Cactus Heart - [23]
The room was as fragile as old crystal. I looked around for some reassuring signs of Lindsey as I had known her, realizing that everything had changed somehow. Shelves and shelves of books: fiction, poetry, philosophy, a little history. Photos of Mayan ruins from a trip she made three years ago. Photos of us on the beach in San Diego from earlier this year. Mexican Day of the Dead art, one of her many eccentric enthusiasms. Two personal computers, CD-ROM, printer, scanner and modems on a butcher block suspended on a pair of old filing cabinets. X-Files calendar. A large print of Emily Dickinson. A barrel cactus with a blue ribbon around it. Her big tomcat Pasternak fell against me and purred loudly.
“The more you know about me, the less you’re going to want to be with me.” She leaned in against me.
“That’s not true,” I said. “And you’re not a monster, Lindsey.”
“You wouldn’t know, Dave. You love my legs.” I needed to laugh and we both did. There was a fundamental kindness in Lindsey and she would always let me off the hook.
“Just hold me,” she said softly. “Don’t try to make any sense of things. Just hold me all night.”
13
She was gone by the time the alarm went off next morning. For a long minute, I luxuriated in her scent, our scent, embedded in the sheets. Then the memory of last night’s bad news came back and I sat up quickly. There was a Post-It note on the pillow: just the imprint of her lips in dark lipstick. I tucked it fondly in my pocket. Then I showered, fed the cat, locked up and drove downtown.
If weather really matched our moods, it would have been cold and gray outside. Instead, it was just another beautiful Phoenix day: seventy degrees, fourteen percent humidity, not a cloud in sight. The radio was playing the pop love song of the season-hard to believe I once measured my romances by such things. All the way down Central, I was stuck behind a car with Quebec tags, my first snowbird sighting of the season. The tag was imprinted with Je me souviens-“I remember”-a reference to the French defeat on the Plains of Abraham in 1759 that ensured British domination of North America. Somebody appreciated history. I remembered Lindsey’s kisses, the softness of her black hair, the sensation of my fingers lightly stroking the downy skin on the small of her back, the sound of her love moans and gasps. I remembered too damned many good-byes in my life.
Over on the AM, Dr. Sharon was lecturing a caller about people needing to act like adults and take responsibility for their actions. I agreed with her, but I also knew human beings are remembering animals. With memory comes baggage and fear. I didn’t know if any two people could make it for long nowadays, but if they did, somehow they had to find a way to make peace with their individual histories and make a new one together. Then they only needed all the luck available in the world. The romantic philosophy of Deputy David Mapstone-fat lot of good it’s done me. Dr. Sharon signed off with her trademark: “You can do it!”
I could do it. I had stopped by home for a change of clothes when the phone rang. It was the sheriff’s communications center and a message had been left for me: Mr. Max Yarnell, chairman of Yarneco and brother of the kidnapped twins, would see me at eleven o’clock. I changed clothes again, this time into a suit.
Yarneco took up the entire 20th floor of the Yarneco Tower on North Central, only a few blocks from my house. The skyscraper had been built for Dial Corp. in the early 1990s, and it resembled a copper-colored deodorant stick, or a vehicle for deep-space travel, or maybe a marital aid-anyway, it was the most dramatic building on the Central Corridor. I liked it.
When the elevator opened, Hayden Yarnell was waiting for me. He was entombed in an oil painting that took up the better part of a darkly paneled wall in the reception area. Snowy-haired and dressed in a dark suit and stiff Herbert Hoover collar, he gazed out at a future that had seen the Yarnell Land & Cattle Co. evolve into an international concern. His eyes looked black. A gold watch chain dangled tantalizingly from his vest.
Next to the patriarch was a museum-quality display of the company’s history and present-day structure. This was the age of the dot-com, but somehow Yarneco made piles of money the old-fashioned way. Yarneco owned mines in Arizona and Chile, defense contractors in California and Ohio, and a land development division responsible for huge projects around the Southwest. It was, a panel said, the largest privately held company in the state.
Before I could read further, I was met by a pleasant-looking young blonde in a very pleasant-looking powder-blue suit with a short skirt. She introduced herself as Megan, Mr. Yarnell’s assistant. He was running late, but I could wait in his private conference room. She led me through another dark-paneled room, where I couldn’t help noticing behind a counter two muscular, short-haired young men in suits with roomy jackets-roomy like Peralta’s, designed to conceal substantial firearms. They looked me over carefully as I followed Megan up a spiral staircase and through two heavy wood doors into the Yarneco inner sanctum.
A handsome young New York professor comes to Phoenix to research his new book. But when he's brutally murdered, police connect him to one of the world's most deadly drug cartels. This shouldn't be a case for historian-turned-deputy David Mapstone – except the victim has been dating David's sister-in-law Robin and now she's a target, too. David's wife Lindsey is in Washington with an elite anti-cyber terror unit and she makes one demand of him: protect Robin.This won't be an easy job with the city police suspicious of Robin and trying to pressure her.
A cache of diamonds is stolen in Phoenix. The prime suspect is former Maricopa County Sheriff Mike Peralta, now a private investigator. Disappearing into Arizona's mountainous High Country, Peralta leaves his business partner and longtime friend David Mapstone with a stark choice. He can cooperate with the FBI, or strike out on his own to find Peralta and what really happened. Mapstone knows he can count on his wife Lindsey, one of the top "good hackers" in law enforcement. But what if they've both been betrayed? Mapstone is tested further when the new sheriff wants him back as a deputy, putting to use his historian's expertise to solve a very special cold case.
Cincinnati homicide Detective Will Borders now walks with a cane and lives alone with constant discomfort. He's lucky to be alive. He's lucky to have a job, as public information officer for the department. But when a star cop is brutally murdered, he's assigned to find her killer. The crime bears a chilling similarity to killings on the peaceful college campus nearby, where his friend Cheryl Beth Wilson is teaching nursing. The two young victims were her students. Most homicides are routine, the suspects readily apparent.
Cheryl Beth Wilson is an elite nurse at Cincinnati Memorial Hospital who finds a doctor brutally murdered in a secluded office. Wilson had been having an affair with the doctoras husband, a surgeon, and this makes her a aperson of interesta to the police, if not at outright suspect. But someone other than the cops is watching Cheryl Beth.The killing comes as former homicide detective Will Borders is just hours out of surgery. But as his stretcher is wheeled past the crime scene, he knows this is no random act of violence.
The private-detective business starts out badly for former Phoenix Deputy David Mapstone, who has teamed up with his old friend and boss, Sheriff Mike Peralta. Their first client is gunned down just after hiring them. The case: A suspicious death investigation involving a young Arizona woman who fell from a condo tower in San Diego. The police call Grace Hunter's death a suicide, but the client doesn't buy it. He's her brother. Or is he? After his murder, police find multiple driver's licenses and his real identity is a mystery.
Будущее Джимми Кьюсака, талантливого молодого финансиста и основателя преуспевающего хедж-фонда «Кьюсак Кэпитал», рисовалось безоблачным. Однако грянул финансовый кризис 2008 года, и его дело потерпело крах. Дошло до того, что Джимми нечем стало выплачивать ипотеку за свою нью-йоркскую квартиру. Чтобы вылезти из долговой ямы и обеспечить более-менее приличную жизнь своей семье, Кьюсак пошел на работу в хедж-фонд «ЛиУэлл Кэпитал». Поговаривали, что благодаря финансовому гению его управляющего клиенты фонда «никогда не теряют свои деньги».
Очнувшись на полу в луже крови, Роузи Руссо из Бронкса никак не могла вспомнить — как она оказалась на полу номера мотеля в Нью-Джерси в обнимку с мертвецом?
Действие романа происходит в нулевых или конце девяностых годов. В книге рассказывается о расследовании убийства известного московского ювелира и его жены. В связи с вступлением наследника в права наследства активизируются люди, считающие себя обделенными. Совершено еще два убийства. В центре всех событий каким-то образом оказывается соседка покойных – молодой врач Наталья Голицына. Расследование всех убийств – дело чести майора Пронина, который считает Наталью не причастной к преступлению. Параллельно в романе прослеживается несколько линий – быт отделения реанимации, ювелирное дело, воспоминания о прошедших годах и, конечно, любовь.
Егор Кремнев — специальный агент российской разведки. Во время секретного боевого задания в Аргентине, которое обещало быть простым и безопасным, он потерял всех своих товарищей.Но в его руках оказался секретарь беглого олигарха Соркина — Михаил Шеринг. У Шеринга есть секретные бумаги, за которыми охотится не только российская разведка, но и могущественный преступный синдикат Запада. Теперь Кремневу предстоит сложная задача — доставить Шеринга в Россию. Он намерен сделать это в одиночку, не прибегая к помощи коллег.
Опорск вырос на берегу полноводной реки, по синему руслу которой во время оно ходили купеческие ладьи с восточным товаром к западным и северным торжищам и возвращались опять на Восток. Историки утверждали, что название городу дала древняя порубежная застава, небольшая крепость, именованная Опорой. В злую годину она первой встречала вражьи рати со стороны степи. Во дни же затишья принимала застава за дубовые стены торговых гостей с их товарами, дабы могли спокойно передохнуть они на своих долгих и опасных путях.
Из экспозиции крымского художественного музея выкрадены шесть полотен немецкого художника Кингсховера-Гютлайна. Но самый продвинутый сыщик не догадается, кто заказчик и с какой целью совершено похищение. Грабители прошли мимо золотого фонда музея — бесценной иконы «Рождество Христово» работы учеников Рублёва и других, не менее ценных картин и взяли полотна малоизвестного автора, попавшие в музей после войны. Читателя ждёт захватывающий сюжет с тщательно выписанными нюансами людских отношений и судеб героев трёх поколений.