Page 85 of The 24th Hour

I turned away and tapped Brady’s direct line into my phone.

“We’re in Rae’s house,” I said. “Did Christophe give up who killed her?”

“He wouldn’t talk to me. So I sent in Paul Chi.”

Brady is heavily muscled and rarely smiles. From a perp’s point of view, Brady looks like he could mash human flesh into pulp. Chi, on the other hand, is about five six and cagey. So regardless of whether or not Christophe could read people, Chi could likely outfox him.

And he did.

CHAPTER 111

CONKLIN TURNED THE car off Pacific Coast Highway south to John Tyler Drive, the entrance to Pepperdine’s Malibu campus. There was a parking area at the junction where the road split and continued along the perimeter of the campus while the other road forked into one of the parking lots.

We were looking for a late-model silver Porsche convertible registered to Brock Picard. We had to track him down.

First, locating his car would tell us if he was on campus. There was no place we could park where we could see all the cars in the main lot. So, we drove between the rows, weaving a path, passing many expensive cars, some of them silver, all with parking stickers on the windshields, many with Greek affiliation bumper stickers on the back.

I saw the car at the end of the row we were plowing.

“Slow, Richie. I think that’s it.”

My partner braked behind the Porsche, blocking it in. There were vehicles on both sides of the car and, since it wasthe last row in the lot, a curb behind it with landscaping in an enclosed bed. The Porsche was a convertible, and the top was down. A young man wearing a brown jacket was lying in the front seat, his knees bent, his feet on the passenger-side upholstery, his head on the driver’s-side armrest. His eyes were closed.

It was Brock Picard, Rae and Christophe’s son. I recognized him from Jamie’s funeral.

Using hand gestures and one-word sentences, Conklin and I unlocked and opened our doors. Brock was a light sleeper or maybe not sleeping at all. He bolted upright, saw Conklin, and vaulted out of his car. He ran alongside the Porsche, through the curb-contained plantings, and ducked under the branches of a sapling. And he kept going.

My partner and I yelled at Brock to stop running, that we were police, but a bullet whizzed past my ear as he headed uphill toward a block of buildings. We chased him up the twisting walkway from the parking lot, where he ran across the street and into a large building markedADMINISTRATION. Conklin and I were of the same mind. We split up, Conklin following Brock into the admin building while I circled around the right side of it in the hope of cutting him off, should Brock attempt to escape through the back entrance.

It was a large building and circling around it was no joke, but I forced myself to move as quickly as I could without stumbling and falling to the ground. As I finished circling the building, I saw up ahead to my right a semi-cylindrical building that looked like a large tube lying on its side.

I spotted Brock running down the steps of what appeared to be a small amphitheater with Conklin several lengthsbehind him. Brock was making for the semi-cylindrical building and was able to reach it before I could cut him off or Conklin could overtake him from behind.

Brock opened the heavy double doors in the tubular structure and entered just as Conklin and I converged a few steps from the doors and a few seconds late. Out of nowhere, two campus cops appeared.

I flashed my badge and shouted, “We’re detectives from San Francisco! The guy in the brown jacket. He’s wanted for murder. Please clear students from the area.”

One of the campus cops dropped away. The other stayed with us as backup. I peeled off my jacket as I ran and left it on the grass nearby. The Kevlar vest I wore under my coat was stenciled SFPD front and back, ID in case of gunfire.

As I turned to the campus cop and asked him what building this was, I was struck by the wall facing the amphitheater. It consisted entirely of stained glass.

The policeman said, “That’s Stauffer Chapel.”

Conklin asked him about ways inside.

“There is a pair of double doors, heavy ones, inside the grillwork protecting the glass. But there are also a couple of service doors down toward the other end that open near the altar.”

“Please lead the way,” I said. Conklin was quick off the mark. I was still breathing hard and I had somehow turned my ankle. The pain was catching up with me. Even so, I ran toward the chapel with the campus cop and kept my partner in sight.

CHAPTER 112

CONKLIN FOLLOWED THE path Brock had taken toward the glass wall of the chapel. I had fallen behind Conklin, and the campus cop—twenty years my senior—was jogging behind me.

“Hey, hey, slow down,” he called out.

“Catch up!” I shouted back.

“I’m Jerry,” the campus cop shouted to me. “Stay with me.”

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