Private: #1 Suspect by James Patterson, Maxine Paetro Page A

the murder weapon had been found, and if the killer had written, called, or left a message for me to find.
    “The killer was a pro. This was a well-planned murder, and it can only have been a setup to frame me. We’re working overtime until we nail the shit who killed Colleen.”
    At that, the door to the conference room opened and Justine came in, tall, slim, elegant in navy-blue suit and cream-colored silk blouse.
    “Sorry,” she said, taking the seat next to mine.
    “We’re just wrapping up,” I said. “You want to report on Danny Whitman?”
    “Possible new case,” she said to the group. “Young movie star with a criminal zipper problem. I’m meeting him today.”
    “Thanks, Justine. Anyone else?”
    “I need a few minutes with you, Jack,” Justine said. “If you can spare the time.”
    I adjourned the meeting. And after the room emptied, I closed the door and sat down next to Justine.

CHAPTER 38
     
    SEVEN YEARS AGO, after I returned from the war, I went into therapy, saw an excellent guy, Josh Moskowitz, who specialized in vets like me. That is, ex-military who’d gone through bloody hell and weren’t adjusting too well back home.
    Like many of us, I had night terrors.
    I kept hearing those boys in the bombed-out rear section of the CH-46, screaming as the helicopter went up in flames.
    Dr. Moskowitz had an office in Santa Monica, a little office in a tall building on Fifteenth Street. I didn’t know it then, but Dr. Justine Smith worked in the same building.
    I ran into her in the elevator one night, was thunderstruck in a way that you can’t explain by describing hair and eyes and curves. I rode up ten floors just staring at her before I realized that the elevator wasn’t going down.
    She’d laughed at me, or maybe she just enjoyed seeing me go from zero to smitten in sixty seconds. Next time I saw her, I held the elevator door open, told her my name, and asked her to have dinner with me.
    She said okay.
    It was as if she’d cupped her hands around my heart.
    Justine was a couple years younger than I was and maybe a decade wiser. Beautiful. Smart. Worked in a mental hospital most of the week, had a private practice and saw a handful of patients on Mondays and Wednesdays.
    We had dinner together at a little Italian place out at Hermosa Beach, and I talked through it all. I told her more about myself over that one dinner than I’d told her since. I sensed she was a safe person, trustworthy, accepting, and she must have thought I was the kind of person who could open up.
    Later she said that I was like a clam. With a rubber band around my shell. I laughed it off, said that she’d now met my real self when not in crisis. By the time we had that conversation, we were already in love.
    Now Justine sat in a leather chair, swiveling gently from side to side. I came around the table and sat down next to her. Her face looked stiff.
    She was so angry at me.
    “I have a job offer,” she said. “A good one.”
    “That didn’t take long.”
    “I’ll complete my cases, including the new one if it’s a go. I didn’t give an answer yet, but that’s just negotiation. I’ll probably take the job.”
    “I know this is a long shot, Justine, but imagine that I’m actually innocent here. Imagine that I never needed you more than I need you now.”
    “Okay, Jack. Now you imagine that I just don’t care anymore.”

CHAPTER 39
     
    JUSTINE WAS AT the wheel of her midnight-blue Jaguar, Scotty in the passenger seat beside her. They turned off Melrose, passed under the arched gates of the Harlequin Pictures lot, and stopped at the guard booth.
    Justine said to the guard, “Justine Smith to see Danny Whitman.”
    The guard ran his finger down a list on his laptop, did a visual match between the picture on Justine’s driver’s license and her face. He said her name into a phone, then turned back to her and said, “Take a right, then left on Avenue P. Keep going until you see 231 on the corner of