7th Heaven

Book 7: A Women's Murder Club Thriller

by James Patterson, Maxine Paetro

Genres: Thrillers; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

Now available as a value-priced edition!

A terrible fire in a wealthy suburban home leaves a married couple dead and Detective Lindsay Boxer and her partner Rich Conklin searching for clues. And after California's golden boy, Michael Campion has been missing for a month, there finally seems to be a lead in his case–a very devastating lead.

As fire after fire consume couples in wealthy, comfortable homes, Lindsay and the Murder Club must race to find the arsonists responsible and get to the bottom of Michael Campion's disappearance. But suddenly the fires are raging too close to home.

Frightened for her life and torn between two men, Lindsay must find a way to solve the most daunting dilemmas she's ever faced–at work and at home.

Release date: February 4, 2008

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Print pages: 400

Sample

16th Seduction (with Maxine Paetro)



15th Affair (with Maxine Paetro)



14th Deadly Sin (with Maxine Paetro)



Unlucky 13 (with Maxine Paetro)



12th of Never (with Maxine Paetro)



11th Hour (with Maxine Paetro)



10th Anniversary (with Maxine Paetro)



The 9th Judgment (with Maxine Paetro)



The 8th Confession (with Maxine Paetro)



7th Heaven (with Maxine Paetro)



The 6th Target (with Maxine Paetro)



The 5th Horseman (with Maxine Paetro)



4th of July (with Maxine Paetro)



3rd Degree (with Andrew Gross)



2nd Chance (with Andrew Gross)



First to Die

Cross the Line

Cross Justice

Hope to Die

Cross My Heart

Alex Cross, Run

Merry Christmas, Alex Cross

Kill Alex Cross

Cross Fire

I, Alex Cross

Alex Cross’s Trial (with Richard DiLallo)

Cross Country

Double Cross

Cross (also published as Alex Cross)

Mary, Mary

London Bridges

The Big Bad Wolf

Four Blind Mice

Violets Are Blue

Roses Are Red

Pop Goes the Weasel

Cat & Mouse

Jack & Jill

Kiss the Girls

Along Came a Spider

Bullseye (with Michael Ledwidge)

Alert (with Michael Ledwidge)

Burn (with Michael Ledwidge)

Gone (with Michael Ledwidge)

I, Michael Bennett (with Michael Ledwidge)

Tick Tock (with Michael Ledwidge)

Worst Case (with Michael Ledwidge)

Run for Your Life (with Michael Ledwidge)

Step on a Crack (with Michael Ledwidge)

Missing: A Private Novel (with Kathryn Fox)

The Games (with Mark Sullivan)

Private Paris (with Mark Sullivan)

Private Vegas (with Maxine Paetro)

Private India: City on Fire (with Ashwin Sanghi)

Private Down Under (with Michael White)

Private L.A. (with Mark Sullivan)

Private Berlin (with Mark Sullivan)

Private London (with Mark Pearson)

Private Games (with Mark Sullivan)

Private: #1 Suspect (with Maxine Paetro)

Private (with Maxine Paetro)

NYPD Red 4 (with Marshall Karp)

NYPD Red 3 (with Marshall Karp)

NYPD Red 2 (with Marshall Karp)

NYPD Red (with Marshall Karp)

Second Honeymoon (with Howard Roughan)

Now You See Her (with Michael Ledwidge)

Swimsuit (with Maxine Paetro)

Sail (with Howard Roughan)

Beach Road (with Peter de Jonge)

Lifeguard (with Andrew Gross)

Honeymoon (with Howard Roughan)

The Beach House (with Peter de Jonge)

Two from the Heart (with Frank Constantini, Emily Raymond, and Brian Sitts)

The Black Book (with David Ellis)

Humans, Bow Down (with Emily Raymond)

Never Never (with Candice Fox)

Woman of God (with Maxine Paetro)

Filthy Rich (with John Connolly and Timothy Malloy)

The Murder House (with David Ellis)

Truth or Die (with Howard Roughan)

Miracle at Augusta (with Peter de Jonge)

Invisible (with David Ellis)

First Love (with Emily Raymond)

Mistress (with David Ellis)

Zoo (with Michael Ledwidge)

Guilty Wives (with David Ellis)

The Christmas Wedding (with Richard DiLallo)

Kill Me If You Can (with Marshall Karp)

Toys (with Neil McMahon)

Don’t Blink (with Howard Roughan)

The Postcard Killers (with Liza Marklund)

The Murder of King Tut (with Martin Dugard)

Against Medical Advice (with Hal Friedman)

Sundays at Tiffany’s (with Gabrielle Charbonnet)

You’ve Been Warned (with Howard Roughan)

The Quickie (with Michael Ledwidge)

Judge & Jury (with Andrew Gross)

Sam’s Letters to Jennifer

The Lake House

The Jester (with Andrew Gross)

Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas

Cradle and All

When the Wind Blows

Miracle on the 17th Green (with Peter de Jonge)

Hide & Seek

The Midnight Club

Black Friday (originally published as Black Market)

See How They Run (originally published as The Jericho Commandment)

Season of the Machete

The Thomas Berryman Number

Maximum Ride Forever

Nevermore: The Final Maximum Ride Adventure

Angel: A Maximum Ride Novel

Fang: A Maximum Ride Novel

Max: A Maximum Ride Novel

The Final Warning: A Maximum Ride Novel

Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports: A Maximum Ride Novel

School’s Out—Forever: A Maximum Ride Novel

The Angel Experiment: A Maximum Ride Novel

Daniel X: Lights Out (with Chris Grabenstein)

Daniel X: Armageddon (with Chris Grabenstein)

Daniel X: Game Over (with Ned Rust)

Daniel X: Demons & Druids (with Adam Sadler)

Daniel X: Watch the Skies (with Ned Rust)

The Dangerous Days of Daniel X (with Michael Ledwidge)

Witch & Wizard: The Lost (with Emily Raymond)

Witch & Wizard: The Kiss (with Jill Dembowski)

Witch & Wizard: The Fire (with Jill Dembowski)

Witch & Wizard: The Gift (with Ned Rust)

Witch & Wizard (with Gabrielle Charbonnet)

Middle School: Dog’s Best Friend (with Chris Tebbetts, illustrated by Jomike Tejido)

Middle School: Just My Rotten Luck (with Chris Tebbetts, illustrated by Laura Park)

Middle School: Save Rafe (with Chris Tebbetts, illustrated by Laura Park)

Middle School: Ultimate Showdown (with Julia Bergen, illustrated by Alec Longstreth)

Middle School: How I Survived Bullies, Broccoli, and Snake Hill (with Chris Tebbetts, illustrated by Laura Park)

Middle School: Big Fat Liar (with Lisa Papademetriou, illustrated by Neil Swaab)

Middle School: Get Me Out of Here! (with Chris Tebbetts, illustrated by Laura Park)

Middle School, The Worst Years of My Life (with Chris Tebbetts, illustrated by Laura Park)

Confessions: The Murder of an Angel (with Maxine Paetro)

Confessions: The Paris Mysteries (with Maxine Paetro)

Confessions: The Private School Murders (with Maxine Paetro)

Confessions of a Murder Suspect (with Maxine Paetro)

I Funny TV (with Chris Grabenstein, illustrated by Laura Park)

I Totally Funniest (with Chris Grabenstein, illustrated by Laura Park)

I Even Funnier (with Chris Grabenstein, illustrated by Laura Park)

I Funny: A Middle School Story (with Chris Grabenstein, illustrated by Laura Park)

Treasure Hunters: Peril at the Top of the World (with Chris Grabenstein, illustrated by Juliana Neufeld)

Treasure Hunters: Secret of the Forbidden City (with Chris Grabenstein, illustrated by Juliana Neufeld)

Treasure Hunters: Danger Down the Nile (with Chris Grabenstein, illustrated by Juliana Neufeld)

Treasure Hunters (with Chris Grabenstein, illustrated by Juliana Neufeld)

House of Robots: Robots Revolution (with Chris Grabenstein, illustrated by Juliana Neufeld)

House of Robots: Robots Go Wild! (with Chris Grabenstein, illustrated by Juliana Neufeld)

House of Robots (with Chris Grabenstein, illustrated by Juliana Neufeld)

Word of Mouse (with Chris Grabenstein, illustrated by Joe Sutphin)

Give Please a Chance (with Bill O’Reilly)

Cradle and All (teen edition)

Jacky Ha-Ha (with Chris Grabenstein, illustrated by Kerascoët)

Public School Superhero (with Chris Tebbetts, illustrated by Cory Thomas)

Homeroom Diaries (with Lisa Papademetriou, illustrated by Keino)

Med Head (with Hal Friedman)

santaKid (illustrated by Michael Garland)

For previews and information about the author, visit JamesPatterson.com or find him on Facebook or at your app store.

One

TINY LIGHTS WINKED on the Douglas fir standing tall and full in front of the picture window. Swags of Christmas greenery and dozens of cards decked the well-appointed living room, and apple logs crackled in the fireplace, scenting the air as they burned.

A digitized Bing Crosby crooned “The Christmas Song.”

“Chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Jack Frost nipping at your nose…”

Henry Jablonsky couldn’t see the boys clearly. The one called Hawk had snatched off his glasses and put them a mile away on the fireplace mantel, a good thing, Jablonsky had reasoned at the time.

It meant that the boys didn’t want to be identified, that they were planning to let them go. Please, God, please let us live and I’ll serve you all the days of my life.

Jablonsky watched the two shapes moving around the tree, knew that the gun was in Hawk’s waistband. He heard wrapping paper tear, saw the one called Pidge dangling a bow for the new kitten.

They’d said they weren’t going to hurt them.

They said this was only a robbery.

Jablonsky had memorized their faces well enough to describe to a police sketch artist, which he would be doing as soon as they got the hell out of his home.

Both boys looked as though they’d stepped from the pages of a Ralph Lauren ad.

Hawk. Clean-cut. Well-spoken. Blond, with side-parted hair. Pidge, bigger. Probably six two. Long brown hair. Strong as a horse. Meaty hands. Ivy League types. Both of them.

Maybe there really was some goodness in them.

As Jablonsky watched, the blond one, Hawk, walked over to the bookshelf, dragged his long fingers across the spines of the books, calling out titles, his voice warm, as though he were a friend of the family.

He said to Henry Jablonsky, “Wow, Mr. J., you’ve got Fahrenheit 451. This is a classic.”

Hawk pulled the book from the shelf, opened it to the first page. Then he stooped down to where Jablonsky was hog-tied on the floor with a sock in his mouth.

“You can’t beat Bradbury for an opening,” Hawk said. And then he read aloud with a clear, dramatic voice.

“ ‘It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed.’ ”

As Hawk read, Pidge hauled a large package out from under the tree. It was wrapped in gold foil, tied with gold ribbon. Something Peggy had always wanted and had waited for, for years.

“To Peggy, from Santa,” Pidge read from the gift tag. He sliced through the wrappings with a knife.

He had a knife!

Pidge opened the box, peeled back the layers of tissue.

“A Birkin bag, Peggy. Santa brought you a nine-thousand-dollar purse! I’d call that a no, Peg. A definite no.”

Pidge reached for another wrapped gift, shook the box, while Hawk turned his attention to Peggy Jablonsky. Peggy pleaded with Hawk, her actual words muffled by the wad of sock in her mouth. It broke Henry’s heavy heart to see how hard she tried to communicate with her eyes.

Hawk reached out and stroked Peggy’s baby-blond hair, then patted her damp cheek. “We’re going to open all your presents now, Mrs. J. Yours too, Mr. J.,” he said. “Then we’ll decide if we’re going to let you live.”

Two

HENRY JABLONSKY’S STOMACH HEAVED. He gagged against the thick wool of the sock, pulled against his restraints, smelled the sour odor of urine. Heat puddled under his clothes. Christ. He’d wet himself. But it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was to get out alive.

He couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. But he could reason.

What could he do?

Jablonsky looked around from his place on the floor, took in the fire poker only yards away. He fixed his vision on that poker.

“Mrs. J.,” Pidge called out to Peggy, shaking a small turquoise box. “This is from Henry. A Peretti necklace. Very nice. What? You have something to say?”

Pidge went over to Peggy Jablonsky and took the sock out of her mouth.

“You don’t really know Dougie, do you?” she said.

“Dougie who?” Pidge laughed.

“Don’t hurt us—”

“No, no, Mrs. J.,” Pidge said, stuffing the sock back into his captive’s mouth. “No don’ts. This is our game. Our rules.”

The kitten pounced into the heap of wrapping paper as the gifts were opened; the diamond earrings, the Hermès tie, and the Jensen salad tongs, Jablonsky praying that they would just take the stuff and leave. Then he heard Pidge speak to Hawk, his voice more subdued than before, so that Jablonsky had to strain to hear over the blood pounding in his ears.

“Well? Guilty or not guilty?” Pidge asked.

Hawk’s voice was thoughtful. “The J.’s are living well, and if that’s the best revenge…”

“You’re kidding me, dude. That’s totally bogus.”

Pidge stepped over the pillowcase filled with the contents of the Jablonskys’ safe. He spread the Bradbury book open on the lamp table with the span of his hand, then picked up a pen and carefully printed on the title page.

Pidge read it back. “Sic erat in fatis, man. It is fated. Get the kit-cat and let’s go.”

Hawk bent over, said, “Sorry, dude. Mrs. Dude.” He took the sock out of Jablonsky’s mouth. “Say good-bye to Peggy.”

Henry Jablonsky’s mind scrambled. What? What was happening? And then he realized. He could speak! He screamed “Pegg-yyyyy” as the Christmas tree bloomed with a bright yellow glare, then went up in a great exhalation of flame.

VOOOOOOM.

Heat rose and the skin on Henry Jablonsky’s cheeks dried like paper. Smoke unfurled in fat plumes and flattened against the ceiling before curling over and soaking up the light.

“Don’t leave us!”

He saw the flames climbing the curtains, heard his dear love’s muffled screams as the front door slammed shut.

Chapter 1

WE SAT IN A CIRCLE around the fire pit behind our rental cottage near the spectacular Point Reyes National Seashore, an hour north of San Francisco.

“Lindsay, hold out your glass,” Cindy said.

I tasted the margarita—it was good. Yuki stirred the oysters on the grill. My border collie, Sweet Martha, sighed and crossed her paws in front of her, and firelight made flickering patterns on our faces as the sun set over the Pacific.

“It was one of my first cases in the ME’s office,” Claire was saying. “And so I was ‘it.’ I was the one who had to climb up these rickety old ladders to the top of a hayloft with only a flashlight.”

Yuki coughed as the tequila went down her windpipe, gasping for breath as Cindy and I yelled at her in unison, “Sip it!”

Claire thumped Yuki’s back and continued.

“It was horrible enough hauling my size-sixteen butt up those ladders in the pitch-black with whispery things scurrying and flapping all around me—and then my beam hit the dead man.

“His feet were hovering above the hay, and when I lit him up, I swear to God he looked like he was levitating. Eyes and tongue bugged out, like a freakin’ ghoul.”

“No way.” Yuki laughed. She was wearing pajama bottoms and a Boalt Law sweatshirt, her hair in a ponytail, already drunk on her one margarita, looking more like a college kid than a woman nearing thirty.

“I yelled down into the dark well of that barn,” Claire said, “got two big old boys to come up and cut the body down from the rafters and put Mr. Levitation into a body bag.”

Claire paused for dramatic effect—and right then my cell phone rang.

“Lind-say, no,” Cindy begged me. “Don’t take that call.”

I glanced at the caller ID, expecting it to be my boyfriend, Joe, thinking he’d just gotten home and was checking in, but it was Lieutenant Warren Jacobi. My former partner and current boss.

“Jacobi?”

Yuki shouted, “Don’t stop, Claire. She could be on the phone all night!”

“Lindsay? Okay, fine,” Claire said, and then she went on. “I unzipped the body bag… and a bat flew out of the dead man’s clothes. I peed my pants,” Claire squealed behind me. “I really did!”

“Boxer? You there?” said Jacobi, gruff in my ear.

“I’m on my own time,” I growled into my cell phone. “It’s Saturday, don’t you know that?”

“You’re going to want this. If not, tell me and I’ll give it to Cappy and Chi.”

“What is it?”

“The biggest deal in the world, Boxer. It’s about the Campion kid. Michael.”

Chapter 2

MY PULSE SHOT UP at the mention of Michael Campion’s name.

Michael Campion wasn’t just a kid. He was to Californians what JFK Jr. had been to the nation. The only child of our former governor Connor Hume Campion and his wife, Valentina, Michael Campion had been born into incredible wealth. He’d also been born with an inoperable heart defect and had been living on borrowed time for the whole of his life.

Through photos and newscasts, Michael’s life had been part of ours. He’d been a darling baby, a precocious and gifted child, and a handsome teenager, both funny and smart. His father had become a spokesman for the American Heart Association, and Michael was their adored poster boy. And while the public rarely saw Michael, they cared, always hoping that one day there would be a medical breakthrough and that California’s “Boy with a Broken Heart” would be given what most people took for granted—a full and vigorous life.

Then, back in January of this year, Michael had said good night to his parents, and in the morning his bedroom was empty. There was no ransom note. No sign of foul play. But a back door was unlocked and Michael was gone.

His disappearance was treated as a kidnapping, and the FBI launched a nationwide search. The SFPD did its own investigation, interviewing family members and retainers, Michael’s teachers and school friends, and his virtual online friends as well.

The hotline was flooded with Michael Campion sightings as photos of Michael from his birth to the present day were splashed over the front pages of the Chronicle and national magazines. TV networks and cable news ran documentary specials on Michael Campion’s doom-shadowed life.

The tips had led nowhere, and months later, when there’d been no calls from a kidnapper, and no trace of Michael had surfaced, terror attacks, wildfires, politics, and new violent crimes pushed the Michael Campion story off the front page.

The case was still open, but everyone assumed the worst. That a kidnapping had gone terribly wrong. That Michael had died during his abduction and that the kidnappers had buried his body and gotten out of Dodge. The citizens of San Francisco mourned along with Michael’s famous and beloved family, and while the public would never forget him, they put the book of his life aside.

Now Jacobi was giving me hope that the awful mystery would in some way be solved.

“Michael’s body has been found?” I asked him.

“Naw, but we’ve got a credible lead. Finally.”

I pressed the phone hard against my ear, ghost stories and the first annual getaway of the Women’s Murder Club forgotten.

Jacobi was saying, “If you want in on this, Boxer, meet me at the Hall—”

“I can be there in an hour.”
. . .