Unlucky 13 - James Patterson Page 0,38

shitting me?” said Claire. “Whoa, Cindy. That’s hard-core.”

Cindy was totally warmed up. She talked about the two DBs at a Citibank in Chicago, victims of a thin, dark-haired female shooter who might be Morales. And then there was the fresh corpse found in a drainage ditch off Route 80 outside Laramie, Wyoming.

“The victim was a dark-haired college girl,” Cindy said with meaning.

“Randy liked dark-haired college girls,” I said.

“I remember,” Claire said thoughtfully. “What was the cause of death?”

Cindy said, “Gunshot to the temple. And her fingers were amputated postmortem.”

“I get you. You think that was some kind of Mackie tribute to the Fish Man.”

Cindy said, “Yeah, I do. But I’ve got no proof.”

She delicately folded a forkful of pie into her mouth and managed to keep talking without looking gross doing it.

“The college girl was Randy’s type. Hell, Mackie is Randy’s type. There were no prints or shells or witnesses, but I’m getting a sense she’s on a spree and she’s heading this way.”

“And so what are you going to do about that?” Claire asked. Now, like me, Claire was alarmed.

“I just want to write a great, great story,” Cindy said. “There’s nobody better to do it than me. You guys should stop thinking of me as a kid. Really.”

“No one thinks of you that way,” Claire said.

“No one,” I said.

“Right,” said Cindy. “Look.”

She put her pearly-pink quilted handbag on the table and opened it so we could see inside.

I saw a snub-nosed .38 between her makeup kit and a packet of gum.

“Shut up,” said Claire.

“Are you kidding me?” I said.

“No joke, girls. I can ride ’em, I can rope ’em, and I can shoot, too. Richie taught me. And I have a carry license to prove it.”

Claire and I blinked at Cindy as she finished the last of her pie and scraped the plate with her fork.

I knew I was supposed to stay home tonight. My girlish merry mood was gone. And guess what?

I was scared to death for Cindy.

CHAPTER 47

MACKIE MORALES HAD been driving for more than seventeen hours, crawling at sixty, making pit stops in rundown gas stations off the highways, paying cash, avoiding toll booths, and keeping to service roads—whatever she had to do so that the stolen car wouldn’t be tagged on camera or noticed by a state trooper.

So far, so good.

Randy was humming an uplifting tune inside her head.

He was feeling good, proud of her and looking forward to seeing Ben. That little booger.

She felt that way, too. She couldn’t wait to scoop Ben up in her arms and hug him and kiss his adorable baby face. And after she’d loved up her baby, she wanted a toilet seat that she could actually sit on and a hot shower and clean towels. She wanted her mother to make her a big fattening meal. Anything Mom cooked would be the best thing she’d eaten in her life, and then a long, deep sleep in a big clean bed. Oh, wow. Just think of that.

It wouldn’t be safe to stay more than a day, but if she slept and kept indoors, a twenty-four-hour layover should be okay.

After that, she had work to do and plans to execute.

“You’ll have my back while I sleep, right, lover?” she said to Randy.

Right, Princess. Best Girl. Goddess of my heart.

Mackie laughed and then became more focused as she homed in on her mother’s house.

It was after 11:00 p.m. when Morales entered the Anza Vista area, northeast of Golden Gate Park. The night air was clear, and the moon was really turning on the wattage, making it look like blue daylight.

Her mother’s neighborhood was treeless, block upon block of what could be called modernist row homes. The houses were all different but close enough in appearance that they gave the development a bland sameness and uniformity.

Now she was driving up a deserted Anza Vista Avenue, which divided the double row of pale facades with their parking garages on street level and stairs going up to the front door.

Her mom’s house was just ahead, and like the rest of them, it was tan-colored with two gable-like rooftops over square alcoves, a two-car garage on the lower level, and an ornate iron gate locking the stairway to the front door.

Mackie’s eyes started to tear up. Minutes from now, she’d be in her mother’s warm hug—but Randy was disturbed.

Something’s wrong, he said.

“What? What?”

She saw a blue sedan, Japanese, parked several houses down, with a good view of her mom’s front door. What was wrong