3rd Degree by James Patterson, Andrew Gross Page A

STOLE AWAY for a quick lunch with Cindy Thomas. Dim sum at the Long Life Noodle Company in Yerba Buena Gardens.
    “You see the Chronicle this morning?” she asked, a pork dumpling sliding off her chopsticks as we sat on a ledge out-side. “We lowered the boom on X/L.”
    “Thanks,” I said. “I won't be needing you to run a follow-up.”
    “So, now it's your turn, right, to do a little rhythm for me.”
    “Cindy, I'm thinking this isn't going to be my case much longer, especially if anything leaks out to the press.”
    “At least tell me” - she looked at me solidly - “if I should be feeling these two murders are related?”
    “What makes you think they're related?”
    “Gee,” she chortled, “two big-time businessmen murdered in the same city two days apart. Both of them ran companies on the wrong side of the headlines lately.”
    “Two totally different MOs.” I held my ground.
    “Oh? On one hand, we have a greedy corporate high roller sucking off tens of millions while his sales are going to rot; the other's hiding behind a bunch of high-priced lobby-ists trying to screw poor people. Both are dead. Violently. What was the question, Linds? Why do I think they might be related?”
    “Okay.” I exhaled. “You know our arrangement? Absolutely nothing gets into print without my okay.”
    “Someone's targeting these people, aren't they?” She didn't mean the two already dead. I knew what she was saying.
    I put the noodle container down. “Cindy, you keep your ear to the ground across the bay, don't you?”
    “Berkeley? I guess. If you mean pitching in with a couple of `real-life success' pep talks in Journalism 403.”
    “I mean under the radar. People who're capable of causing trouble.” I took in a breath and looked at her worriedly. “This kind of trouble.”
    “I know what you mean,” she said. She paused, then shrugged. “There is stuff happening over there. We've all become so used to being part of the system, we forget what it's like to be on the other side. There are people who are growing... how should I put it... fed up. There are people whose message just isn't getting out.”
    “What kind of message?” I pressed.
    “You wouldn't hear it. For God's sake, you're the police. You're a million miles away from these things, Lindsay. I'm not saying you don't have a social conscience. But what do you do when you read that twenty percent of the people don't have health insurance or that ten-year-old girls in Indonesia are pressed into stitching Nikes for a dollar a day. You turn the page, just like I do. Lindsay, you're gonna have to trust me if you want me to help.”
    “I'm going to give you a name,” I said. “This can't appear in print. You run it around on your own time. Anything you find, no copyeditors. No `I have to protect my sources.' You come to me first. Me, only. Are we right on this?”
    “We're right,” Cindy said. “So give me the name already.”

Womans Murder Club 3 - 3rd Degree

Chapter 30
    “BEAUTIFUL,” Malcolm whispered, his eyes narrowed through surgeon's operating lenses at the bomb on the kitchen table.
    With still hands, he twisted the thin red and green wires that ran from the explosive brick into the terminal on the blasting cap and molded the soft, puttylike C-4 into the frame of the briefcase. “It's a shame to have to blow this up,” he exclaimed, admiring his own work.
    Michelle had come into the room and she placed a hand tremulously on Mal's shoulder. He knew this scared the shit out of her - wiring the thing, current and charges going everywhere.
    “Relax, honey. No juice, no boost. It's the most stable thing in the world right now.”
    Julia was on the floor, listening to the TV, the auburn wig ditched after her assignment last night. There was a news interruption about the murder at the Clift. “Listen.” She turned it up.
    “While police are not yet linking Bengosian's death to Sunday's bombing at the home of a prominent Bay Area tycoon,