All I could focus on was that we needed something firm — fast — before this guy who took the rings killed again.
I underwent my second transfusion. I watched the thick red blood drip into my vein. I prayed it was making me stronger, but I didn’t know. It had the slow, steady beat of a ticking clock.
And the clock was ticking. Mine, Chief Mercer’s.
Saturday at six, Jacobi closed his pad, put on his sport jacket, and tucked his gun into his belt. “See ya, Boxer,” he said.
Raleigh stopped by before heading out. “I owe you a beer. You want to collect?”
A beer would be nice, I thought. I was even growing used to Raleigh’s company. But something told me that if I went with him now, I’d let everything out: Negli’s, my treatments, the fear in my heart.
I shook my head. “Think I’ll stick around,” I said with a polite shrug.
“You got plans tomorrow?”
“Yeah. I’m meeting Claire. Then I’ll come in here. What about you?”
“Jason’s in a soccer tournament in Palo Alto. I’m taking both boys down.”
“Sounds nice.” It did sound nice. It had the ring of something I might miss out on in life.
“I’ll be back tomorrow evening.” He had given me his beeper the first day we hooked up. “I’m an hour away. Call if anything comes up.”
With Raleigh gone, my corner of the squad room became shrouded in silence. The investigation was shut down for the night. One or two of the night staff were chatting out in the hall.
I had never felt so lonely. I knew that if I went home now I’d be leaving behind some vital nexus to the case. Failing some unsaid promise I had made to Melanie. One more look, I said. One more pass.
Why would the killer take the rings?
A wave of exhaustion washed through my veins. My new fighting cells were sapping my strength even as they defended me, multiplied. The cavalry, charging in to the rescue. Hope attacking doubt. It seemed crazy.
I had to let David and Melanie sleep for the night. I bound the thick crime file up in its elastic cord and placed it in the gray bin marked “Open Cases.” Next to similar files, with similar names.
Then I sat at my desk in the dark squad room for a couple of minutes more. I started to cry.
Book Two
THE WOMEN’S MURDER CLUB
Chapter 26
BECKY DEGEORGE, in the bloom of her first full day as Michael’s wife, walked out of the hotel lobby holding her husband’s hand. She breathed in the cool night air, the first fresh air she had inhaled all day.
In the brief span of their marriage, she and Michael had made love several times and taken two steamy showers together. They had poked their heads out for an obligatory but, at last, final brunch with the families. They had begged off the trip to Opus One, scurried back upstairs, and popped a last bottle of champagne. Michael had put on a sex video and as they watched the film they played out some unusual and exciting roles. He seemed to have several fantasies about wearing women’s clothes.
Tomorrow, they’d be off to Mazatlan, for a heavenly week exploring all those sexy spots on his body she had yet to find. Maybe they’d even come out once or twice to see the dolphins.
So far, she decided, things were going very well.
Tonight, they were headed to the French Laundry, the finest restaurant in Napa. Everyone said it was the place to eat, and they had booked the reservation almost six months in advance. Becky’s mouth watered as she dreamed of some fabulous sequence of tastes: foie gras, wild-berry duck, all washed down with an expensive champagne.
On the short walk to the car, a black limo pulled up alongside them. The passenger window opened, and a uniformed driver stuck his head out. “Mr. and Mrs. De-George?”
They looked at each other, puzzled, then smiled. “That’s us.”
“I’m at your service,” the driver announced. “Compliments of the hotel.”
Becky was ecstatic. “You mean for us?” Once, in her job as a legal secretary, at a big closing, she had ridden in a fabulous stretch; but she had been jammed in the backseat with four preoccupied lawyers.