If Angels Fall
Authors: Rick Mofina
Tags: #Fiction, #Psychological, #Thriller, #Mystery, #Suspense
Praise
for the novels of Rick Mofina
BE MINE
"Rick Mofina is writing a fine series of thrillers: Swiftly
paced, entertaining, with authentic details of police procedure." - Dean
Koontz, #1
New York Times
Bestselling author of The Face and Fear
Nothing
BLOOD OF OTHERS
"Tense, realistic, and scary in all the right places."
James Patterson, #1
New York Times
Bestselling Author
"Another riveting read from one of the leading thriller writers
of the day." -
Penthouse
COLD FEAR
"A powerful gut wrenching thriller." -
The Midwest Book
Review
"Bursts with suspense. The action is so intense, the writing so
realistic, it's as if we are there during the search. This is a book to cause
icy shivers." - RT BookReviews Magazine
IF ANGELS FALL
"If you buy it for the flight, you'll be reading it on the
escalator." -
National Post
"Guaranteed to keep readers flipping the pages." -
The
Toronto Sun
THEY DISAPPEARED
"Rick Mofina's tense, taut writing makes every thriller he
writes an adrenaline-packed ride." - Tess Gerritsen
New York Times
bestselling Author
THE BURNING EDGE
"Tight and excruciating suspense ... a winner." - Jeff
Ayers,
RT BookReviews
IN DESPERATION
"A blisteringly paced story that cuts to the bone." -
James Rollins,
New York Times
bestselling author
THE PANIC ZONE
"The Panic Zone is a headlong rush toward Armageddon. It's
brisk pace and tight focus remind me of early Michael Crichton." -Dean
Koontz #1
New York Times
bestselling author
VENGEANCE ROAD
"Vengeance Road is a thriller with no speed limit! It's a great
read!" - Michael Connelly, #1
New York Times
bestselling author
SIX SECONDS
"Six
Seconds moves like a tornado." James Patterson, #1
New York Times
bestselling author
THREE TO THE HEART
(Anthology)
DANGEROUS WOMEN & DESPERATE MEN
(Anthology)
For Barbara, Laura, and Michael
If Angels Fall
Rick Mofina
Kindle
Edition December 2012
Print
Edition 2000
Copyright
2012 Rick Mofina
Copyright
2000 Rick Mofina
Cover photo (c) 2011 Ayat Shariati
ISBN 978-1-927114-08-7
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This
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the
creation of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance
to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is
entirely coincidental.
Danny saw
the girl
again.
As the subway train eased out of the Coliseum station, he looked up,
captivated by her frozen smile, her vacant stare, and the fact that she never
spoke.
Never.
She was dead.
Her throat had been cut and her body stuffed into a plastic garbage
bag hidden in Golden Gate Park.
She was two years old and her name was Tanita Marie Donner. Two
eleven-year-old girls from Lincoln Junior High found her during a science class
field trip.
“She looked like a little naked doll,” Natalie Jackson, one of the
girls, told a San Francisco TV station.
That was a year ago. The nightmares were now less frequent for the
schoolgirls. For most San Franciscans, Tanita’s murder was fading from memory
although her face still stared from bus shelters, store windows, and bumper
stickers, an image as familiar to the Bay Area as the Gold Gate or the
Transamerica Pyramid. For a time, it embodied San Francisco’s anguish. A
blurred, grainy blow-up of a color snapshot, Tanita timidly showing her tiny
milk-white teeth as Mommy coaxed a smile. Two pink butterfly barrettes held
back her brown hair. She was wearing a cotton dress with lace trim, and crushing
her white teddy bear to her chest. Her dark eyes shining like falling stars.
REWARD screamed in bold, black letters above her head. Below were
details of when and where Tanita was last seen alive. Twenty-five thousand
dollars was offered for information leading to an arrest in her murder. No
takers.
Tanita Marie Donner’s killer was still out there.
As the train worked its way through the transbay tunnel of the Bay
Area Rapid Transit system, three-year-old Daniel Raphael Becker remained
transfixed by a poster of Tanita Marie Donner.
“Who’s that, Dad?” he asked his father.
“Don’t point, Danny. She’s just a little girl. Now please sit still.
We’ll be home soon.”
Nathan Becker settled back in the seat, opened the business section
of Saturday’s
San Francisco Star
, hoping to finish a story he began at
home that morning before he and Danny left for the game. Nathan was a systems
engineer who commuted by CalTrain to Mountain View. The article was about his
firm which was on the brink of a revolutionary breakthrough. The game was a
yawner, the A’s were embarrassing the Yankees. Danny was bored, so they left
the Coliseum after the fifth. Just as well, because now they had to go all the
way to Daly City to pick up some artist’s brushes for his wife, Maggie. Nathan
had promised. It was a long ride, and he wished he hadn’t let Danny talk him
into taking BART. He got his fill of trains during the week. They’d cab it home
from the shop.
***
The day started like a typical summer Saturday for Nathan and Danny,
with one of their weekend-buddy excursions.
“Want to go to Oakland and see the A’s game today, Dan?” Nathan was
making scrambled eggs while Maggie slept upstairs.
“Can we do the wave, Dad?”
“You betcha.”
Danny laughed.
Nathan buffed his son’s hair and watched him eat. Danny’s eyes
radiated innocence. Blood of my blood. Miracle baby. How he loved him. But his
promotion to department head meant longer hours and rationing time with Danny
to weekends, leaving him to survive the week with glimpses of his son asleep,
glimpses stolen after tiptoeing into his room at the end of another
pressure-cooker day.
Jordan Park was a sedate neighborhood sheltered with stands of
feather-duster palms, a community of Victorian houses with billiard-table-green
lawns. An oasis for young professionals that was not quite as pretentious as
Pacific Heights. Today Nathan got to prove how unpretentious he was. Danny
wanted to take BART to Oakland.
“Let’s take the Beemer, Dan. We’ll put the top down?”
“I want to ride the train like you do, Dad. BART goes right under
the bay.”