20th Victim (Women's Murder Club #20) - James Patterson Page 0,15

alarmed and he tightened his grip on me.

“Tell me,” he said.

“Claire has cancer.”

I cried. Joe consoled me until he cried, too. Second time I ever saw Joe cry. I was so grateful that Julie was in bed, but Martha felt the sadness, came out of Julie’s room, and put her nose on the couch between us.

“Keep talking,” Joe said.

“She said it’s nothing to worry about, but she was lying.”

Joe held me tight. I thought about what Claire must be going through.

“She hasn’t told Edmund.”

“She will.”

“I can’t bear this, Joe.”

“You can. You will. You’ll be strong for Claire.”

We went into the bedroom and got in bed, under the blankets, and held hands.

The last time I looked at the clock, it was 3:40 in the morning. The big paw that had once caught footballs enclosed my hand, and when Joe squeezed my fingers, it was gentle. A hug.

I slept hard after that, and when I woke up a short time later, Joe was dressed.

He leaned over and kissed me.

“I made coffee and walked Martha. Julie’s still sleeping. Mrs. Rose will take her to the pre-K bus, and she’ll pick her up, make her dinner. I’ll call you after I see Dave.”

I sat up and kissed him again.

He said, “Go back to sleep. I’ll call you later.”

When the phone rang, I thought it was Joe, but it was Cindy.

CHAPTER 23

CINDY WAS AT her desk at the San Francisco Chronicle at 6 a.m.

It was nine o’clock in New York, and news had been breaking across the country all morning. Her scanner was on, transmitting police, paramedic, and fire department radio calls while she booted up her laptop.

First thing, she looked in on the updated SFPD 911 log for calls related to the Baron case. No arrest, no statement, nothing. Next web stop was the Examiner, the local competition. Nothing to worry about there. She checked out the major news outlets for any new reporting, found none, and then went back to the updated SFPD 911 log.

There was no hot news at all, so she moved on. Checked her inbox—it was full—and looked to see how much coffee was left in her mug. It was empty.

She watched through the glass walls of her office as reporters, writers, and staff ambled into the city room, navigated the maze of partitioned cubicles to their stations. They stowed their bags, got coffee, then went to work.

It was six fifteen when McGowan came in.

He went to his desk with its clear view of her office. He dropped off his computer bag and waved at her. After opening his laptop, he headed across the city room to suck up to the publisher, who was doing his morning walk-through.

McGowan was the worst kind of phony. A toady. Blech.

Cindy shook off the creeps, turned back to her computer, and opened her crime blog. A lot of people had posted questions about the Baron killings. Sometimes posters had questions for her. But she didn’t have anything to tell them, not today, not yet. She blogged that information on the case was pending and she would report to her readers as soon as she could.

Damn it. If Lindsay hadn’t blocked her, she could take the action that she and all journalists worked for—breaking the news.

The coffee station, the urn and fixings, were just down the hallway. Cindy brought her mug, and when she returned to her desk, there was an interesting bulletin in the chyron crawling across the bottom of her screen.

A drug dealer had been shot in Chicago yesterday morning. The cops had identified the victim as Albert Roccio but had kept the story quiet for twenty-four hours until the autopsy was completed.

Now the police were asking the public for information on Roccio’s death.

Cindy opened her link to the Chicago PD website and read up on the victim. Albert Roccio was fifty-four, a Chicago native. Owned a smoke shop on North Broadway where he sold papers, smokes, candy, soft drinks. He had an undetermined number of employees, who Cindy guessed were stock boys doubling as drug runners.

Roccio was divorced, no children. He had been exiting his apartment house on his way to work, car keys in hand, when he was shot, one bullet to the forehead.

Roccio’s girlfriend, Tonya Patton, forty-eight, and her boy, Vanya, eight, had been walking right behind Albert down the front steps. One bullet had been fired. One only. The woman and child had been spared.

Patton hadn’t seen the shooter, was questioned and released. Apart from Patton and Vanya, there