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."

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.

Copyright © 2008 by James Patterson.