Believing that it would be a waste of time to contact the Del Mar Fertility Center and ask them to disclose confidential client information, Sami, with Al trailing behind, rushed straight to her desk.

“Any chance you’d like to share with me why you’re in a foot-race?” Al asked.

“You’ll see.”

When they reached her desk, Sami, one of the few people in the Western world to still use a Rolodex, flipped through the alphabet until she reached the Fs.

Her fingers couldn’t dial the number fast enough.

“Keep your fingers crossed,” Sami said to Al.

“Foster residence.”

Sami couldn’t make out the woman’s accent, but she definitely sounded European. “Good afternoon. This is Detective Sami Rizzo calling from Metro Homicide. May I speak to Judge Foster, please?”

“I am sorry but he is on vacation and will not be back for two weeks.”

That seemed odd, Sami thought. Just a short time ago the Resuscitator brutally murdered his daughter, and he felt cheery enough to take a vacation?

“May I ask who I’m speaking to?”

“My name is Helga. I am the Fosters’ housekeeper.”

“Helga, this is a high-priority police emergency and I really need to contact him. Can you please give me his cell phone number?”

Long silence. “I am terribly sorry but I cannot do that. Judge Foster would fire me if I gave his personal number to anyone. Even the police.”

“Okay, I can appreciate that. How about calling him and asking him to contact me? Could you do that?”

“I am sorry. I cannot.”

“Listen to me, Helga, and listen carefully. We are moments away from apprehending the serial killer who murdered Genevieve Foster. But without Judge Foster’s help, the killer is going to slip through our fingers. How do you think the judge would feel if we passed up an opportunity to catch this guy?”

“It broke my heart when Genevieve was murdered. Poor Judge Foster still cries when anyone mentions her name. I just don’t know what to do.”

“Do the right thing and call the judge immediately.”

Again, a long silence. “May I have your telephone number, please, Detective.”

“We just got a call from Doctor Fisher,” Doctor Hastings said. “He can be here in less than forty-eight hours.”

Julian sat in Hastings’s office feeling somewhat relieved that he had a forty-eight-hour window to take care of business. How he would ultimately solve the problem, he wasn’t yet sure. To make things even more trying, dealing with the policeman posted by her door would most certainly limit his options. What he had to do was address the situation before McKenzie went into surgery. No matter how skilled a surgeon, there was no way he could make a purposeful blunder in surgery without his esteemed colleagues recognizing his actions.

“Based on the medical information we shared with Fisher, what’s his opinion?” Julian asked.

“Well, as experienced as he is with stress-induced cardiomyopathy, he didn’t offer a lot of hope.”

“That’s not good news,” Julian said.

“According to Fisher, no matter what we do, she will ultimately need a transplant. Her troponin levels are off the charts: 425 nanograms per milliliter. As you know, at 500, her heart muscle is virtually dead. There are too many critical issues to deal with. The surgical procedures we’re facing are merely to keep her alive until we can find a suitable donor.”

Well, I’m going to do everything in my power to ensure that she never makes it to the operating table.

“This better be good,” Judge Foster warned. “What’s so important that you have to pester me halfway around the world, Detective?”

“Helga didn’t brief you?” Sami said.

“I didn’t give her a chance to.”

“I’m truly sorry to trouble you on your vacation, but—”

“Vacation? Do you actually think I’d take a vacation right after my daughter was murdered?”

“Sorry, Judge, that’s what Helga told me.”

“Helga cooks and cleans. That’s it. I don’t share my personal life with her.”

Sami was curious what the judge was doing “halfway around the world,” as he coined it, if he wasn’t on vacation, but she didn’t dare ask. “Well, whatever you’re doing Judge Foster, I hope—”

“Considering that so many people seem to have a sudden interest in my personal activities, let me tell you, Detective Rizzo, what I’m doing. Were you aware that over a billion people worldwide drink filthy, polluted, bacteria-infested water?”

“I never heard that, Judge.”

“It’s a pitiful fact. And one of the worst places on the planet per capita is the Fiji Islands. That’s where I’m calling from right now. I’m on the board of directors for an organization called Clean Water International. We organize mission trips to areas where people desperately need clean water. The volunteers install a simple, ingenious filtration system that converts swamp water into ninety-nine-percent-clean drinking water. Do you have any idea how many children die from dysentery every day? The number is staggering.” His voice suddenly softened. “I can understand why it seems strange that I would leave San Diego while my daughter’s killer is still at large. To be honest with you, I just couldn’t stand being in that city any longer. My entire family thinks I’ve lost it, and maybe I have. Working here in Fiji, helping these poor people gives me a reason to get up in the morning.” Now his voice was unsteady.

Sami could hear him breathing heavily into the cell phone. She guessed that it was hard for him to show his human side. From her experiences with judges, most were steel-fisted. His story touched her heart. But at this particular moment, Sami had to stay focused on her agenda.

“I guess you didn’t contact me to hear a lecture about water pollution, right, Detective? Please, tell me that you apprehended my daughter’s killer.”

“Well, Judge, with your help we can do exactly that.” She told him about the fertility center, the fact that the perp was likely a donor, and the court order she so desperately needed to access their database.

“A court order like this, Detective Rizzo, is a slippery slope. I turned my head the other way when you asked me for a stack of search warrants, and you can’t even begin to imagine how badly I want that monster to rot in jail. But…” The phone went silent. “How quickly do you need it?”

“Not to sound disrespectful, Judge, we need it yesterday.”

“A court order is not like a warrant. It’s a very delicate matter. Don’t forget that I’m thousands of miles away. How do you propose I sign a court order?”

“Does it require a wet signature to be valid?”

“There has to be an original document on file with a wet signature, but you can serve a copy to the fertility center.”

“So your intern can draft a court order based on your instructions and e-mail it to you as an attachment. You can print it, sign it, scan it, and e-mail it back to your office. You’ll have the original on your person, and I can use a copy to serve the center.”

By the long pause, Sami hoped he was weighing the issue carefully.

“I’m really uncomfortable with the legal and ethical implications, Detective Rizzo. What you’re asking me to do really pushes the legal envelope.”

“I appreciate that, Judge Foster. But you must also understand that there is another young woman lying in a hospital bed right now, fighting for her life. What this maniac did to her is unspeakable. Somehow, she survived. Please don’t let him hurt another woman.”

“Well, Detective, I’m less than two years away from retirement. And if the timeline gets shortened, it might not be the worst thing in the world. I only hope I don’t end up in front of a judicial committee on ethics charges.”

“If your court order results in an arrest, and we get this guy off the streets, I don’t think anybody would question your ethics.”

A long silence.

“Okay, Detective, you’ve got your court order. I’ll have it completed and signed within the hour. Now find this scumbag and put his ass behind bars.”

The moment Sami disconnected the call, she clenched her fist like Tiger Woods after sinking a twenty-foot putt, and yelled, “Yes!”

Al, standing next to Sami, listening to her half of the conversation with Helga and Judge Foster, clapped his hands. “Well done, Sami. Well done.”

Detective Chuck D’Angelo sat opposite Captain Davidson in the small conference room and nervously drummed his fingers on the metal table.

“Mind telling me what the fuck is going on, Chuck?” Davidson barked.

“I think everyone is blowing this way out of proportion. Especially Rizzo. She’s got it in for me and I have no idea why.”

“This has nothing to do with Detective Rizzo and you know it.”

“She’s trying to hang me out to dry.”

“Then how about we call the IT people and listen to the conversation you had with the anonymous caller before you transferred the call to her? That should clear things up, no?”

D’Angelo thought for a moment. “That’s not necessary, Captain.”

“We’ve known each other for a long time. Talk to me, Chuck.”

He weighed the captain’s request. “There’s a PI I’ve been acquainted with for a few years. Every once in a while we cross paths. He’s helped me out a few times, and I’ve returned the favor.”

“And every time you’ve scratched each other’s back it’s been on the up-and-up?” Captain Davidson asked.

“Not everything has been squeaky-clean, but we never broke the law. You’ve been out there, Captain. You know what it’s like. Nothing would ever get done if we played by all the rules.”

“Why did this guy call you?”

“Because he thinks one of his clients might be the Resuscitator. He didn’t want to just call in on the hotline, so he contacted me and asked who he should speak to. When I got the call, and he explained to me what was going on, I transferred the call to Rizzo.”

“Let me get this straight. You get a call from a guy, he tells you that he thinks he can finger our perp, and you just transfer the call to Sami?”

Chuck nodded. “That’s right.”

“Are you fucking shitting me? You get a lead like this and you just transfer the call as if it was a telemarketer selling time-shares in Timbuktu? Why didn’t you say something to me so we could nab the guy and bring him in for questioning?”

“He wanted to remain anonymous.”

“Why?”

“I never asked.”

“You didn’t find it strange that this guy would pass on a ten-thousand-dollar reward?”

“I guess it never occurred to me?”

“C’mon, Chuck. Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to? You’re way too experienced a detective to overlook something so obvious. The guy wanted to remain anonymous cause his fingernails are dirty.” The captain fixed his stare on D’Angelo. “And you know what I think, Chuckie Boy? I think some of that dirt has rubbed off on you. You’re less than two months away from retirement. Do you really want to jeopardize your pension and face possible criminal charges?”

“Please don’t do this, Captain.”

“You did it to yourself. Now give me the guy’s name.”