Jericho Point Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  ‘‘You’re going to think Meg Gardiner is a gift from heaven for thriller/mystery readers.’’—Stephen King

  China Lake

  ‘‘Do me a favor, okay? Lay your hands on . . . China Lake. [It] had me at page one. Miss Gardiner makes it all work. . . . Amazingly entertaining.’’ —Stephen King ‘‘[An] exciting mix. Great stuff.’’

  —Independent on Sunday

  ‘‘With a colorful cast of richly delineated characters, a protagonist with whom the readers will easily identify—all big hearted, quick tongued, and hair-trigger tempered . . . a fast-paced ride through some of the more dubious nooks and crannies of the American dream.’’

  —The Guardian (UK)

  ‘‘Fast and hard-edged. Buy it, read it.’’

  —Hull Daily Mail

  ‘‘A cracker, with memorable characters, memorable lines, and a plot that races along to an explosive ending. A great summer read.’’ —Huddersfield Daily Examiner ‘‘Very well written, racy, and witty.’’ —Tangled Web

  ‘‘From beginning to end, China Lake is a book no reader of thrillers will be able to put down. Great characters, dynamic plot, nail-biting action—Meg Gardiner gives us everything.’’ —Elizabeth George

  Kill Chain

  ‘‘Evan Delaney is a paragon for our times: tough, funny, clever, brave, tireless, and compassionate. The pace and inventiveness never flag, and the climax . . . is both nail-biting and moving. But the brilliant writing is what puts this thriller way ahead of the competition. Intelligent escapism at its best.’’ —The Guardian (UK)

  ‘‘I loved every minute of it. A breathtaking thriller, gripping and relentless.’’

  —Caroline Carver, CWA Dagger-winning author of Blood Junction

  ‘‘A rattling good read.’’ —News of the World

  ‘‘Brilliant.’’ —Evening Telegraph (Peterborough, UK)

  ‘‘The action is high octane from the first page. Once you pick it up, it’s a very hard book to put down.’’

  —My Weekly

  ‘‘Fast and furious.’’ —The Literary Review

  Crosscut

  ‘‘Full of classic Gardiner one-liners . . . but mostly there’s a serious freezerload of scare-you-silly chills.’’

  —Stephen King

  ‘‘A tense and exciting thriller where almost anything seems possible. A conspiracy theorist’s must-have.’’

  —Independent on Sunday

  ‘‘Easily one of the best thrillers I’ve read this year. I could barely wait to get to the next page. If you start this book be prepared to be unable to put it down. Meg Gardiner has written a cracker.’’ —Caroline Carver

  ‘‘This book rips. It makes Silence of the Lambs look like Mary had a little one—it never lets up.’’

  —Adrienne Dines, author of The Jigsaw Maker

  Mission Canyon

  ‘‘A harrowing (and all too timely) story of corporate greed and evildoing in quirky Southern California.’’

  —Jeffery Deaver

  ‘‘A rattling good read with an unexpected twist.’’

  —Sunday Telegraph

  ‘‘Fiction at its finest . . . many nail-biting moments and hand-wringing twists.’’

  —Evening Telegraph (Peterborough, UK)

  ‘‘Simply put, the finest crime suspense series I’ve come across in the last twenty years . . . your basic can’t-put ’em-down thrill rides.’’ —Stephen King

  ‘‘Meg Gardiner is a welcome addition to the ranks of American thriller writers.’’ —The Daily Telegraph (UK)

  ‘‘Meg Gardiner has rekindled my interest in thrillers.’’

  —The Independent (London)

  ‘‘Meg Gardiner is a class act at the top of her game.’’

  —My Weekly

  ‘‘Meg Gardiner has a powerful style—fast-paced, immediate, and imaginative.’’ —Sherlock

  ‘‘Meg Gardiner goes from strength to strength.’’

  —OneWord Radio

  ‘‘Meg Gardiner is brilliant at making the over-the-top seem utterly convincing.’’ —The Guardian (UK)

  ‘‘Meg Gardiner hard-boils her American crime with the best of them. . . . If you like Sue Grafton and Janet Evanovich, you ought to have discovered Gardiner by now.’’ —Evening Telegraph (Peterborough, UK)

  ‘‘Meg Gardiner takes us to places we hope we’ll never have to go in reality.’’ —Caroline Carver

  Also by Meg Gardiner

  China Lake

  Mission Canyon

  Crosscut

  Kill Chain

  The Dirty Secrets Club

  OBSIDIAN

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

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  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. This is an authorized reprint of an edition published by Hodder & Stoughton. For information address: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 338 Euston Road, London NW1 3BH

  First Obsidian Printing, August 2008

  Copyright © Meg Gardiner, 2004

  All rights reserved

  OBSIDIAN and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior writte
n permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  eISBN : 978-1-4406-3269-3

  For my children, Kate, Mark, and Nate

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A number of people have helped with the creation of this novel. For their support and advice I would like to thank: Paul Shreve—husband, guitar player, and my everything, day and night; the writers’ group—Mary Albanese, Suzanne Davidovac, Adrienne Dines, Nancy Fraser, and Tammye Huf—for never letting me get away with less than my best; Caroline Carver; Marilyn Moreno and Hector Moreno, attorneys at law; my editor, Sue Fletcher, for her clear eye and inerrant sense of direction; Swati Gamble; and for his wisdom and belief in me, deepest gratitude to the late Giles Gordon.

  1

  It’s only rock ’n’ roll, I hear. What a lie.

  We know—any of us who has held a lover skin against skin while a song aches from the car radio. Anyone who has shed rage or sorrow to a thundering backbeat. Anyone who holds a guitar and strikes a chord and hears the shout rise from the crowd. We know. It’s glory, it’s riches, it’s a craving. It’s immortality. And as I drove through a winter storm, with rain drumming on the windshield and dark rhythms pounding in my ears, I was about to discover another truth. That night, it was also death.

  I pulled into the driveway just as the sofa tumbled off the balcony in front of me. It was on fire, an orange shriek in the night. I braked. It hit the driveway and a burning cushion bounced onto the concrete. Though the rain was a cold lash, the fire burned bright. People stood in the street, cheering. Sorority girls danced under the flame’s light. From the house came hoots and braying, and a keg flew off the balcony. It crashed in front of the couch and flailed beer in an arc. The girls dashed away shrieking.

  Welcome to Friday night in Isla Vista.

  My stomach was roiling. Eleven p.m. on a February night, and the phone had stabbed me awake. Can you come? We don’t know what else to do. He had your phone number with him.

  Midterms were over; that’s why IV was romping tonight. Take fifteen thousand college students, add testosterone and ethyl alcohol, and you get The Lord of the Flies with a Top 40 soundtrack. I rolled down my window to double-check the address. Del Playa Drive—when I went to the university, I had neither the cash nor the cool to live here. The wind kicked up, blowing rain onto my face. I wiped my eyes, backed the Explorer onto the street, and parked. This was the place.

  The house sat on the beach side of the street, the choicest real estate in Isla Vista, on the cliff overlooking the Pacific. The paint was peeling off the walls. I headed for the door, hunching against the rain, smelling salt air and acrid smoke. A young man strolled around the side of the house, ribboned yellow by fire-light. Ten feet from me he pulled a full frontal, unzipping his combat trousers and pissing against the side of a car.

  ‘‘Hey.’’ I turned my face away. ‘‘This isn’t America’s Rudest Home Videos. Keep it to yourself.’’

  Rain and beer spray were dousing the sofa. I walked to the door, hearing music pound, feeling my throat go dry, wondering how it had come to this.

  I knocked.

  It made no sense. Even given a family taste for liquor and too much time staring face-to-face with tragedy. This was wrong. Someone had made a mistake. A voice in my head said, Denial is a river in Egypt.

  The door opened. Music jackhammered from the stereo. The man holding the knob was older than I expected—early thirties, my age.

  ‘‘Evan?’’ He had the desiccated look of an old surfer. ‘‘I’m Toby. Thanks for coming.’’ He let me in. ‘‘Nobody at the party seems to know him, and I didn’t know what else to do.’’

  The living room throbbed with dancing college students. It smelled like Doritos and tequila. We cut a path into the house.

  ‘‘Where is he?’’ I said.

  ‘‘Locked in the bathroom. Look, obviously he has issues, but people at the party want to pee.’’

  ‘‘I hate to tell you, but they aren’t waiting for the john.’’

  He frowned, walking down a hall toward the back of the house. ‘‘Who is he, anyway?’’

  A strong spirit going out like the tide. A ghost. My life.

  ‘‘My boyfriend.’’

  He stopped at a door and knocked. Inside the bathroom, a man said, ‘‘Fuck off.’’ I felt heat behind my eyes.

  ‘‘Evan’s here,’’ Toby said. ‘‘Why don’t you unlock the door?’’

  ‘‘Go away.’’

  Toby looked at me and held up a bobby pin. ‘‘This will pop the lock. I just didn’t want to have to haul him out, maybe start a fight. Want me to open it?’’

  I couldn’t find my voice, so I nodded.

  He leaned against the door. ‘‘Blackburn, she’s coming in.’’ He stuck the bobby pin into the lock and turned. Gave me a sad look. ‘‘Good luck.’’

  He pushed the door open.

  The bathroom smelled like ripe socks and mildew. My head throbbed and my eyes stung. He was sitting in the bathtub, head in his hands, dark hair falling over his face.

  He turned his face to the wall. ‘‘Close the door. Don’t let them see.’’

  I shut the door behind me. And shut my eyes, fighting the sting. But still I saw him—his rangy frame, his handsome features, his blue eyes. Relief coursed through me. God. I sank against the door frame.

  It wasn’t him. Of course it wasn’t. How the hell could I have believed it? I felt ashamed for buying any bit of it.

  ‘‘Come on, I’ll take you home,’’ I said.

  He put up a hand, as if fending me off. ‘‘I can’t go out there.’’

  ‘‘Why not?’’ I crouched next to the tub. ‘‘What’s wrong?’’

  ‘‘You have to promise me.’’

  ‘‘Are you in trouble?’’

  ‘‘Don’t tell him.’’

  ‘‘Who?’’ I said, though I knew.

  ‘‘My brother. He’ll go ballistic. Promise you won’t tell Jesse.’’

  I put my hand on his arm. ‘‘P.J.?’’

  His eyes met mine for an instant before he looked away again. Relief drained from me as fast as if someone had pulled a plug. I had seen that look in his eyes before. Years ago, on that awful day. He slumped back in the tub.

  ‘‘Something’s wrong. Tell me,’’ I said.

  ‘‘Oh, fuck.’’ He started banging his head against the tiles. ‘‘She went off the balcony.’’

  Bang, bang, again and again.

  ‘‘Over the edge. All the way down into the waves.’’

  I grabbed him. ‘‘Did you call nine-one-one?’’

  He scrabbled for the faucets, but I tipped him over the edge of the tub and hauled him up. I yanked open the door and shoved him out into the hall, pulling out my cell phone.

  ‘‘Did you tell anybody?’’

  He shook his head.

  I urged him into the living room, jostling through the throng, and into the kitchen. Half a dozen girls stood gabbing, making a batch of margaritas in the blender. P.J. kept his head down, as though he were a dog being punished. I opened the sliding-glass door to the balcony and pushed him outside. The wind drove nails of rain against my face. I diale
d 911.

  The balcony ran the width of the house. Beyond the railing, forty feet below, the surf pounded the cliff. It was a huge, roaring tide. The light from the kitchen petered out, but I could see that farther along the balcony a bedroom door was open, the drapes billowing out.

  The dispatcher came on the line. ‘‘Nine-one-one Emergency.’’

  ‘‘I need a rescue. There’s been an accident at a house on Del Playa.’’

  P.J. blinked. ‘‘No. You promised you wouldn’t tell.’’

  Before I knew what was happening, he grabbed the phone from my ear and stumbled back toward the kitchen door, mashing buttons.

  ‘‘You promised,’’ he said.

  ‘‘Dammit.’’ I grabbed his hand and pried at his fingers, but he clenched the phone to his ribs. ‘‘We have to get search and rescue out here. Now.’’

  His chest heaved. ‘‘No, we don’t.’’

  ‘‘Yes. Now.’’

  The rain was flattening his hair against his head in stringy tails. ‘‘We don’t need search and rescue. I think . . . I mean, I think I’m wrong. It didn’t really happen.’’

  Shit. ‘‘Don’t give me that.’’

  He stared into the storm. ‘‘I think I just freaked out.’’

  ‘‘Truth. Right now. Did a girl fall off this balcony or not?’’

  ‘‘I don’t know.’’

  Planting both hands against his chest, I pushed him back inside the kitchen, where I could get a good look at his eyes in the light. He didn’t resist, just shivered and stared out the door at the ocean. I backed him against the counter.

  The margarita girls said, ‘‘Hey, what?’’

  I wiped rain from my face. ‘‘Look at me.’’

  His gaze tagged me and jumped away again. His pupils were the size of fleas.

  ‘‘What did you take?’’

  A shrug.

  ‘‘Coke? Speed?’’

  The girls grabbed the blender pitcher and left the kitchen. P.J. didn’t respond. I put my hands on his cheeks and held his face.

  ‘‘How much, P.J.?’’

  His skin felt hot, the rainwater warm against my palms. He wasn’t as tall as Jesse, didn’t have his shoulders, but otherwise the resemblance gave me a punch at the thought of everything that separated the two of them.

  I shook his face between my hands.