“Slightly.”
“And I asked you to call me after you got home and made sure everything was okay. And I made you promise you would, in spite of the fact that I knew you thought I was being ridiculous.”
“Okay.”
“Well, I was even more paranoid than you thought. It turns out I’ve had a little more experience with domestic violence than most people, and it struck me not as likely, exactly, but certainly not impossible that Greg would figure out where Allie had run to and would follow her there to try and get her back. That kind of stuff happens all the time. Not that I thought he’d have a gun with him—that never occurred to me—but it might get ugly. And the more I thought about it, given the fact that I always believed the guy was a killer, the more worried I got about it.”
“You should have called me back a third time.”
“Perhaps, but since you obviously already thought I was insane if not downright ridiculous around the topic, I called Abe instead and ran it down for him. And, God bless him, because he’s a paranoid parent, too, he thought I might have a point. At least enough of one to be worth going by your place and the two of us meeting up, and if you called me and told me everything was cool, we’d just go back to our respective homes. But you never did. So when we got worried enough, I sneaked up and listened at the door and heard a male voice. I knocked, with Abe there beside me, backing me up. And the rest, as they say, is history.”
“No,” she said. “History is a reasoned account of all the facts that have proved important in explaining human progress.”
“That, too.” Hardy leaned his head back against the chair, a grin tickling at the corner of his lips. “And you, my darling daughter, are turning into just a little bit of a wiseass.”
“Gee,” she said. “I wonder where I would have gotten that.”
Acknowledgments
This book got its start when I made a visit to Executive Director Renee Espinoza at the office of Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) on Mission Street in San Francisco. Renee showed me around the office and the neighborhood and was extremely generous with her time and expertise.
About midway through this story, I found myself stymied by the motivations of some of my main characters. Fortuitously, at a dinner party, I got into a discussion with Cora Stryker, a wonderful writer and winner of the UC Davis Maurice Prize in long-form fiction, and she effortlessly turned the key in what had been a locked door, and the motivations all clicked into place. Thanks, Cora, you saved me on this one.
My brother-in-law, Mark Detzer, Ph.D., was extremely helpful in clarifying some important psychological issues that arose as the story progressed. Also within my family, I’ve been inspired by the next generation and some of the details of their education, lives, and work—my daughter and (brand-new) son-in-law, Justine and Josh Kastan, my son, Jack, and my niece, Robyn Shaffer.
On a day-to-day basis, I remain forever grateful to the diligence, sparkling personality, and total efficiency of my assistant, Anita Boone, a mind reader and organizer extraordinaire without whom not only would these books of mine not appear in anything like a timely manner, but also the plants in my office would die. Also, here’s a general thank-you to some folks who have kept life fun and interesting this past year: my partners in the Guys’ Book Club—Max Byrd, Geoff Owen, Herb Berkoff, Tom Hedtke, and Andy Wallace; Alan Heit (Abe Glitsky’s prototype); my brothers, Mike and Emmett; Frank Seidl, Bob Zaro, Chuck Krouse, and Glenn Nedwin.
As with all of my other legal books, this one owes much of its verisimilitude and flavor to the brilliant Alfred F. Giannini, Esq. Al missed his true calling as a book editor, but he made up for it with forty or so years of prosecuting homicides in San Francisco and San Mateo counties, and I have been blessed to be a recipient of some of his vast store of legal (and all sorts of other arcane) knowledge.
Several people have generously contributed to charitable organizations by purchasing the right to name a character in this book. These people and their respective organizations are: Karl Bakhtiari and Steve Rutledge (Serra Fund A Dream); Neal Schreckinger and Maureen Barrett (Brenda Novak’s Online Auction for Diabetes Research); Richard and Connie Adams (San Francisco Court Appointed Special Advocates); and Kathy Pelz (Napa County Library Literacy Center/Charitybuzz.com).
Taking great care of the entire social media package, including my Web page (www.johnlescroart.com), blog, Facebook, Twitter (www.twitter.com/johnlescroart), is the inimitable Dr. Andy Jones (poet laureate of the city of Davis, CA). I’d also like to thank Doug Kelly and Peggy Nauts, who have been giving a last editing pass on my books for most of the past decade. Hopefully, by the time they’re done, we’ve caught the last of all the typos and grammatical and factual errors that seem to want to show up in the finished book.
I am proud to be published by Atria Books, so thank you very much to my publisher, Judith Curr, and my editor, Peter Borland, for giving me the opportunity to work with one of the best imprints in the world. Thanks also to the efforts of the publicity and marketing departments at Atria, especially the indefatigable David Brown.
Finally, I truly love to hear from my readers, and I invite one and all to stop by any of the sites mentioned above and join the party.
JOHN LESCROART is the author of twenty-five previous novels (sixteen New York Times bestsellers), including The 13th Juror, Damage, The Hunter, The Ophelia Cut, and The Keeper. His books have sold more than 10 million copies and have been translated into twenty-two languages in seventy-five countries. He lives in Northern California.
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ALSO BY JOHN LESCROART
The Keeper
The Ophelia Cut
The Hunter
Damage
Treasure Hunt
A Plague of Secrets
Betrayal
The Suspect
The Motive
The Second Chair
The First Law
The Oath
The Hearing
Nothing But the Truth
The Mercy Rule
Guilt
A Certain Justice
The 13th Juror
Hard Evidence
The Vig
Dead Irish
Rasputin’s Revenge
Son of Holmes
Sunburn
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by The Lescroart Corporation
Photo Illustration and Design by Tony Mauro
Author Photograph © 2015 by Will Mosgrove
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First Atria Books hardcover edition May 2015
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lescroart, John T.
The fall : a novel / John Lescroart. — First Atria Books hardcover edition.
pages ; cm
I. Title.
PS3562.E78F35 2015
813'.54—dc23
2014046310
ISBN 978-1-4767-0921-5
ISBN 978-1-4767-0923-9 (ebook)
Contents
Epigraph
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Part Two
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Part Three
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Acknowledgments
About John Lescroart