Claire said, “Okay, so let’s say he wasn’t into it. At least, not consciously. So he was saying, ‘No, no, no,’ but his body, especially if he was responding to touch, was saying yes.”
Yuki said, “And therefore, if he told her, ‘No, no, no,’ and she didn’t stop, that’s not consent and that’s the definition of rape.”
“So there’s your answer. What else?” Claire asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I have a feeling you have something else on your mind.”
“Oh, you’re good,” Yuki said. “It’s Brady.”
Jackson Brady, Yuki’s husband, was lieutenant in charge of the homicide squad, one floor up from where Yuki was sitting at her desk. Brady was hot, but that was the least of what anyone would say about him. He had put himself in the way of danger many times, including the heroic save of too many lives to count when their honeymoon was interrupted by a terrorist attack.
Claire said, “What about Brady? Is he all right?”
“Oh, he’s fine. What worries me is that he’s working sixty hours a week, and I’m spending every working hour on the rape case prep by myself.
“When we’re at home together, he’s wiped out. I start talking about Marc Christopher because I can’t talk to anyone else about it—you know?”
“I know. I understand.”
“And he falls asleep while I’m talking.”
“Two-career family, this happens,” said Claire. “Speaking from experience, last thing my husband wants to hear about is dead people. It’s not dinner conversation. Not pillow talk, either.”
“So, what about sex?” Yuki asked.
“You just have to make time for it, that’s all,” said Claire.
“You’d think that sleeping in the same bed would do it,” Yuki said. “But it’s been a while. A month, anyway. And a month before that.”
“You’ve brought this up with him?”
“Hah. No. Neither one of us is into talk about squishy feelings.”
“Yuki, I know you can figure this out if you try. Maybe less talk, more see-through nighties?”
“Okay, Claire. Thanks for, you know, that.”
“Maybe this drought has nothing to do with you, sweetie. Could be he’s just bone tired. But listen. Do not bring a gun into the bedroom, hear me?”
Yuki let loose with a long peal of laughter. The idea of pulling a gun on Brady was just hilarious. He would pull his.
“You sound better,” said Claire, laughing, too. “As for Brady, you’re both working at the top of your careers, right? Don’t make yourself crazy. That man loves you to death.”
Yuki said good-bye to her friend and thought about what she hadn’t said to her, what she was afraid of most. That Brady had lost interest in her. She had to be wrong about that.
Just had to be.
She went back to her case file and turned her mind, as best she could, to The People v. Hill.
CHAPTER 20
CINDY WAS IN her office at the Chronicle, writing a short follow-up piece on the indictment of Briana Hill for the Criminal Justice Calendar section of the paper, when she got a Google Alert about Marc Christopher.
She clicked on the page and saw that the article she had written after yesterday’s lunch at MacBain’s had spawned countless other articles. As it got picked up, the story was doing a fast and good job of blanketing the internet. The first story on the Google list had a thumbnail of a previously unpublished photo of the alleged rape victim, Marc Christopher.
The photo of Christopher showed him