Womens Murder Club - 07 - 7th Heaven by James Patterson Read Free Book Online Page A

tied up and left to die in the fire. For some period of time, maybe hours, the Malones had known they were going to die. It’s called psychic horror. Their killers had wanted them to feel fear before their horrible deaths. Who had committed these brutal murders - and why?
    Chapter 22

    JACOBI AND I would have cared about the Malones’ deaths even if Conklin hadn’t known them. The fact that he had been close to them once made us feel as if we’d known them, too. Jacobi was my partner today, standing in for Conklin, who was picking up Kelly Malone at the airport. We stood on the doorstep of a Cape Cod in Laurel Heights only a dozen blocks from where the Malone house waited for the bulldozer. I rang the bell and the door was opened by a man in his early forties wearing a sweatshirt and jeans, looking at me like he already knew why we were there. Jacobi introduced us, said, “Is Ronald Grayson at home?” “I’ll get him,” said the man at the door. “Mind if we come in?” Grayson’s father said, “Sure. It’s about the fire, right?” He opened the door to a well-kept living room with comfy furniture and a large plasma-screen TV over the fireplace. He called out, “Ronnie. The police are here.” I heard the back door slam hard, as if it were pulled closed by a strong spring. I said, “Shit. Call for backup.” I left Jacobi in the living room, ran through the kitchen and out the back door. I was on my own. Jacobi couldn’t run anymore, not with his bad lungs and the twenty pounds he’d put on since his promotion to lieutenant. I followed the kid in front of me, watched him leap the low hedge between his house and the one next door. Ronald Grayson wasn’t an athlete, but he had long legs and he knew the neighborhood. I was losing ground as he took a hard right behind a detached garage. I yelled out, “Stop where you are. Put your hands in the air,” but he kept running. I was in a jam. I didn’t want to shoot at him, but clearly the teenager had a reason for running. Had he set that fire? Was this boy a killer? I called in my location and kept running, clearing the garage in time to see Grayson Jr. cross Arguello Boulevard and slam into the hood of a patrol car. He slid down to the pavement. A second cruiser pulled up as two uniforms got out of the first. One officer grabbed the kid by the back of his shirt and threw him over the hood, while another kicked the boy’s legs apart and frisked him. That’s when I noticed that Ronald Grayson’s face had turned blue. “Oh, Christ!” I yelled. I pulled Grayson off the car and bent him over. I grabbed the kid from behind, wrapped my right hand around my left fist, found the spot under his rib cage, and gave him three hard abdominal thrusts. He coughed, and three small bags fell from his mouth to the asphalt. The bags were filled with rock cocaine. I was heaving, too. And I was furious. I cuffed the kid roughly, arrested him for possession with intent to sell. And I read him his rights. “You idiot,” I panted. “I have a gun. Get it? I could have shot you.” “Fuck you.” “You mean ‘thank you,’ don’t you, asshole?” said one of the uniforms. “The sergeant here just saved your worthless life.”
    Chapter 23

    JACOBI AND I already knew two things about Ronald Grayson: that he’d had crack in his possession when we arrested him, and that this kid had called in the Malone fire. Had he also set that fire? Sitting in the interrogation room across from Ronald Grayson, I thought about another teenager, Scott Dyleski. Dyleski was sixteen when he’d broken into a woman’s home in Lafayette, stabbed her dozens of times, and mutilated her body because in his twisted mind, he imagined that she’d taken delivery of his drug paraphernalia and was keeping it from him. Dyleski was wrong, psychotic, and the murder should never have happened. But it had. And so, as I looked at fifteen-year-old Ronald Grayson with his clear skin and dark hair, drumming his