The 9th Judgment
Authors: James Patterson,Maxine Paetro
Tags: #Fiction, #Thrillers, #General, #Suspense, #FIC031000
The Women’s Murder Club
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)
1st to Die
A complete list of books by
James Patterson is on pages 360–361.
For previews of upcoming books by James Patterson
and more information about the author, visit
Copyright © 2010 by James Patterson
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced,
distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Visit our website at
www.hachettebookgroup.com
First eBook Edition: April 2010
Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The
Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette
Book Group, Inc.
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and
not intended by the authors.
ISBN: 978-0-316-08817-6
Contents
Prologue: A THIEF IN THE NIGHT
To Suzy and John
and Jack and Brendan
A THIEF IN THE NIGHT
SARAH WELLS STOOD on the roof of the carport and snaked her gloved hand through the hole she’d cut in the glass. Her pulse
was thudding in her ears as she unlocked the double-hung window, opened the sash, and slid quietly into the darkened room.
Once inside, she flattened herself against the wall and listened.
Voices rose from the floor below, and she heard the clanking of silverware against china.
Good timing,
Sarah thought.
In fact, perfect.
But timing and execution were two different things entirely.
She switched on her miner’s headlamp and took a 180-degree illuminated tour of the bedroom. She noted the console table to
her left, which was loaded with whatnots. She had to watch out for that table and the scatter rugs on the slick hardwood floors.
The lithe young woman quickly crossed the space, shut the door between the bedroom and hallway, and headed to the open closet,
which smelled faintly of perfume. Leaving the door open just a crack, Sarah played her light over racks of clothing. She parted
a curtain of long, beaded gowns, and there it was: a safe in the closet wall.
Sarah had bet on this. If Casey Dowling was like most socialites, she dressed for her dinner parties and wore her jewels.
Chances were that she’d left her safe unlocked so she could put her jewels away later without having to punch in the combination
again. Sarah tugged lightly on the safe’s handle—and the heavy door swung open.
It was a go.
But she had to work fast. Three minutes, no more.
Sarah’s headlamp lit up the contents of the safe while leaving her hands free to frisk the jumble of satin envelopes and silk-covered
boxes. Way in the back was a brocaded box the size of a small loaf of bread. She undid the latch and lifted the lid on the
mother lode.
Sarah gasped.
She’d read stories about Casey Dowling for two months and seen dozens of photos of her at society events, glittering with
jewels. But she hadn’t expected the sheer weight of diamonds and precious stones, the gleaming mounds of baroque pearls.
It was cra-zzzy. Casey Dowling owned all of this.
Well, not for long.
Sarah plucked bracelets and earrings and rings out of the box and stowed them in one of her two small duffel bags, the straps
of which crisscrossed her chest. She paused to study a particular ring in its own leather case, to marvel at the frickin’
wonder of it—when lights flashed on in the bedroom only yards from where she stood in the closet.
Sarah snapped off her light and dropped to a crouch, her heart rate shooting into overdrive as she heard the living, booming
voice of Marcus Dowling, superstar actor of theater and the silver screen, bickering with his wife as he came into the room.
Sarah tucked all five feet eight of herself into a ball behind gowns and garment bags.
God, she was stupid.
While she’d been ogling the jewels, the Dowlings’ dinner party had ended, and now she was going to get caught and be imprisoned
for grand larceny. Her. A high school English teacher. It would be a scandal—and that was the least of it.
Sweat broke out under Sarah’s knit cap. Drops of it rolled from her underarms down the sides of her black turtleneck as she
waited for the Dowlings to switch on the closet light and find her squatting there, a thief in the night.
CASEY DOWLING WAS trying to squeeze an admission from her husband, but Marcus wasn’t having it.
“What the hell, Casey?” he snapped. “I wasn’t staring at Sheila’s boobs, for Christ’s sake. Every single time we get together
with people, you complain that I’m leering, and frankly, sweetheart, I find your paranoia very unattractive.”
“Ohhhh no, Marcus. You? Leer at another woman? I’m soooo ashamed of myself for even having had the thought.” Casey had a lovely
laugh, even when it was colored with sarcasm.
“Silly cow,” Marcus Dowling muttered.
Sarah imagined his handsome face, the thick gray hair falling across his brow as he scowled. She imagined Casey, too—her willowy
shape, her white-blond hair falling in a silvery sheet to her shoulder blades.
Casey cooed, “There, there. I’ve hurt your feelings.”
“Forget it, love. I’m not in the mood now.”
“Oh. Sorry. My mistake.”
Sarah felt the rebuff as if it had happened to her. Then Marcus said, “Oh, for pity’s sake. Don’t cry. Come here.”
The room went quiet for a few minutes, until Sarah heard a
whoosh
of bodies falling into plumped bedding, then murmuring—words she couldn’t make out. Then the headboard began to tap against
the wall, and Sarah thought,
Oh dear God, they’re doing it.
Images came to her of Marcus Dowling in
Susan and James
with Jennifer Lowe and in
Redboy
with Kimberly Kerry. She thought of Casey in Marcus’s arms, her long legs wrapped around him. The tapping became more rhythmic
and the moaning became louder and then there was a long, groaning exhalation from Marcus, and then—mercifully—it was over.
Someone used the bathroom after that, and
finally
the room went black.
Sarah squatted quietly behind the curtain of gowns for at least twenty minutes, and when the breathing outside the closet
settled into sputters and snores, she opened the door and crawled to the window.
She was almost home free—but not there yet.
Sarah was quick and quiet as she vaulted to the windowsill, but when one leg followed the other, she hit the side of the console
table—and it all went wrong.
There was the tinkling of sliding whatnots as the table tipped and then crashed, sending its load of picture frames and perfume
bottles to the floor.
Holy crap.
Sarah froze, mind and body, as Casey Dowling bolted into a sitting position and yelled, “Who’s there?”
Sarah’s stark fear propelled her out the window. She hung on to the roof of the carport with all the strength in her fingertips,
then released her grip and made the ten-foot drop.
She landed on grass, knees bent, no pain. And as the Dowlings’ bedroom light came on overhead, Sarah ran. She ripped off her
headlamp and stuffed it into one of the duffels as she sprinted through the upscale San Francisco neighborhood of Nob Hill.
A few minutes later Sarah found her old Saturn where she’d left it in the parking lot outside a drugstore. She got into the
car, closed the door, and locked it, as if that could keep out her fear. She started up the engine and released the hand brake,
still panting, trying not to throw up as she drove toward home.
When she hit the straightaway of Pine Street, Sarah pulled off her cap and gloves, wiped her brow with the back of her hand,
and thought hard about her escape from the Dowlings’ bedroom.
She’d left nothing: no tools, no prints, no DNA. No nothing.
For now, at least, she was safe.
Honestly. She didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.
CASEY’S EYES FLEW open in the dark.
Something had crashed. The table by the window! She felt a breeze on her face. The window was open. They never opened that
window.
Someone was inside the house.
Casey sat up. “Who’s there?” She clutched the blankets to her chin and screamed, “Marc! Someone is in the room.”
Her husband groaned, “You’re dreaming. Go back to sleep.”
“Wake up! Someone is
here,
” she hissed.
Casey fumbled with the table lamp, knocked her glasses onto the floor, found the switch, and turned on the light.
There.
The console table was turned over, everything broken, curtains blowing in the breeze.