The Burnt House

FAYE KELLERMAN

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

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

Title PageCopyrightDedicationThe Burnt HousePrologueChapter OneChapter TwoChapter ThreeChapter FourChapter FiveChapter SixChapter SevenChapter EightChapter NineChapter TenChapter ElevenChapter TwelveChapter ThirteenChapter FourteenChapter FifteenChapter SixteenChapter SeventeenChapter EighteenChapter NineteenChapter TwentyChapter Twenty OneChapter Twenty TwoChapter Twenty ThreeChapter Twenty FourChapter Twenty FiveChapter Twenty SixChapter Twenty SevenChapter Twenty EightChapter Twenty NineChapter ThirtyChapter Thirty OneChapter Thirty TwoChapter Thirty ThreeChapter Thirty FourChapter Thirty FiveChapter Thirty SixChapter Thirty SevenChapter Thirty EightChapter Thirty NineChapter FortyChapter Forty OneChapter Forty TwoChapter Forty ThreeChapter Forty FourChapter Forty FiveChapter Forty SixKeep ReadingAbout the AuthorAlso By Faye KellermanAbout the Publisher

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

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.”