1st to Die (Women's Murder Club 1)

“Please, Nick,” Chessy said, pulling herself off the floor. “Susan will be here soon. We’re going to lunch.”

It was the notion that Chessy thought she could just sit there and judge him that really set him off. Didn’t she see who she really was? Just some blonde with freckles he had picked out of a cattle call and turned into God’s gift to Martha Stewart.

He grabbed her by the arm and put his face inches from her beautiful, terrified eyes. “Say it!”

The arm he held was trembling. A tiny stream of mucus ran out of her nose. “Jesus, Nick…”

That’s what he liked, her fear of him, even though she never showed it in public.

&nb

sp; “I said say it, Chessy.” He twisted her arm behind her back.

She was breathing heavily now, sweat forming under her T-shirt. Her little tits poked through. When she glared back at him with her paltry defiance, he twisted harder, digging his fingers into her arm. He shoved her toward the bedroom, her bare feet stumbling along.

In the bedroom he kicked the door shut.

Who did the lead cop think she was? Coming in here… accusing him like that. In her cheap Gap ensemble. What a fucking insolent bitch.

He dragged Chessy into the clothes closet. Hers. It was dark in there. Only the dark and her sobs and the pervasive smell of her perfume. He pushed her forward against the wall, rubbed himself against her buttocks.

He pulled Chessy’s gym shorts down, her panties along with them. “Please,” she cried. “Nicky?”

He found the familiar place where her small cheeks parted. He was very hard, and he pushed himself in deep.

He was driving himself inside Chessy. “Say it,” he gasped. “You know how to make it stop. Say it.”

“Ruff …,” she finally murmured in a tiny whisper.

Now she was loving it, as she always did. It wasn’t bad — it was good. They all ended up wanting and loving it. He always picked them so well.

“Ruff,” she whimpered. “Ruff, ruff. Is that what you want, Nick?”

Yes, that was part of what he needed. It was all he expected from Chessy.

“You love it, Chessy,” he whispered back. “That’s why you’re here.”

Chapter 78

WE KEPT A CLOSE WATCH on Jenks’s movements with a surveillance team of three cars. If he made a move to dump the gun, we’d know. If he moved to kill again, we hoped we could stop him. No matter how clever he was, I didn’t see how he could execute another murder right now.

I wanted to speak with someone who knew him, who might be willing to talk. Raleigh had mentioned an ex-wife, a history of violence between them. I needed to talk with her.

It wasn’t hard to track down Joanna Jenks, now Joanna Wade. A search through the police files had her maiden name listed as part of the domestic complaint she had filed against her husband years before. A Joanna Wade was currently residing at 1115 Filbert Street on Russian Hill.

It was an attractive limestone town house on the steepest part of the hill. I buzzed, identified myself to the housekeeper who answered. She informed me that Ms. Wade was not at home. “Ehersizing,” she said. “Gold’s Gym. On Union.”

I found the gym around the corner between a Starbucks and an Alfredson’s market. At reception, a buffed, ponytailed staffer informed me that Joanna was in Exercise Room C. When I asked what Joanna Wade looked like, the staffer laughed. “Think blond. And kick-ass fit.”

I wandered in, and through a large observation window, spotted a Tae-Bo class in Exercise Room C. About eight women sweating in Lycra and jog bras were kicking their legs out karate style to loud music. I knew that Tae-Bo was the latest exercise craze, the biggest burn. Any one of these women looked as if she could take a resisting suspect up against a wall, then beat the patrol car back to the precinct with breath to spare.

The only blonde was in front. Trim, sculpted, pushing herself hard and barely breaking a sweat. It was her class.

I hung around until she finished up and most of the class had rushed out. She toweled the sweat off her face.

“Great workout,” I said, as she headed my way.

“The best in the Bay Area. Looking to sign up?”