7th Heaven

Chapter 95

JASON TWILLY WAS WEARING chinos and a navy blue sweater and had a leather bag hooked over his right shoulder. He looked handsome, urbane, as if he’d just stepped from the pages of Town amp; Country, and his crooked smile had lost its menace.

“What are you doing here, Jason?”

Yuki kept the door open about four inches, just enough to see and hear him. And she clamped her hand around the gun in her pocket, felt the power of that little weapon, knowing what it could do.

“Hey, you know, Yuki, if I didn’t like you so much, I’d be really hurt. I spend most of my life fending women off, and you keep slamming doors in my face.”

“How’d you find me?”

“I waited for you to leave your apartment and followed you. Wasn’t that hard. Look, I’m sorry I got rough this morning.” He sighed. “It’s just that I’m in trouble. I took a huge advance on this book and the money’s gone.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah. Sports betting. A little weakness of mine.” Twilly added a dash of boyish charm to his smile. “To be honest, it’s more than a little weakness – and it’s kind of snowballed lately. See, I’m telling you this so you understand. Really nasty people want their money back. And they don’t care if my book crashes.”

“Not my problem, Jason.”

“Wait. Wait. Just listen, okay? I can’t give back the advance, you understand, and I’ve got these debts. All I need is your feelings, your insight, your own true words – that’s where we’ll find a satisfying ending to the Michael Campion story.”

“Are you serious? After all the crap you’ve dished out? I have nothing to say to you, Jason.”

“Yuki, this isn’t personal. It’s business. I’m not going to touch you, okay? I need one crummy hour of your time, and you’re going to benefit. You’re the devoted prosecutor whose conviction was snatched from you by the little whore with a heart of stone. Yuki, you were robbed!”

“And if I don’t want to be interviewed?”

“Then I’ll have to write around you, and that’ll really suck. Don’t make me beg anymore, okay?”

Yuki took the gun out of her pocket. “This is a.357,” she said, showing it to him.

“So I see,” Twilly said, his smile becoming a grin, the grin turning into laughter. “This is priceless.”

“I’m glad you find me amusing.”

“Yuki, I’m a reporter, not a freaking mobster. No, this is good. Bring your gun. God knows I want you to feel safe with me. Okay if we go for a walk?”

“This way,” Yuki said.

She stepped outside and closed the door behind her.

Chapter 96

YUKI KEPT HER HAND gripped around the gun in her pocket as she walked beside Twilly up the path through the woods. He did most of the talking, asking her opinion of the jury, of the defense counsel, of the verdict. For a moment she saw the charming man she’d been attracted to a few weeks ago – then she remembered who he really was.

“I think the verdict was completely off the wall,” Yuki said. “I don’t know what I could have done differently.”

“Not your fault, Yuki. Junie is i

“Really? And you know she’s i

They’d reached the ridgeline, where a rocky outcropping overlooked the best view of Kelham Beach and the Pacific Ocean. Twilly sat down on the rock, and Yuki sat a few feet away. Twilly opened his bag, took out two bottles of water, twisted off the cap of the first and handed the bottle to Yuki.

“Don’t you think it’s strange that there was no trace evidence at the so-called crime scene?” he asked her.

“Strange, but not impossible,” Yuki said, taking a deep chug-a-lug from the water bottle.

“That information that the police ‘developed.’ That was an anonymous caller, right?”

“How did you know that?”

“I was writing a book about Michael, Yuki. I followed him all the time. I followed Michael to Junie’s house that night. After Michael went into Junie’s house, I felt great. Michael Campion spent time with a hooker! Good meat for my story. I waited, and then I saw him leave – alive.

“Of course, I didn’t know he’d never be seen again.”

“Hmmm?” Yuki said.

She’d come here to hear Twilly tell her who’d killed Michael or confess that he was the one who had done it – but suddenly she felt as though there was plastic foam inside her head.

What was happening?

Shapes shifted in front of her eyes, and Twilly’s voice ballooned out of his mouth, volume rising and falling. What was that? What was Twilly saying?

“Are you okay?” he asked her. “Because you don’t look so good.”

“I’m fine,” Yuki said. She was nearly overcome with dizziness and nausea. She gripped the rock she was sitting on with both hands, held on tight.

She had a gun!

What time was it?

Wasn’t she supposed to keep track of the time?

Chapter 97

TWILLY LEERED, his face very big in front of hers. Big nose, teeth like a Halloween jack-o’lantern, his words so elastic, Yuki became fascinated with the sounds more than the sense of what he was saying.

Get a grip, she told herself. Get a grip.

“Say that again?”

“When Michael went missing,” Twilly spoke patiently, “the cops came up with nothing. No clues. No suspects. I waited for months.”

“Uh-huh.”

“The Campion story was getting stale – so I did what I had to do. Good citizen thing, right? I called in a tip. I gave the cops a suspect. Completely legitimate. I’d seen Michael at the house of a little hooker named Junie Moon.”

“You… did that?”

“Yep, it was me. And like an answered prayer, Junie Moon confessed. Man, sometimes I even think she did it. But you didn’t convict her, did you, Yuki? And now I have a shitty ending for my book. And whoever killed Michael is free. And I’m up to my neck in knee-breakers, so I can only think of one way to get a big-bang ending and bring it on home.

“And that’s where you come in, little girl,” Twilly said. “I think you’re going to appreciate the drama and the poetry.”

There were flashes in the sky behind Twilly, bright colors and images she couldn’t make out. There was a whooshing in her ears, blood racing or animals ru

“What’s… happening… to me?”

“You’re having a mental breakdown, Yuki, because you’re so depressed.”

“Me?”

“You. You… are… very… depressed.”

“Nooooo,” Yuki said. She tried to stand, but her feet couldn’t hold her. She looked at Twilly, his eyes big and as dark as black holes.

Where was her gun?

“You’re morbidly depressed, Yuki. That’s what you told me in the parking lot this morning. You said that you have no love in your life. That your mother is dead because you didn’t save her. And you said you can’t get over blowing this trial -”

He was bending her mind.

“Craaaazzzy,” she said.

“Crazy. Yes you are! You were on camera, Yuki. Thousands of people saw you run from the courthouse,” Twilly said, each of his words distinct and powerful – yet senseless.

“That’s the way I’ll tell the story, how you ran to the parking lot and I ran after you, and you said that you wanted to kill yourself, you were so ashamed. One of those Japanese honor things. Hara-kiri, right?”

“Nooooo.”

“Yes, little girl. That’s what you told me. And I was so worried about you, I followed you in my car.”

“You…?”

“Meeeeee. And you showed me your gun that you’d gotten so that you could end your life and give me the freaking megawatt ending my book so richly deserves!”

Gun! Gun! Her arm was made of rubber. She couldn’t move her hand off the rock. Lights flashed in the dark.