The Burnt House

The Burnt House
Faye Kellerman

The sixteenth book in the hugely popular Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus series from New York Times bestselling author Faye KellermanAt 8.15am, a small green suburb of Los Angeles is turned into a fiery inferno by a commuter plane crash, plunging the city's emergency services into a major crisis.A month later, one mystery from the wreckage still remains unsolved. A woman's body - initially thought to be a stewardess - is instead revealed to be an undiscovered homicide, decades old. Who is this nameless victim? And why is the stewardess still missing?As they begin to unravel years of deception, Lieutenant Peter Decker and his team come closer and closer to the shocking truth – and a confrontation with a vicious killer.

THE BURNT HOUSE

FAYE KELLERMAN

Copyright (#u4ed9c3e9-232c-5df1-b5ae-30f1b3495387)

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/)

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2007

Faye Kellerman asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content or written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780007243204

Ebook edition: September 2008 ISBN: 9780007283583

Version: 2017-10-24

To Jonathan, my on-the-spot editor and shrink

And a very special thanks to Bill Kurtis for all his help

Contents

Title Page (#ua35b43f3-6451-5c19-88a8-0a13d5a06743)Copyright (#u1a4b9eb0-6b69-52e4-a23e-56886f8873b0)Dedication (#uc3ae3390-4605-5c9d-bc5b-5b5cfa80f1e0)The Burnt House (#u3ca2b623-5e0f-5322-9ea3-fa758dd8751e)Prologue (#u81f8e41c-a3cb-50a6-9d41-8df9a6294421)Chapter One (#u207b7397-9516-54f5-a94e-c85c8a1acfa4)Chapter Two (#uf1bbd672-c84a-59e3-a7f1-3264adad4cd1)Chapter Three (#u20313efd-c812-58e9-8d33-d986ddb2d87b)Chapter Four (#ucc3596d1-9f0b-54da-b9e4-296247ce6aa9)Chapter Five (#u364f1a85-eebd-5d7a-8b75-269cb80c6706)Chapter Six (#u970e31f8-788c-5e48-b46c-2a644811ca28)Chapter Seven (#u80476ed3-5ecd-5afc-aa7f-c2acd71ca966)Chapter Eight (#uae69de8f-038e-5dda-8816-dc5627bf2cda)Chapter Nine (#ubb1f1274-abcb-554f-8c2f-2817090d9ca1)Chapter Ten (#u6e5dae2d-879a-5e19-9bac-9a25efa4dd36)Chapter Eleven (#ua9e8eeed-ec08-5137-8f2b-37c26802c19e)Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty One (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty Two (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty Three (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty One (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty Two (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty Three (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Forty (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Forty One (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Forty Two (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Forty Three (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Forty Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Forty Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Forty Six (#litres_trial_promo)Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)Also By Faye Kellerman (#litres_trial_promo)About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

THE BURNT HOUSE (#u4ed9c3e9-232c-5df1-b5ae-30f1b3495387)

PROLOGUE (#u4ed9c3e9-232c-5df1-b5ae-30f1b3495387)

AT EIGHT-FIFTEEN IN the morning on a balmy Los Angeles winter’s day, a 282 Lucent Industry Aircraft, better known as WestAir flight 1324, took off from Burbank Airport holding forty-seven commuters. The ETA to its final destination, San Jose, California, was one hour and six minutes and the ride was expected to be smooth and uneventful. The skies were blue, the wind gentle, and the heavens’ visibility was unobstructed in all directions. Sixty-seven seconds later, with its nose still headed skyward, it inexplicably yawed to the left, did a 360 rotation on its axis, and began to plunge down until it clipped a power line, thundered its last hurrah, and burst into flames, the explosion so great that it was heard five miles away.

The main bulk of the fiery fuselage landed on a three-story apartment house in the Granada Hills section of the West Valley, transferring its inferno to the residential structure. Windows shattered, gas pipes detonated, and electrical wires arced blue lightning through the skies. The eighteen-unit building crafted from stucco and wood was swallowed by flames that spanned every color of the rainbow. The noise was so deafening that it drowned out the human screams. The stench of fire, smoke, and fuel oil that infused the air was toxic and suffocating. Oxygen was choked out of the atmosphere. Flesh burned alongside metal and leather. Debris were scattered and windblown for hundreds of feet. Within a heartbeat of time, a green suburban landscape had been transformed into an unimaginable holocaust of hell.

1 (#u4ed9c3e9-232c-5df1-b5ae-30f1b3495387)

THE CEREAL SPOON stopped midair. Rina turned to her husband. “What was that?”

“I don’t know.” The lights flickered and died along with the TV, the refrigerator, and probably everything in the house electrical. Decker reached over and picked up the portable phone. He punched in one of the landlines but got no response.

Rina lowered the spoon into the cereal bowl. “Dead?”

“Yep.” Decker flicked the light switch on and off, a futile gesture of hope. It was eight in the morning and the kitchen was bathed in eastern light that didn’t require electrical augmentation. “Something blew. Probably a major transformer.” He frowned. “That shouldn’t affect the phone lines, though.” He pulled out his cell and tried to contact someone on a landline at work. With no response coming from the other end, Decker knew that the damage was widespread.

The Los Angeles Police Department’s West Valley substation—Devonshire Division in another age—was a few miles away from where Decker lived. When this kind of thing happened, the place was a madhouse, a switchboard of panicked people with emergency lines ringing off the hook. “I should go to work.”

“You didn’t eat,” Rina said.

“I’ll grab something from the machines.”

“Peter, if it’s just a transformer, there isn’t anything you can do about it. You’ll probably have a long day. I think you should fuel up.”

There was logic to that. Decker sat back down and poured some skim milk into his cereal bowl, already laden with strawberries and bananas. “I suppose the squad room can wait another five minutes.” They ate in silence for two bites. He noticed the wrinkle in Rina’s brow. “You’re concerned about Hannah.”

“A little.”

“I’ll stop by the school on my way to work.”

“I’d appreciate it.” Rina tried to think of something to say to distract both of them. The default conversation was the kids. “Cindy called yesterday. She and Koby are coming over Friday night for dinner.”

“Great.” A pause as Decker finished his cereal. “How are the boys?”

“I talked to Sammy yesterday. He’s fine. Jacob only calls before Shabbos or if he’s upset. Since he hasn’t called, I’m assuming everything’s okay.”

Decker nodded, although his mind was racing through emergency procedure. He stood and tried the land phone again. The machine was still lifeless. “Is the den computer still plugged into a battery pack?”

“I think so.”

“Let me try something.” Decker unplugged the small, portable, kitchen TV and lugged it into the back den. Rina followed and watched her husband drop to the floor and insert the electrical cord into one of the empty sockets. The seven-inch screen sprang to life. Decker tried one of the local stations. The TV was color but showed only images in shades of black and gray.

“What are we looking at?” Rina asked.

“A fire.” As if to underscore Decker’s pronouncement, a billowing cloud of orange flames materialized. His cell jumped to life. “Decker.”

“Strapp here. Where are you?”

For the captain to be calling him on his cell, something was really wrong. “At home. I’m just about to leave—”

“Don’t come into the station. We’ve got a dire situation. Plane crash on Seacrest Drive between Hobart and Macon—”

“Good Lord—”

“What?” Rina asked.

Frantically, Decker waved her off.

“Is it Hannah?”