The 8th Confession (Women's Murder Club 8)

Joe was laughing.

“Ohh man, I’m sorry,” I said.

“Forget it, Blondie, it’s good to hear your voice, no matter how snarly you are.”

“I’ve got good reason to snarl.”

I caught Joe up fast, telling him about Sara Needleman’s death and that Jacobi was restraining Cindy in virtual handcuffs so that our snake killer didn’t slither down a hole.

“Any leads on the doer?”

“Too many and none,” I said. “We’re going to start throwing darts at the phone book pretty soon. And by the way, when are you coming home?”

As I paced a circle around Cappy McNeil’s desk, Joe said he was hoping that he’d be back in a week or so and that we should make plans to do something fun, dress up, celebrate his return.

I kissed the little holes in my cell phone, heard kisses in my ear, and then I went back to Jacobi’s office. I sat down next to Conklin cheek-to-cheek on the cheap credenza, the warmth of his hip and arm making me think about him and about Joe, and making me ask myself yet again why each man had a grip on me that clouded my feelings for the other.

Conklin leaned forward, almost parking his nose in Cindy’s hair, saying to her, “Like you said, it might be the same killer coming out of retirement. Or he might be a copycat.”

“Either way, he’s a repeater,” Jacobi growled. “We can’t tip him off. We need every advantage because we’re nowhere, Cindy, and I’ll give you any odds: if he can, this guy is going to kill again.”

Chapter 61

YUKI WAS SCARED out of her mind.

She couldn’t remember any day when she’d felt as special as she did with John “Doc” Chesney. And it seemed that the feeling was fantastically mutual.

Oh God. Twice now, he’d played his eyes over her face until her cheeks burned and she had to say something, anything, because she just couldn’t take so much attention.

Doc had met her early that morning out at the beach. He was wearing a navy-blue parka over his jeans, a color that turned his eyes bluer, his sandy hair blonder, the dazzling entirety of his being enough to make Brad Pitt jealous.

Yuki had cautioned herself not to get too gaga on their first real date, not to let her moony eyes show, reminded herself that she’d been a bitch when she’d first met Doc and he’d liked that about her.

And so she’d gotten a grip on herself and they’d spent the day exploring Crissy Field, a very pretty park that ran along the shoreline from Marina Green to Fort Point, a Civil War fort that was lodged underneath the Golden Gate Bridge.

She’d jogged a bit faster along the path than Doc did, laughed at him for not keeping up until he sprinted past her, kicking up a little sandstorm and calling over his shoulder, “Hey, girlie, just try and catch me.”

She’d collapsed on a weathered bench, laughing and panting, and he’d come back to her, also blowing hard, dropping down beside her, the smell of him filling her up, making her knees shake.

“You’re a show-off, you know?” he’d huffed, staring at her until she’d said, “Oh, look,” and pointed to the bobbing heads in the bay.

“Coconuts?”

“You’re kidding me, right? Those are sea lions.”

“You like all this nature stuff?” he’d said, untying his Reeboks, shaking out the sand. “All this big sky, these creepy life-forms —”

“Crabs and jellyfish —”

“As I was saying, you nature-lover —”

“Oooooooh, Doc, that really hurts.” Yuki laughed. “By the way, New Yorkers don’t have a lock on skyscrapers. I like cities as much as you do.”

“Yeah? Prove it.” He’d grinned, showing her that his whole act was just that — an act.

But she’d proved it anyway, named her top-ten architects, seven of whom turned out to be his favorites, too, and told him about San Francisco landmarks, putting her Golden Gate Bridge up against his Throgs Neck any day of the week, her Folsom Street against his Fifth Avenue, and then she’d asked him what ocean he could see from midtown Manhattan.

Doc gave her props for “the ocean thing,” and they walked together to the Warming Hut, where they sat now at a small table, hot cocoa in hand, their cheeks flushed, grinning at each other as if their feelings were gold coins they’d found in the back pockets of their jeans, never having seen them before.