The 9th Judgment Read online

  Chapter 79

  SARAH WELLS WAS dressed for her night job, black clothes and shoes, car pointed toward Pacific Heights. She hit the turn signal and took Divisadero as the light went red. A cacophony of horns blared, damn it. Brakes screeched, and she narrowly avoided a collision with a station wagon full of kids.

  Oh my God. Focus, Sarah!

  She should be thinking about the work ahead, but her mind kept drifting back to earlier that night, seeing the perfect blue fingerprints on the soft flesh of Heidi’s arms, the still-vivid bite mark on her neck.

  Heidi had tried to brush off the evidence of Beastly’s attack. “He’s out of control,” she said. “But it’s not his fault.”

  “Whose fault is it? Yours?”

  “It’s because of what he went through in Iraq.”

  “It doesn’t make any difference what the reason is,” Sarah had snapped. “You don’t have to take it.”

  She hadn’t meant to bark at Heidi, but she was angry and scared at what Pete Gordon could do. Heidi had to get away from Beastly for her own sake, and for the good of the children.

  “I know, I know,” Heidi had cried out, putting her head on Sarah’s shoulder. “It can’t go on.”

  No, it couldn’t go on, and it wouldn’t, Sarah told herself as she cruised along Bush Street. She was meeting with Lynnette Green, Maury’s widow, next week. Lynnette had told Sarah that she’d buy the jewels and sell them herself. Sarah couldn’t wait to cash out. Could not wait.

  She turned on Steiner and again on California, then parked her Saturn at the Whole Foods parking lot, surrounded by other cars. She took a few minutes to make sure she had all her gear, then locked her wallet in the glove box, got out of the car, and locked that, too, now thinking about Diana King, her target tonight.

  Mrs. King was a widowed philanthropist, a big wheel on the charity circuit, frequently photographed and written about in the glossies and every month in the Chronicle.

  According to the Lifestyle page, Mrs. King was having a small engagement party for her son and future daughter-in-law that night in her home, a superbly restored cream-colored Victorian. And also superbly restored was Mrs. King’s classic jewelry: Tiffany, Van Cleef, Harry Winston.

  If Sarah could steal it, Lynnette Green would buy it and make it disappear. And then it would be over. Tonight’s job would be Sarah’s grand finale, her last haul.

  A half dozen cars were parked in front of the King house when Sarah approached on her rubber-soled climbing shoes. She crept into the side yard, which was shielded from the neighbors by a tall privet hedge. She peeked through one of Mrs. King’s ground-floor windows and saw guests at the dinner table, deeply involved in conversation.

  Sarah’s pulse sped up as she prepared herself for the climb, and then she caught a lucky break: an air conditioner on the first floor that was diagonally placed under the master bedroom. Sarah told herself she would spend only four minutes inside the house. Whatever she grabbed would be enough.

  Using the air conditioner as a foothold, she easily gained purchase, and then she was through the open bedroom window and inside the house.

  Getting in had almost been too easy.

  Chapter 80

  SARAH STOOD JUST inside Diana King’s rose-scented bedroom, checking for anything that could impede her speedy exit. She crossed the room and closed the paneled door leading to the hallway. Then she flipped on her light.

  The room was about fifteen feet square, with deeply sloped ceilings and a dormer facing the street. Sarah panned her light over the antique furnishings and cabbage-rose wallpaper, then hit the dresser with her beam. She was ready to go through the drawers when she saw a dark figure with a light. “Jeez! Who?” she squealed, then realized that it was her own reflection in the mirror.

  Sarah, get a grip.

  She flicked her beam back around the room and picked up a dull gold gleam on top of the vanity. She moved closer and saw a mass of jewelry, just tons of it, lying on the warm cherrywood surface.

  Sarah was already swimming in adrenaline, but the mound of gold topped up her tank. She opened her duffel and, using the side of her shaking hand, slid the jewelry into her bag. A few pieces, a ring and an earring, escaped and fell to the floor. Sarah snatched them up before they stopped rolling. She glanced at her watch.

  She’d made a first-class score in just over three minutes. A record, her personal best-and now it was time to go.

  Sarah crossed to the window and let herself down over the side of the house, once again using the air conditioner as a foothold. Feeling almost giddy, she threaded her way between the hedge and the house until she reached the dimly lit street.

  She’d pulled it off.

  She was outta there.

  Sarah ripped off her headlamp and dropped it into her tool bag as she turned right on the sidewalk, heading for the next street-then she pulled up short. She’d patted herself on the back too fast. Sirens shrilled, and Sarah saw a cruiser take the corner and head straight for her.

  How she’d been found out, or even if the police were coming for her, was irrelevant. Sarah was holding several hundred thousand dollars in jewels and a bagful of burglar’s tools.

  She couldn’t get caught.

  Taking off at a run, reversing her direction, Sarah cut through the backyard of the house to the west of Mrs. King’s. Mentally marking the spot, she ditched the bag of jewels into a basement window well and kept running. She skirted what looked to be the makings of a backyard shed and dropped her tools into a bag of construction trash.

  Still at a run, Sarah whipped off her hat and gloves and tossed them under a hedge. She heard the siren stop only yards away, and someone shouted, “Stop! This is the police.”

  Without her light, Sarah couldn’t see where to run, so she dropped to her haunches and froze against the rough stucco wall of a house. Flashlight beams swept the yard, but the lights didn’t touch her. Radios crackled and cops called out to one another, guessing at which way she had gone, and for those interminable minutes, Sarah hugged the stucco wall, fighting the urge to run.

  When the voices faded, Sarah broke diagonally across a yard full of kiddie toys to a metal gate, which she opened. The gate latch clanked. A big dog barked behind a door. Security lights blazed.

  Sarah skirted the reach of the lights, running through shadows into another yard, where she tripped over a garden cart, falling hard enough for her right shoe to fly off her foot. She felt for the shoe in the dark but couldn’t find it.

  A woman’s shrill voice called out, “Artie, I think someone’s out there!”

  Sarah vaulted over a fence, then took off again, ripping off her black sweater as she ran. She pulled the hem of her neon-green T-shirt out of her pants as she came out of the shadows onto a street she didn’t know.

  Feeling nauseous and desperate, Sarah stripped off her other shoe and her socks and left them in a trash can at the edge of a driveway, then headed north at a steady pace in the general direction of her car.

  That was when she realized, too late, that her keys were in her tool bag and she’d locked her wallet in the glove box.

  She was shoeless and miles from home without a dime.

  What now?

  Chapter 81

  THE BRIGHT WINDOWS at Whole Foods were in sight when Sarah heard a car slowly coming up behind her on the dark street. The vehicle crawled, keeping pace with her, its headlights elongating her silhouette on the pavement.

  Was it the cops?

  Half out of her mind with fear, Sarah fought her compulsion to turn toward the car. Panic would show on her face. And if it was the cops and they stopped to question her-she was cooked.

  Who was it? Who was trailing her?

  A horn blared and then tires squealed as the vehicle behind her peeled out and flew past, an old silver SUV with a jerk hollering out the window, “Sweet ass, baby!” Sarah lowered her head as whoops of laughter receded.

  Her red Saturn was where she had left it. She could see, by pe
ering through Whole Foods’ front windows, that the store was nearly empty.

  A sandy-haired boy was closing down the last open register. He looked up when Sarah approached. She said, “I locked myself out of my car. Could I borrow your phone?”

  “There’s a pay phone outside,” he said, cocking a thumb over his shoulder. Then his expression changed.

  “Ms. Wells. I’m Mark Ogrodnick. I was in your class about five years ago.”

  Sarah’s heart revved up again and went into overdrive. Of all the stores in the world, how had she found the one place in Pacific Heights where someone knew her?

  “Mark. Great to see you. May I borrow your phone? I have to call my husband.”

  Mark stared down at her bare feet, at the bleeding gash on her shin. He opened his mouth and closed it, then fished his phone out of his back pocket and handed it to Sarah. She thanked him and walked down the produce aisle, dialing and then listening to the phone ring several times. Finally Heidi picked up.

  “It’s me,” Sarah said. “I’m at Whole Foods. I locked myself out of my car.”

  “Oh God, Sarah,” Heidi said. “I can’t come. The kids are sleeping.”

  “Where’s Beastly?”

  “He’s out, but he could walk in at any minute. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I love you. I’ll see you soon.”

  “I love you, too.”

  Ogrodnick looked up and switched off the neon light in the storefront window. Sarah had no choice. She dialed her home phone number and, for the first time ever, prayed that Trevor would pick up.

  “Sarah, where the hell are you?” Terror asked with a sharp edge in his voice.

  Meekly, Sarah told him.

  Chapter 82

  AFTER TREVOR THREATENED her, drank, shoved her around, and collected his marital due, he finished a six-pack and went to bed. Red-eyed, sore, and frightened, Sarah sat in his chair, squeezing the exercise ball. She changed hands, working her fingers until they were nearly numb. Then she shook out her hands and booted up her laptop.

  Once she was on the Web, she clicked on Google News and typed “Hello Kitty” into the search bar.

  To Sarah’s relief, there was no mention of the burglary at Diana King’s house. Not yet. But Sarah was worried about the tools she’d ditched in her steeplechase through Pacific Heights. Specifically, had she been wearing gloves when she changed the battery in her headlamp? She couldn’t remember.

  And so Sarah searched her mind for an out. She’d dumped the tools in a trash bag near that small construction site. Maybe if someone found it, he’d think, Cool. Free stuff. Or maybe the trash bag would be tied and simply taken out to the curb.

  Sarah thought about all the other stuff she’d left behind like a trail of bread crumbs: her sweater and socks and shoes. By themselves, they were nothing. But if her prints were on the battery, everything else could be used to back up the charges against her.

  Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, if the shoe fits, you must nail her ass for twenty years without possibility of parole.

  Sarah groaned and ran the cursor down the Hello Kitty page. She read a few articles about her burglaries and her growing infamy, taking no pleasure in any of it. A headache bloomed behind her right eye as she tapped into the canon of stories about the Dowlings. The most recent clips were all Marcus Dowling quotes and interviews, but as she scrolled to earlier pages, she found stories from the day after she’d done the Dowling job.

  A headline grabbed her attention.

  “The Sun of Ceylon Stolen in Fatal Armed Robbery.”

  Sarah flashed on a few words that had been almost forgotten since she’d spoken with Sergeant Boxer. The cop had said that the yellow stone was a diamond. Now it seemed the diamond had a name. After clicking on the link to the article, Sarah began to read.

  “The Sun of Ceylon,” a twenty-karat yellow diamond, was stolen from actor Marcus Dowling and his wife, Casey Dowling, who was killed in an armed robbery. When last seen, this showy stone was set in a handworked gold ring with 120 smaller white diamonds.

  The Sun has a long history, marked with sudden death. Once the property of a young farmer who found it in a dirt street in Ceylon, the stone has passed from paupers to kings, leaving a trail of tragedy behind.

  Sarah felt as if a fist had closed around her heart. She called up the history of the Sun of Ceylon and everything that had happened to the people who had owned it-a long list of financial ruin and disgrace, sudden insanity, suicide, homicide, and accidental death.

  In her research on gems, Sarah had read of other stones like the Sun. The Koh-i-noor diamond, known as the “ Mountain of Light,” brought either great misfortune or an end to the kingdoms of all men who owned it. Marie Antoinette wore the Hope diamond, and she was beheaded-it was said that a string of death and misfortune followed the stone.

  There were other gems that carried curses: the Black Orlov Diamond, the Delhi Purple Sapphire, the Black Prince’s Ruby. And the Sun of Ceylon.

  Casey Dowling had owned it. And now she was dead.

  Sarah had given that stone to Heidi as a romantic gift-but what if it brought evil into Heidi’s life?

  Sarah had to ask herself, Am I really this superstitious?

  Crossing your fingers and throwing salt over your shoulder were baloney. Still, call it stress, call it irrational-it didn’t matter. Sarah felt it strongly. It was well-documented. People who owned cursed gemstones died.

  She had to get that diamond back from Heidi before Pete really hurt her.

  Chapter 83

  THE POLICE CAR circled the parking lot at Crissy Field like a buzzard. Sarah stiffened as she watched the cruiser in her rearview mirror, seeing it loop slowly around the lot while she wondered if her former student Mark Ogrodnick had told the police that she’d been in Whole Foods, barefoot, scraped up, and looking scared.

  Sarah held her breath and moved only her eyes, and then the black-and-white eased out of the exit and continued onto the boulevard.

  God, Sarah, chill.

  There’s no way those cops could be looking for you here. No way!

  Putting on her sunglasses, Sarah got out of the car. She crossed over the trail to the beach side of the walk and sat on an empty bench facing the water.

  Weather was coming in, clouds obscuring the afternoon sun but not stopping the windsurfers, who were shouting to one another as they changed their clothes out there on the asphalt.

  Zipping up her jacket, Sarah felt chilled inside and out. How do you tell someone you love that you’ve been leading a double life-and, in her case, a criminal double life? She had to get Heidi to understand that she knew stealing was wrong and dangerous, but if she could provide the means for all of them to escape Terror and Beastly, then she could live with what she’d done.

  Sarah imagined Heidi looking at her as if she were an alien, gathering up the kids, getting back into her car, and driving off. Sarah crossed her arms over her chest and doubled over. It killed her to think of losing Heidi. If that happened, everything she’d done would be for nothing.

  Sarah’s cell phone rang. She answered it.

  “Where are you, Sarah? We’re in the parking lot.”

  Sarah stood up and waved. Sherry screamed, “Sarah, Sarah,” and ran to her mom’s friend. Sarah lifted the little girl into her arms.

  Heidi broke into a grin. She held on to her floppy hat and balanced Stevie on her hip, the wind blowing her skirt tight against her body. Heidi was so beautiful. And that was the least of why Sarah loved her.

  Heidi came to her and hugged her with the kids in the middle, Sherry scrutinizing Sarah’s face, asking her, “What’s wrong, Sarah? Did someone hurt you?”

  Sarah put Sherry down and started to cry.

  Chapter 84

  HEIDI AND SARAH crossed the picturesque bridge, over an inlet that ran from the bay into the pretty little nature park. Sherry took Stevie ahead toward the wooden dock and, grown-ups forgotten, gathered stones to throw into the water.

/>   The two women sat together on a bench, and Heidi asked, “What’s going on, sweetie?”

  Sarah looked into Heidi’s face and said, “There’s no good way to tell you. I wanted to keep you out of it. I didn’t want to involve you in any way.”

  “Wow,” Heidi said. “You’re really scaring me.”

  Sarah nodded and, looking down at her feet, said, “You know about the cat burglar they call Hello Kitty?”

  “That’s the one who killed Marcus Dowling’s wife, right?”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t do it.”

  Heidi laughed. “Duh-uh. Of course not. What are you talking about?”

  “Heidi, I’m Hello Kitty.”

  “Shut up! You are not!”

  “Would I make this up? Heidi, believe me, I’m the cat burglar. Let me get this all out, and then I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  “Okay. But-okay.”

  “I told you, my granddad was a jeweler,” Sarah said. “But I didn’t tell you he had a friend who was a fence. I heard a lot of stories when I was Sherry’s age, just playing with stuff in my granddad’s shop.

  “So when I was thinking how to get us all out of here, I realized I could actually get rich quick. I started climbing the wall at the gym, getting strong, and I started researching potential targets, picking only people who could recover from the loss of their stuff. At first I wasn’t sure I could do it.

  “And then Trevor raped me.”

  Sarah swallowed hard, forcing her mind to skip past the memory.

  “My first few burglaries were-easy,” Sarah said. “I had a knack for it, and I could count on Terror to pass out in front of the TV long enough for me to do the job, come home, and get into bed before he woke up.

  “Then there was the Dowling job.”

  Heidi looked stricken, as though she were trying to say something but couldn’t find the right words. Instead she just stared. Sarah kept going. She told Heidi about Marcus Dowling’s outrageous lies and about the next job-the one where Jim Morley came into the room when her hands were wrist-deep in his wife’s jewelry. And then she went on to the robbery of Diana King, the last job she was ever going to do.