12th of Never (Women's Murder Club 12)

Cindy felt the sting of truth. Tears welled up and spilled over. Rich came to her and tried to put his arms around her, but she shook him off, said, “Don’t touch me. Please don’t.”

“Let’s go home,” he said. “I’ll drive your car. I’ll get a ride in the morning.”

The truth was opening her up, but the price of the truth was the loss of Richie.

“Rich. I’m sorry that I can’t be … I’m sorry that I’m not like other women. But I’m not. I didn’t want to face it, but you’re completely right. I’ve been keeping walls up because I knew that if I admitted that we want different things, this would be over.”

She had been wearing Rich’s mother’s ring for almost a year. She pulled at it until it came off, and then she pushed it at Richie. He grunted as if he’d been punched in the belly. But he took the ring, closed his hand around it, then put it into his pocket.

Cindy felt light-headed. Had she meant to break up with him? Her face was wet from the rain. Oh, my God. Richie.

“It’s not that I don’t love you,” she said. “I do.”

“And now you’re going to say that love isn’t enough?” His voice was cracking. He was crying, too.

Cindy reached up, took Richie’s dear face in her hands, and kissed him. Then she released him and turned toward the car.

“I’ll pick up my clothes in the morning,” Rich said. “I’m going to make sure you get home okay.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I want to.”

“Where will you go?”

“Don’t worry about it, Cindy. I can always find a place to sleep.”

This was happening too fast, but it felt inevitable. Cindy opened her car door, got inside, and waited for several minutes as Rich got to his car, then pulled up behind her. His headlight beams filled the interior of her car with a cold and lifeless illumination.

Cindy released the brakes and turned the wheel, astounded at what she had done and that Rich had let her do it.

As she drove along Jackson, she had a flash of understanding.

Rich had gotten her to break up with him. He’d been loaded with determination when he arrived at Susie’s. She should have known it from the look on his face.

Rich had already met someone else.

Chapter 46

I SAT WITH Claire on the fire stairs between the third and fourth floors of the Hall. Claire looked hungover and depressed.

“So the mayor says to me, ‘Claire, I gotta cut your pay.’ ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Why?’ And he says, ‘We’re not budgeted for two medical examiners.’

“You getting this, Lindsay? He’s installing a hack in my office and he’s cutting me back to half pay. What a freaking insult. You know how many dead people came through my doors last year? I’ll tell you. Two thousand three hundred and nine. It only cost the city about a thousand bucks a person. I’m already doing the work of two medical examiners.”

It was true. Along with running her department, supervising her staff, and overseeing the processing of thousands of deceased human beings, Claire also managed Dr. Clapper and the entire forensic lab at Hunters Point.

“And by the way,” she said, “I didn’t actually lose Faye Farmer’s body. I was robbed.”

Claire lit another cigarette. She had stopped smoking about five years ago.

“How did you leave things with the mayor?”

“I said, ‘Yes, sir. I live to serve, sir.’ I’ve got a kid in college. I can’t afford to tell him to shove it.”

“It really sucks, Butterfly, but it’s not forever.”

“What did you get from Jeff Kennedy?”