exuded about as much warmth as a Siberian nuclear winter. “D’you think he’ll be much longer?” Matt asked. The secretary shrugged contemptuously and returned to her computer screen. Matt thought of his father. Harry Daley had never been to France, but had always admired Frenchwomen from afar for their poise and charm and sexiness. Boy, would Rosa Klebb over there have shattered his illusions! Thinking about his dad made Matt smile. If it hadn’t been for Harry Daley, he wouldn’t be sitting here. HARRY DALEY HAD BEEN A WONDERFUL father, and an even better husband. Harry and Marie, Matt’s mom, were married for forty years and had been everything to each other. At Harry Daley’s funeral last year, scores of friends had lingered at the graveside, sharing their memories of the man Matt and his sister, Claire, had loved for as long as either of them could remember. During the ceremony, Matt got terrible giggles when the Croatian priest’s “May he rest in peace” came out quite clearly as “May he rest in piss.” Given that Harry had died of cancer of the bladder, this struck both Matt and his sister as hilarious. Raquel, Matt’s glamorous South American wife, didn’t see the funny side. “My God,” she hissed in Matt’s ear, “what is wrong with you? Have you no respect? It’s your father’s funeral.” “Oh, c’mon, honey. ‘May he rest in piss’? It’s funny. Dad would have seen the humor. Imagine what Jerry Seinfeld would’ve done with a line like that.” Raquel said cuttingly, “You are hardly Jerry Seinfeld, honey.” It hurt because it was true. Matt Daley was a comedy writer, but in recent years not a very successful one. Handsome in a boyish, disheveled sort of way, with a thick thatch of blond hair and apple-green eyes, his most distinctive feature was his contagious smile, a facial event that seemed to fold his entire physiognomy into one giant laugh line. In the early days of their relationship, Raquel had been attracted to Matt’s sense of humor and was flattered when amusing incidents from their life together made their way onto the hit TV show Matt worked on briefly back then. But after eight years the novelty had worn off, along with the hope that Matt’s residuals were ever going to earn them the glitzy Hollywood lifestyle Raquel yearned for. Matt now worked for a cable network that paid their bills but left them with little for the finer things in life. “What’s she bitching about this time?” Matt’s sister, Claire, was not a fan of her sister-in-law. “She doesn’t like funerals,” said Matt loyally. “Probably scared somebody’s going to shine perpetual light upon her and we’ll all get to see the scars from her latest eye lift.” Matt grinned. He loved Claire. He loved his wife too, but even he was beginning to come to the painful realization that the feeling was probably no longer mutual. On the drive back to L.A. after the funeral, Matt tried to build bridges with Raquel. “I’m about to start working on a new idea,” he told her. “Something different. A documentary.” The faintest flicker of interest played in her eyes. “A documentary? Who for?” “Well, no one yet,” Matt admitted. “I’m writing it on spec.” The flicker died. Just what we need, thought Raquel. Another unsold spec script. “It’s about my father,” Matt pressed on. “My biological father.” Raquel yawned. To be honest, she’d forgotten that Harry Daley wasn’t Matt’s real dad. Harry had married Matt’s mom when Matt was a toddler and Claire a baby in arms. “I found out recently that he was murdered more than a decade ago.” If this piece of news was intended to shock Raquel, or even pique her interest, it failed. “People get murdered every day in this city, Matthew. Why would anyone want to sit through an hour of television about your unknown father’s demise?” “Ah, but that’s the thing,” said Matt, warming to his theme. “He wasn’t unknown. He was an art dealer in Beverly Hills. Famous, at least in L.A. And seriously rich.” Now he had Raquel’s attention. “You never mentioned this to me before. How rich?” “Filthy rich,” said Matt. “We’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars.” “Hundreds of millions? My God, Matt,” Raquel gasped, swerving dangerously across lanes of traffic. “What happened to all the money?” “It went to his widow,” said Matt, matter-of-factly. “What, all of it? What about you and Claire?” “Me and Claire? Oh, come on, honey. We hadn’t had any contact with him for over thirty years.” “So?” Raquel’s pupils dilated excitedly. “You’re his children, his blood relatives. Maybe you could contest the will?” Matt laughed. “On what grounds? It was his money to leave as he chose. But anyway, you’re missing the point. The story gets juicier.” Raquel struggled to imagine anything juicier than a payout of hundreds of millions, but she forced herself to listen. “The widow, who was only in her early twenties at the time, and who was violently raped by whoever killed my old man, gave all the cash away to children’s charities. Every last penny. It was the biggest single charitable gift in L.A. history. But barely anybody knows about it because instead of sticking around to bask in the glory, this chick hops on a plane just weeks after the murder and disappears. Literally vanishes off the face of the earth and is never heard of again. It’s wild, isn’t it? Don’t you think it’s a great story?” Raquel didn’t give a damn about Matt’s stupid story. What sort of man didn’t lift a finger to stake his claim to a multimillion-dollar fortune? She’d married a cretin. “How come you never brought this up before?” The anger in her voice was unmistakable. Matt’s spirits sank. Why do I always seem to make her angry? “To be honest, I sort of forgot about it. I heard about it a few months ago, but I thought it might upset Dad if I showed too much of an interest, so I let it go. But now that Harry’s gone, I figure it couldn’t hurt to explore it. Networks are really into ‘personal history’ right now. And murder and money always sell.” The rest of the car ride passed in silence. By the time the Daleys reached home, two obsessions had been born. Raquel’s was with a four-hundred-million-dollar fortune. And Matt Daley’s was with the unsolved murder of his biological father: Andrew Jakes. OVER THE NEXT FEW MONTHS, WHILE his wife spent fruitless hours consulting lawyer after lawyer, hunting for the loophole that would restore “their” fortune, as she now thought of the Jakes estate, what started as a research project for a documentary became the all-consuming focus of Matt Daley’s life. By day he would trawl the L.A. libraries and galleries, greedily digging up every scrap of information about Andrew Jakes he could find: his businesses, his modern art collection, his real estate portfolio, his friends, enemies, acquaintances, lovers, interests, pets, health problems and religious beliefs. At night, holed up in his study like a hermit, Matt did more research online. Soon he was barely sleeping. Like a cuckoo chick demanding attention, the file marked Andrew Jakes grew bigger and fatter each day, while what little was left of Matt and Raquel Daley’s marriage slowly starved to death. After a while even Claire Michaels became concerned that her brother was overdoing it. “What are you hoping to achieve with all this?” she finally asked one day. Standing in the kitchen of her bustling house in Westwood, with a baby on one hip and a pot of tomato sauce in her hand, surrounded by the noise and mess of a cheerful family life, Claire made Matt feel happy and sad at the same time. Happy for her, sad for himself. Would things have been different if Raquel and I had had children? “I told you,” he said. “It’s for a documentary.” Claire looked skeptical. “How’s the script coming along?” Matt grimaced. “I’m not at the scriptwriting stage yet.” “Well, what stage are you at?” “Research.” “Who have you pitched the idea to?” Matt laughed. “What are you, my agent?” He tried to make a joke of it, but inside he knew his sister was right. All his friends had said the same thing. The mystery surrounding his biological father’s murder was becoming an addiction, a dangerous, time-consuming habit that was distracting him from his marriage, his work, his “real” life. Yet how was Matt supposed to let it go when the LAPD investigation had left so many holes, so many glaring, unanswered questions? According to the official file, Andrew Jakes had been killed by an unknown intruder, a professional thief who’d turned violent. No one was ever arrested for the crime. No specific suspects were even named. Meanwhile, his widow, Angela, seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth, as had the jewelry and miniature portraits taken from the couple’s house that night. Her attorney, Lyle Renalto, had driven her to the airport but claimed to have no idea where she was headed and had apparently not heard from her since. Police had questioned him repeatedly, but he never changed his story. There was some talk of Mrs. Jakes’s being sighted in Greece, but nothing had ever been proven. Danny McGuire, the detective in charge of the case, quit the force not long afterward and left L.A., taking whatever insights he may have had with him. Meanwhile, the semen from Angela Jakes’s postrape forensic examination had never been matched to any other crime, before or since. Neither were the few smudged fingerprints found at the crime scene at 420 Loma Vista. Matt said to Claire, “It’s like one day this couple was living their lives in their beautiful mansion, planning for the future. And the next day, poof, it’s all gone. The house, the money, the paintings. The couple themselves. And after the murder, his widow just hops on a plane one morning and is never heard of again.” “Yes, Matt, I know the story,” said Claire patiently. “But doesn’t it scare you? The idea that all this”—Matt waved around the kitchen at his nephews, their schoolbooks, all the detritus of Claire’s full, busy life—“could be gone tomorrow? Gone.” He clapped his hands for emphasis. “Like it never was.” Claire was quiet for a long time. Finally she said, “I’m worried about you, Matt. I think you need to talk to someone.” Matt agreed. He needed to talk to someone all right. The problem was that the someone he needed to talk to lived in Lyon, France. CHAPTER SIX HE GLANCED AT THE FLASHING BLUE lights in his rearview mirror and checked his speed. Sixty-five. A mere five over the limit, on a virtually empty stretch of road on the outskirts of the city. Petty. It was little stunts like this that gave the Lyonnais police a bad name. Rolling down the window to give the overzealous gendarme a piece of his mind, his frown changed to a smile. The officer in question was a woman. An extremely attractive woman. She had red hair—he had a thing for redheads—blue eyes and full breasts that not even her unflattering police uniform could fully conceal. “What’s your hurry, sir?” Oh, and the voice! Low and husky, the way that only Frenchwomen could do it. Perfect. The voice clinched it. He smiled flirtatiously. “Actually, Officer, I have a date.” “A date? You don’t say.” The gorgeous russet eyebrows went up. “Well, is she going to spoil if you don’t get there right this second?” “She’s already spoiled.” Leaning out through the driver’s-side window, he kissed her passionately on the lips. “What time will you be home for dinner tonight, honey?” his wife asked him, when they finally came up for air. Danny McGuire grinned. “As soon as I can, baby. As soon as I can.” FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, STRIDING INTO INTERPOL HQ late for his meeting, Danny hoped he wouldn’t have to stay too late. C?line looked so sexy in her tight blue Officier de la Paix uniform, it was painful having to drive away from her. She’d been in uniform the day they met and it was still the way Danny liked her best. Back in L.A. he’d never have dated someone else on the force. But here in France, everything was different. He’d moved here a decade ago, chasing a shadow. The shadow of Angela Jakes. He never found her. Instead Danny found C?line, love, French culture and cuisine, a rewarding career and a whole new life. Lyon was Danny McGuire’s home now and he loved it, more than he would once have believed possible. It had all been so different when he first arrived. Danny McGuire hated France. He hated it because he associated it with failure. His failure. The 1997 Jakes murder had been a remarkable case in many ways, not the least of which was that it was the first and only complete failure of Danny McGuire’s career. He’d never found the man who murdered Andrew Jakes in such a frenzied, sadistic fashion and who raped his stunning wife. Danny would never forget the morning he’d arrived at Lyle Renalto’s Beverly Hills mansion, pulling back the bedclothes to find the lawyer naked and in a state of obvious sexual arousal, laughing at him. Angela Jakes was gone, Renalto delighted in informing him. Overwhelmed by the pressure of Danny’s “aggressive” questioning, according to Lyle, she had decided to begin a new life overseas. Hiding behind attorney-client privilege, Renalto stubbornly and steadfastly refused to divulge any further information to the police. It was around this time that Danny McGuire had his first contacts with Interpol. Logging in to the I-24/7, Interpol’s global database designed to assist member countries’ local forces in tracking suspects across borders, he eventually traced Angela Jakes to Greece and began liaising daily with the authorities in Athens, trying to track her down, but to no avail. Meanwhile, back in L.A., his other leads dried up one by one, like tributaries of a drought-stricken river. Andrew Jakes’s killer had vanished, just like his wife and the stolen art and jewelry. Indeed, all that was left of the Jakeses’ life together was Andrew’s fortune, which found its way safely (and tax-free) into the coffers of two different children’s charities, both of which were naturally delighted to receive it. Danny’s LAPD superiors were deeply embarrassed. They ruthlessly killed any press interest in the Jakes case, ostensibly so as not to encourage “copycat killings” but actually to cover their own hides. The case was closed. Motive: theft. Assailant: unknown. Danny was moved off of homicide onto the fraud squad, a clear demotion, and told to forget about Angela Jakes if he wanted to keep his job. But he couldn’t forget. How could anyone forget that haunting face? And he didn’t want to keep his job. Quitting the force, he spent the next two years and virtually all his savings traveling around Europe frantically searching for Angela. Working as a private individual, he found he got precious little cooperation from local police forces, and had to rely on unscrupulous private detectives to help him keep the trail alive. Finally, broke and depressed, he wound up in France, where an old contact in Lyon told him Interpol was hiring and suggested he apply for a job there. Slowly Danny rebuilt his shattered career. He joined as a junior member of a crime IRT (Interpol Response Team) and rapidly earned a reputation for himself as a brilliant original thinker and strategist. IRTs could be deployed anywhere in the world within twelve to twenty-four hours of an incident in order to assist a member country’s forces. Adaptability, quick thinking and an ability to work as a team under strained circumstances were all key to the unit’s success. Danny McGuire excelled at every level. He won plaudits for his bravery and skill in a Corsican gangland murder case. Not many foreign cops could have persuaded people in that tight-knit community to talk, but Danny won over hearts and minds, successfully convicting five of the gang leaders. After that there was the ax murder of an Arab sheikh in North Africa—that one wasn’t so tough to crack; the guy helpfully left his prints all over the victim’s apartment—and the disappearance of a beauty queen in rural Venezuela. The girl in question was the mistress of a wealthy Russian oil magnate, and it proved a great case for Danny, who got a nice clean conviction. (Not so great for the beauty queen. Her body parts were eventually found in trash bags in a Maracay motel.) Danny enjoyed the work and the novelty of living in France, and began to feel his confidence slowly coming back. Meeting and marrying C?line had been the icing on the cake. But through all his later triumphs, as he rose meteorically through Interpol’s ranks, he never forgot Angela Jakes. Who was she before she married her husband? Why did she run? He knew it couldn’t have been his questioning that scared her off, as Lyle Renalto claimed. There must have been another reason. Most importantly of all, Who had raped her and killed her husband in such a hideous, bloody manner? The official line, that a robbery had gotten spectacularly out of hand, was clearly nonsense. Art thieves didn’t slash an old man’s throat so forcefully they all but severed his head. In the end it was C?line who had finally persuaded Danny to drop it. Sensing that there was more to her new husband’s feelings for Angela Jakes than professional interest, she told him straight out that she felt threatened. “She’s gone,” she told him tearfully, “but I’m here. Aren’t I enough for you?” “Of course you are, darling,” Danny assured her. “You’re everything to me.” But for years afterward, in his dreams, Angela Jakes still bewitched him with her milky-white skin and reproachful chocolate eyes: “Find the animal who did this.” Danny promised he would, but he had failed. The animal was still out there. Gradually, however, Danny did move on. His marriage to C?line was supremely happy. Two months ago, when Danny got promoted to head up the entire IRT division, running twenty-eight global response teams for both crime and disaster assistance, it felt as if everything had come full circle since the nightmare of 420 Loma Vista and Andrew Jakes’s murder. Professionally as well as personally, Danny McGuire was finally at peace. Then he got the first e-mail. Matt Daley’s first message had been titled simply Andrew Jakes. Just seeing those two words on a screen made Danny McGuire’s blood run cold. Daley gave little away about his own background, saying merely that he was an “interested party” and that he had “new information” on the case that he wanted to discuss with Danny in person. Dismissing him as a crackpot, Danny didn’t reply. But the e-mails kept coming, then the phone calls to Danny’s office, at all times of the day and night. Finally, Danny responded, informing Mr. Daley that if he had any new information he should make it available to the LAPD homicide division. But Daley wouldn’t be fobbed off. Insisting that he had to talk to him personally, Matt Daley announced that he was flying to Lyon next week and that he “wouldn’t leave” until Danny had agreed to see him. Now, true to his word, he was here. Mathilde, Danny’s excellent secretary, had called an hour ago. A “blond American gentleman” was sitting outside Danny’s office, claiming he had an appointment and that it was urgent. What did Danny want her to do? I want you to send him away. I want you to tell him to stop reminding me about Angela Jakes and to get the hell out of my life. “Tell him I’m on my way in. But I don’t have long. He’ll have to make it quick.” “MR. DALEY.” THERE WAS NO WARMTH in Danny McGuire’s tone. “You’d better come in.” McGuire’s office was large and comfortable. Matt knew that the former detective had done well for himself since he left the LAPD, but he was surprised to find just how well. Photographs of a stunning, redheaded young woman were everywhere. Matt picked one of them up idly. “Your wife?” McGuire nodded curtly. “She’s very beautiful.” “I know. And she’s at home right now, waiting for me.” Danny glared at him. “What can I do for you, Mr. Daley?” Matt’s heart rate quickened. So much for small talk. He took a deep breath and said, “You can reopen the investigation into Andrew Jakes’s murder.” Danny frowned. “And why would I want to do that?” “Because there’s new evidence.” “Like I told you in my e-mail, Mr. Daley, if you have relevant evidence you should report it to the L.A. police. This case is no longer my business, or within my jurisdiction.” “You’re Interpol,” said Matt reasonably. “The whole world’s within your jurisdiction, isn’t it?” “It’s not as simple as that,” Danny McGuire muttered. “Well, I think it is.” Matt Daley leaned forward, fixing Danny with a gimlet stare. He was as stubborn in person as he had been on the telephone. “The LAPD doesn’t give a shit. They closed the case and gave up. That’s why you quit.” Danny said nothing. He couldn’t argue with that. Matt Daley’s next words turned his blood to ice. “What if I told you there’d been another murder?” Danny McGuire forced himself to sound calm. “There are a lot of murders, Mr. Daley. All over the world, every hour of every day. We humans are a violent bunch.” “Not like this.” Reaching into his briefcase, Matt Daley pulled out a thick paper file and slammed it down on Danny’s desk. “Same exact MO. Old man violently slaughtered, young wife raped, leaves all the money to charity, then disappears.” Danny McGuire’s mouth went dry. His hands shook as he touched the file. Could it be true? After all this time, had the animal struck again? “Where?” The word was barely a whisper. “London. Five years ago. The victim’s name was Piers Henley.” CHAPTER SEVEN LONDON 2001 CHESTER SQUARE IS SITUATED IN THE heart of Belgravia, behind Eaton Square and just off fashionable Elizabeth Street. Its classic, white-stucco-fronted houses are arranged around a charming, private garden. In the corner of the square, St. Mark’s Church nestles serenely beneath a large horse chestnut tree, its ancient brass bells pealing on the hour, conveniently saving the square’s residents the trouble of glancing at their Patek Philippe watches. From the street, the homes on Chester Square look large and comfortable. They aren’t. They are enormous and utterly palatial. It’s an oft-repeated clich? in Belgravia that no Englishman could afford to live in Chester Square. Like most clich?s, it is true. Roman Abramovich, the Russian oligarch owner of Chelsea football club, owned a house there, before he ran off with his young mistress and left the property to his wife. Over the years, Mrs. Abramovich’s neighbors included two Hollywood film stars, a French soccer hero, the Swiss founder of Europe’s largest hedge fund, a Greek prince and an Indian software tycoon. The rest of the houses on the square were owned, without exception, by American investment bankers. Until the day that one of those American investment bankers, distraught over the collapse of his investments, put a rare Bersa Thunder pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger. His heirs sold the house to a British baronet. And so it was that Sir Piers Henley became the first Englishman to own a house in Chester Square for over twenty-five years. He was also the first person to be murdered there. DETECTIVE INSPECTOR WILLARD DREW OF SCOTLAND Yard handed the woman a cup of sweet tea and tried not to stare at her full, sensual lips as she sipped the steaming cup. Beneath her half-open bathrobe, blood splatters were still clearly visible on her pale, lightly freckled thighs. The rape had been particularly violent. But not as violent as the murder. While Inspector Drew interviewed the woman downstairs, up in the bedroom his men were scraping her husband’s brain tissue out of the Persian carpet. The master-bedroom walls looked like a freshly painted Jackson Pollock. An explosion of blood, of rage, of animal madness had taken place in that room, the likes of which Detective Inspector Drew had never seen before. There was only one word for it: carnage. Inspector Drew said, “We can do this later, ma’am, if it’s too much for you right now. Perhaps when you’ve recovered from the shock?” “I will never recover, Inspector. We’d better do it now.” She looked directly at him when she spoke, which Inspector Drew found disconcerting. Beautiful was the wrong word for this petite redhead. She was sexy. Painfully sexy. She was creamy skin and velvet softness and quivering, vulnerable femininity, every inch a lady. The only incongruous note about her was her voice. Beneath her four-hundred-dollar Frette bathrobe, this woman was cockney to the bone. Inspector Drew said, “If you’re sure you’re up to it, we could start by verifying some basic details.” “I’m up to it.” “The deceased’s full name?” Lady Tracey Henley took a deep breath. “Piers … William … Arthur … Gunning Henley.” PIERS WILLIAM ARTHUR GUNNING HENLEY, THE only son of the late Sir Reginald Henley, baronet, was born into modest, landed wealth. By his thirtieth birthday, he was one of the richest men in England. Never particularly successful at school—his housemaster at Eton had accurately described him as “a charming time-waster”—Piers had an instinctive gift for business. In particular, he possessed that rare alchemy that enabled him to sense exactly when a struggling company was at its nadir, if it would bounce back, when, and how far. He bought his first failing business, a small provincial brokerage in Norfolk, at the age of twenty-two. Everybody, including his father, thought he was crazy. When Piers sold the business six years later, they had offices in London, Manchester, Edinburgh and Paris and had reported pretax profits for that year of twenty-eight million pounds. It was a small success for Piers Henley, but an important one. It taught him to trust his instincts. It also increased his appetite for risk. Calculated risk. Over the next thirty-five years, Piers bought and sold more than fifteen businesses and held on to two: his hedge fund, Henley Investments, and Jassops, a chain of high-end jewelers whose brand Piers had totally revitalized till they were outperforming the likes of Asprey and Graff. He also acquired (and later divested himself of) a wife, Caroline, and two children; a daughter, Anna, with his wife, and a son, Sebastian, with his mistress. Both children and their respective mothers were provided with comfortable homes and generous allowances. But Piers had neither the time nor the inclination to pursue a family life. Nor was he remotely interested in conventional notions of romance. At least not until his sixtieth birthday, when a chance encounter with a young woman named Tracey Stone changed his life forever. For his birthday party, Sir Piers (he’d inherited the baronetcy a month before on his father’s death) hired a private room at the Groucho Club in Soho. A mecca for London’s successful media and literary types, the Groucho was exclusive, but nevertheless managed to maintain a sort of threadbare, scruffy Englishness that Piers had always rather relished. It reminded him of his childhood, of the down-at-heel grandeur of Kingham Hall, the Henley family estate, where Constables and Turners hung on the walls but the heating was never switched on and all the carpets were riddled with moth holes. Sir Piers Henley approved of the venue, but was depressed by the guest list. His secretary, Janey, had drawn it up as usual. Looking around at the same old faces, captains of industry and finance, accompanied either by their frozen-faced first wives or beautiful but grasping second wives, Piers thought bleakly, When did everybody get so old? So dull? When exactly had he exchanged his real friendships for this? Contacts and business acquaintances. It was while he was pondering this important question that the waitress poured scalding lobster bisque directly onto his crotch. To the end of his life, Sir Piers Henley would have livid burn marks on the inside of his thighs. Every time he looked at them, he thanked his lucky stars. The Groucho party had been Tracey Stone’s first day as a waitress, and her last. As Sir Piers Henley screamed and leaped to his feet, Tracey dropped to her knees, unbuckled his belt and pulled off his trousers faster than a whore on commission. Then, without so much as “May I, my lord?” she whipped off his Y-fronts and emptied a jug of ice water over the baronet’s exposed genitalia. The cool water felt marvelous. The fact that he was standing in the middle of the Groucho Club in front of half of London society stark bollock naked felt … even more marvelous. Despite the searing pain in his legs and balls, Sir Piers Henley realized he felt more alive in those few moments than he had in the last fifteen years put together. Here he was, praying for a return of youth, of life, of excitement … and poof, a beautiful girl had dropped into his lap. Or rather, a beautiful girl had dropped lava-hot soup into his lap, but why split hairs? He couldn’t have been more delighted. Tracey Stone was in her late twenties, with short, spiky red hair, dark brown eyes and a skinny, boyish figure that looked quite preposterously sexy in her black-and-white maid’s get-up. She’s like a human matchstick, thought Piers, sent to light me up. And light him up Tracey did. When Tracey agreed to go on a date with Piers, her friends thought she was crazy. “He’s about a hundred and nine, Trace.” “And posh.” “With a cock like a burned cocktail sausage thanks to you.” “It’s disgusting.” Piers’s friends were equally scandalized. “She’s younger than your daughter, old boy.” “She’s a waitress, Piers. And not even a good one.” “She’ll rob you blind.” Neither of them listened. Tracey and Piers knew their friends were wrong. Tracey wasn’t interested in Piers’s money. And Piers couldn’t have cared less if Tracey’s parents were as cockney as Bow Bells. She had switched on a part of him that he had believed long dead. As the burns on his groin slowly began to heal, all he could think about was going to bed with her. On their first date, Piers took Tracey to dinner at the Ivy. They roared with laughter through three delicious courses, but afterward Tracey hopped into a black cab before Piers could so much as give her a peck on the cheek. On the second date, they went to the theater. It was a mistake. Tracey was bored. Piers was bored. Another cab was hailed and Piers thought, I’ve lost her. The next morning at seven a.m., the doorbell rang at Piers’s flat on Cadogan Gardens. It was Tracey. She was carrying a suitcase. “I need to ask you summink,” she said bluntly. “Are you gay?” Piers rubbed his eyes blearily. “Am I … ? What? No. I’m not gay. Why on earth would you think I was gay?” “You like the theater.” Piers laughed loudly. “That’s it? That’s your evidence?” “That and the fact you never try to shag me.” Piers looked at her incredulously. “Never try … ? Good God, woman. You never let me within a mile of you. And by the way, for what it’s worth I don’t like the theater.” “Why’d you go there, then?” “I was trying to impress you.” “It didn’t work.” “Yes, I noticed. Tracey, my darling, I would like nothing more than to try to ‘shag’ you, as you so poetically put it. But you’ve never given me the chance.” Pushing past him into the hall, Tracey dropped her suitcase and closed the door behind her. “I’m giving you the chance now.” The lovemaking was like nothing Piers had ever experienced. Tracey was silken hair and soft flesh and pillowy breasts and wet, warm, delicious depths that craved him like no woman had ever craved him before. When it was over, he proposed to her immediately. Tracey laughed. “Don’t be such a tosser. I ain’t the marrying kind.” “Nor am I,” said Piers truthfully. “Then why’d you ask me? You must stop asking me to do things that you don’t even enjoy yourself. It’s a bad habit.” “I asked because I want you. And I always get what I want.” “Ha! Is that a fact? Well not this time, your lordship,” said Tracey defiantly. “I ain’t interested.” Piers couldn’t have loved her more if she’d been dipped in platinum. They married six weeks later. THE FIRST EIGHTEEN MONTHS OF THE Henleys’ marriage were blissfully happy. Piers went about his business as usual, and Tracey never complained about his long hours, or his habit of taking telephone calls in the middle of dinner, the way that other women he’d dated had. Piers had no idea how his wife occupied her time during the days. At first he’d assumed she went shopping, but as the monthly AmEx statements rolled in he saw that Tracey had spent almost nothing, despite having an unlimited platinum card and a generous cash allowance. Once he’d asked her, “What do you do when I’m at the office?” “I make porn films, Piers,” she replied, deadpan. “That’s Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Tuesday’s armed robbery. Thursday’s me day off.” Piers grinned and thought, I’m the luckiest man on earth. He carried her up to bed. Tracey was the perfect sexual partner, always eager, always inventive, never demanding on the nights when he was too tired or stressed with work to screw her. The only cloud on the marital horizon was the fact that, according to Tracey, she could not have children. “Nothing doing in that department, I’m afraid. Me equipment’s broken,” she told him matter-of-factly. “Well, what part of your equipment?” “I dunno. All of it, I ’spect. Why? Aren’t you a bit old to be thinking about changing nappies, luv?” Piers laughed. “I won’t be changing them! Besides, you’re not old. Don’t you want a child of your own?” Tracey didn’t. But no amount of her repeating this message would make her husband believe her. Over the next year, Piers dragged his young wife to every fertility specialist on Harley Street, subjecting her to round after round of IVF, all to no avail. Determined to “think positive,” he bought a large family house in Belgravia and hired an interior decorator from Paris to design children’s rooms, one for a boy, one for a girl and one in neutral yellow. “What’s that for? In case I give birth to a rabbit or summink?” Tracey teased him. She remembered what he’d said to her the night he proposed. “I always get everything I want.” Unfortunately, it seemed that in Mother Nature, Sir Piers Henley had met his match. “YOUR CHILDREN.” DETECTIVE INSPECTOR WILLARD DREW tore his eyes away from Tracey’s breasts, enticingly encased in a peach lace La Perla bra. For such a slender woman, Lady Henley was remarkably well endowed and she did seem to be having enormous trouble keeping her bathrobe belted. “They’re away for the night?” Her beautiful face clouded over. “We don’t ’ave kids. It was me. I couldn’t.” Inspector Drew blushed. “Oh. I’m sorry. I saw the bedrooms upstairs and I assumed …” Tracey shrugged. “That’s all right. Why wouldn’t you assume? Was there any other questions?” “Just one.” She’d already been incredibly helpful, giving detailed descriptions of the stolen items of jewelry—Lady Henley knew a lot about jewelry, settings, carats, clarity, you name it—as well as of her attacker. He was masked at the time of the attack, so she never saw his face, but she described him as being of strong build, stocky, with a scar on the back of his left hand, a deep voice, and a “strange” accent she couldn’t quite place. Considering the ordeal she’d just been through, it was a lot to remember. She was certain she’d never met him before. “This might be difficult,” Inspector Drew said gently, “but did your husband have any enemies? Anyone who might have borne a grudge toward him?” Tracey laughed, a full, raucous, barmaid’s laugh, and Inspector Drew thought what fun she must have been to be married to. A few hours ago Sir Piers Henley must have considered himself one of the happiest men alive. “Only a few thousand. My ’usband had more enemies than Hitler, Inspector.” Inspector Drew frowned. “How so?” “Piers was a rich man. Self-made. In the ’edge fund business, wasn’t he? Nobody likes a hedgie. Not the blokes who do up their kitchens, not their partners, not their competitors, not even their investors half the bloody time, no matter ’ow much money you make them. It’s a dog-eat-dog world, Inspector, and my Piers was a fuck-off Doberman with a mean set of teeth.” Tracey Henley said this with pride. “People hated him. And that’s just ’is fund. If you want to get into the personal stuff, there’s the bloke he gazumped to buy this place, the car dealer he never paid for the Aston ’cause he didn’t like the way he looked at me, everyone he blackballed at White’s—that’s a long list, I can tell you. Then there’s ’is ex-wife, ’is ex-mistress. His current mistress, for all I know.” Inspector Drew found the idea that any man married to Tracey Henley would seek sexual pleasure elsewhere extremely hard to believe. According to her statement, she was thirty-two but she looked a decade younger. “Piers had an army of enemies,” Tracey continued. “But he only had one real friend.” “Oh? And who was that?” “Me.” For the first time that night, Tracey Henley gave way to tears. CHAPTER EIGHT DANNY MCGUIRE LOOKED UP FROM THE file in front of him as if he’d just seen a ghost. He’d been reading, in total silence, for the last twenty minutes. “How did you hear about this case?” Matt Daley shrugged. “I read about it online. I got interested in the Jakes case and I … well, I came across it. The Henley killing was a big deal in England. There was a lot of press at the time.” “What exactly is your interest in the Jakes case, Mr. Daley?” Danny asked. “You never said in your e-mails.” “I’m a writer. I’m fascinated by unanswered questions.” Danny’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You’re a journalist?” “No, no, no, a screenwriter. TV. Comedy, mostly.” Danny looked suitably surprised. He nodded toward the file. “Not much to laugh about in here.” “No,” Matt agreed. “But I also have a personal connection. Andrew Jakes was my father.” Danny did a double take. Had Andrew Jakes had children? It took him a few moments to dredge up the memory. That’s right. There’d been a first wife, decades before he met Angela. One of the junior members of his team had gone to check out the lead but obviously thought it was nothing significant. Was there a kid? I guess there must have been. “I never knew him,” Matt explained. “Jakes and my mother divorced when I was two. My stepfather adopted and raised me and my sister, Claire. But biologically, I’m a Jakes. Do you see any family resemblance?” An image of Andrew Jakes’s almost severed, graying head lolling from his torso flashed across Danny’s mind. He shivered. “Not really, no.” “When I learned my father had been murdered, I got curious. And once I started reading up on the case, I was hooked.” He grinned. “You know how addictive it can be, an unsolved mystery.” “I do,” Danny admitted. And how painful. This guy seems nice, but he’s so eager, like a Labrador with a stick. He wouldn’t look so happy if he’d seen the bloody carnage in that bedroom. The bodies trussed together. Jakes’s head hanging from his neck like a yo-yo on a string. “When I read about the Henley case, I tried to get in touch with you, but that’s when I learned you’d left L.A. I tried Scotland Yard directly, but they weren’t too helpful. Didn’t want to talk to some crackpot American writer any more than the LAPD did.” Matt Daley smiled again, and Danny thought what a warm, open face he had. “You cops sure know how to close ranks when the shit hits the fan.” That’s true, thought Danny, remembering his own years in the wilderness, begging for help finding Angela Jakes, before he joined Interpol. It felt like a lifetime ago now. “Anyway, it took me awhile after that to track you down. I couldn’t believe it when I discovered you were at Interpol. That you were actually in a position to help me.” Danny McGuire frowned. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I agree that the two cases have similarities. But for my division to get involved, for Interpol to authorize an IRT, we have to be approached by a member country’s police force directly. Matt leaned forward excitedly. “We’re not talking about ‘similarities.’ These crimes are carbon copies. Both the murder victims were elderly, wealthy men, married to much younger wives. Both wives were raped and beaten. Both wives conveniently disappeared shortly after the attacks. Both estates wound up going to charity. No convictions. No leads.” Danny McGuire felt his heart rate began to quicken. “Even so,” he said lamely, clutching at straws. “It could be a coincidence.” “Like hell it could. The guy even used the same knot on the rope he used to tie the victims together.” A double half hitch. Danny McGuire put his head in his hands. This couldn’t be happening. Not after ten years. “Look, I know you have procedures you have to follow,” said Matt Daley. “Protocol and all that. But he’s still out there, this maniac. Matter of fact,” he announced, playing his trump card, “he’s in France.” “What do you mean?” Danny asked sharply. “How could you possibly know something like that?” Matt Daley leaned back in his chair. “Two words for you,” he said confidently. “Didier Anjou.” CHAPTER NINE SAINT-TROPEZ, FRANCE 2005 LUCIEN DESFORGES SAUNTERED DOWN THE RUE Mirage with a spring in his step. Life, Lucien decided, was good. It was a gorgeous late spring day in Saint-Tropez with omens of summer everywhere. On each side of the road running from La Route des Plages down to the famous Club 55, bright pink blossoms were already bursting forth from the laurel bushes, pouring like floral fountains over the whitewashed walls of the houses. Lucien had often been struck by those whitewashed walls. It seemed incongruous to have such humble exteriors surrounding such lavish mansions, each one stuffed full of every luxury money could buy. Lucien was on his way to one of those very mansions, one that many Tropeziens considered the grandest of them all: Villa Paradis. Terrible name, thought Lucien. Talk about vulgar. But then what was one to expect from a former pop star and matinee idol, a street kid from Marseille who made fantastically, miraculously good? Certainly not good taste. Villa Paradis was owned by one of Lucien’s clients. One of his best, most important, most consistently lucrative clients. True, he wasn’t always the easiest of clients. His continued association with the organized criminals he grew up with, two-bit Marseillais mafiosi with a taste for extortion, fraud and worse, had caused Lucien innumerable headaches over the years, as had his utter inability to keep it in his pants (or, if out of his pants, safely shrink-wrapped in Durex). But at the end of the day, Lucien Desforges was a divorce lawyer. And if there was one thing Villa Paradis’s owner knew how to do, expensively, publicly and repeatedly, it was get divorced. Over his morning coffee in Le Gorille earlier, Lucien had laughed out loud when he realized that he had, in actual fact, forgotten how many divorces he had handled for this particular client. Was it four, or five? Would this one make five? Lucien had made so much money in fees from this man, he’d lost count. Que Dieu b?nisse l’amour! Keying the familiar code into the intercom on the gate, Lucien wondered how long he could draw out this latest marital parting of the ways. His client had only been married to this particular wife for a matter of months, so the case wouldn’t be as lucrative as some of those from the past. If only the old goat had fathered a child with her. Then we’d really be in business. But as the gates swung open and the crystal-blue Mediterranean twinkled before him like an azure dream, Lucien reminded himself never to look a gift horse in the mouth. The point was that Didier Anjou was getting divorced. Again! It was going to be a beautiful day. THE MARRIAGE HAD BEGUN SO WELL. Which was strange, given that all of Didier Anjou’s other marriages had begun so very, very badly. First there was Lucille. Ah, la belle Lucille! How he’d wanted her! How he’d pined! Didier was twenty at the time, and starring in his very first movie, Entre les draps (Between the Sheets), which was exactly where Didier longed to be with Lucille Camus. Lucille was forty-four, married, and played Didier’s mother in the movie. The director had begged her to take the role. He’d always had a soft spot for Lucille. It was probably why he’d married her. In 1951, Jean Camus was the most powerful man in French cinema. He was a Parisian Walt Disney, an old-world Louis B. Mayer, a man who could make or break a young actor’s career with a nod of his shiny bald head or a twitch of his salt-and-pepper mustache. Jean Camus had personally cast Didier Anjou as the male lead in Entre les draps, plucking the handsome boy with the black hair and blacker eyes from utter obscurity and propelling him into a fantasy world of fame and fortune, of limousines and luxury … and Lucille. Looking back, decades later, Didier consoled himself with the fact that he’d never really had a choice. Lucille Camus was a goddess, her body a temple begging, no, demanding to be worshipped. Those swollen, matronly breasts, those obscenely full lips, always parted, always tempting, inviting … Didier Anjou could no more not seduce Lucille Camus than he could breathe through his elbows or swim through solid stone. Elle ?tait une force de la nature! Of course, had he stopped at seduction, things might have worked out better than they had. Unfortunately, three weeks into their affair, Didier got Lucille pregnant. “I don’t see the problem.” A baffled Didier defended himself, dodging another hurled item of china that Lucille had propelled furiously onto a collision course with his skull. “Ch?rie, please. Just say it is Jean’s. Who’s to know?” “Everyone will know, you cretin, you imbecile!” Didier ducked as another plate narrowly missed his windpipe. “Jean’s infertile!” “Oh.” “Yes. Oh.” “Well then, you’ll just have to get rid of it.” Lucille was horrified. “An abortion? What do you think I am, a monster?” “But, ch?rie, be practical.” “Jamais! Non, Didier. There is only one solution. You must marry me.” The Camus divorce was the talk of Cannes that year. A heavily pregnant Lucille Camus married her boy-toy lover, and for a few wonderful months, Didier was genuinely famous. But then the baby died, Jean Camus took the grief-wrecked Lucille back, and the ranks of the film community closed around them. For the next eight years, until Jean died, Didier Anjou couldn’t get so much as a laundry-detergent commercial in France. He was washed up at twenty-three. It wasn’t until he hit thirty that things finally started to look up. Didier married his second wife, H?l?ne Marceau, a beautiful, innocent heiress from Toulouse. H?l?ne was a virgin, unwilling to sleep with Didier until they were married. This suited Didier perfectly. He fucked around throughout their courtship, all the while looking forward to the day when he would take possession of H?l?ne’s tight chatte and fat bank balance. Who could ask for more? The wedding was a coup, the happiest day of Didier’s life. Until night fell and, alone at last in the marital bed, Didier discovered why his new bride had been so coy about sleeping with him. It appeared that poor H?l?ne had grotesquely deformed genitals, a secret she’d kept since birth. The whole innocent, scared-of-sex shtick had been a front, a ploy. The bitch had trapped him! The union was miserable from the start, yet Didier stayed with H?l?ne for five years. Naturally he cheated on her constantly, siphoning off every last franc of her fortune into privately produced movies, all of them star vehicles for himself. H?l?ne knew what her husband was up to, but loved him helplessly anyway. Didier had this effect on women. Each day H?l?ne prayed fervently that Didier would see the light and come to return her love, despite her unfortunate physical affliction. But it never happened. At thirty-five, famous for the second time in his life and rich for the first, Didier Anjou finally divorced H?l?ne Marceau. He was back on the market. Next came Pascale, another heiress who made Didier even richer and bore him two sons but took a regrettably inflexible view about his extramarital dalliances. One of these dalliances, Camille, became the fourth Madame Anjou the year Didier turned fifty. Thirty years his junior and stunningly beautiful, the top fashion model of her day, Camille reminded Didier of himself at her age. Physically perfect, selfish, ambitious, insatiable. It was a match made in heaven. But after three years of marriage, Camille slept with Didier’s teenage son, Luc. With Lucien Desforges’s help, Didier cut both of them off without a penny and vowed never to marry again. He retired to Saint-Tropez, where he became legendary for his vanity, in particular for the vast collection of toupees that he housed in a special dressing room at Villa Paradis, much to the amusement of the Russian hookers who regularly warmed his bed there. No one, least of all his lawyer, ever expected Didier Anjou to take another wife. But four months ago, out of the blue, the old rou? had done just that, secretly marrying a Russian woman whom none of his friends had ever heard of, never mind met. Her name was Irina Minchenko, and the general assumption was that she was one of the hookers and had somehow managed to bewitch Didier into wedlock. The general assumption was wrong. In her midthirties, aristocratic and educated, Irina was wealthy in her own right. Even if she’d been poor, she was far too beautiful and smart to be a hooker. From the day they met, at a house party in Ramatouelle, Didier was besotted. He took his new bride to Tahiti for their honeymoon, to a secluded beachside cottage. For the first time in his life, Didier Anjou did not want the media to follow him. He told Lucien, by now a friend, “Irina is too exquisite to be shared with the world. Whenever I see someone so much as look at her, man or woman, I want to kill them. It’s crazy what she does to me!” Whatever Irina did to him, it’s over now, Lucien thought wryly, strolling around onto the villa’s private rear terrace. Just two weeks back from the honeymoon and Didier Anjou had called him, literally howling with rage and fury. “I want a divorce!” he’d screamed into the phone. “I want to fuck that bitch over, do you hear me? I won’t give her a goddamn penny!” That was last night. Hopefully Didier would be in a calmer mood this morning. It was too early for screaming. Unfortunately, when Lucien Desforges stepped through the French windows into the living room, the screams were deafening. But they weren’t Didier’s. Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/sidni-sheldon/sidney-sheldon-s-angel-of-the-dark-a-gripping-thriller-full/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. 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