Jonathan Kellerman_Petra Connor 02 by Twisted Page B

woman not unlike his mother—smiled as he boarded. But for the most part everyone wanted to rest.
    The Somnolent Express.
    Before being wakened, his dreams had been pleasant. Something featuring Detective Connor.
    Petra.
    Had he been in it? He wasn’t sure.
    She
had. Lithe and graceful, that efficient helmet of black hair.
    The crisp features. Ivory skin, blue vein tracings at the periphery . . .
    She wasn’t anywhere close to the contemporary female ideal: blond, busty, bubbly. She was the antithesis of all that, and Isaac respected her doubly for being herself, not giving in to crass social pressures.
    A serious person. There seemed to be very little that amused her.
    She always dressed in black. Her eyes were dark brown, but in a certain light, they appeared black as well. Searching eyes—
working
eyes—not vehicles for flirtation.
    The overall impression was a young Morticia Addams, and Isaac had heard other detectives refer to her as Morticia. But also as “Barbie.” That he didn’t get.
    There was plenty about Hollywood Division, about police work in general, that continued to elude him. His professors thought academia was complex, but now, after time spent with cops, it was all he could do not to burst out in laughter at departmental meetings.
    Petra was no Barbie.
    Just the opposite. Focused, intense.
    He’d lain awake in bed more than once, imagining what her breasts looked like, only to shake himself out of that, appalled at his vulgarity.
    Small, firm breasts—stop.
    Still . . . she was a beautiful woman.

CHAPTER
    9
    P etra stayed at her desk until well after midnight, forgetting about Isaac and his theories and anything else that didn’t relate to the Paradiso shootings.
    She talked to some Hollywood gang cops and their cohorts in Ramparts. They’d heard nothing about the killings being turf-related but promised to keep checking. Then she attempted to recontact all eighteen kids she’d interviewed in the parking lot.
    Twelve were home. In five cases, scared and/or indignant parents tried to block access. Petra charmed her way past all of them but the teens reiterated complete ignorance.
    Among the six she didn’t reach were her two nervous ones, Bonnie Ramirez and Sandra Leon. No answer at either number, no machines.
    She got on the computer, figuring to surf her way through some more missing kid sites. Her mail tag was up so she checked that first.
    Departmental garbage and an e-mail from Mac Dilbeck.

    p: luc and i were out in the field today nothing at our end, what about yours? there’s talk if we don’t make progress of giving it over to HOMSPEC wouldn’t that be fun. maybe we should pick your genius kids brain we could use a good brain to pick around here. m.
    She e-mailed back:

    nothing plus nothing equals you-know-what. going home. tomorrow i check out a couple of nervous w’s. planning to take the genius along. though if you want him you can have him. p.
    But once she logged off and got her purse from her locker, the thought of an empty apartment repelled her. Filling herself a cup of detective-room coffee, she bought some insomnia.
    Someone had left half a box of sweet rolls out by the machine. The pastries looked none too fresh—the custard ones were hardening around the edges. But the apple seemed passable so she brought it back to her desk along with the mocha-flavored Liquid Plumber.
    Kaplan and Salas had left and no one had replaced them. She sat there alone, going through old messages and nonessential mail, filling out a long-overdue pension form and one for departmental health insurance.
    What remained was Isaac’s summary.
    June 28.
    She separated the Hollywood cases from the others, copied down the vics’ names, got back on the computer, and logged on to the station’s stat file.
    Just as Isaac claimed, all four remained open. Of the four primary D’s assigned to the case, she recognized two.
    Neil