“I mean, like partners. Watching you across the room. Tomorrow we have to interrogate Jenks. Big day for both of us.”
His fingers teased my breasts, then the back of my neck. He was driving me crazy. “You don’t have to worry,” he said. “Once the case is made, I’m going back. I’ll stick around for the interrogation.”
“Chris,” I said, as a chill shot through me. I had gotten used to him.
“I told you we weren’t going to be partners forever.” He bent down, inhaling the smell of my hair. “At least not that kind of partners.”
“What kind does that leave?” I murmured. My neck was on fire where his hands caressed me. Oh, let this go somewhere, I begged inside. Let this go all the way to the moon.
Could I just tell him? It was no longer that I couldn’t find a way. It was just, now that we were here, I didn’t want it to end.
I let him take me into the bedroom.
“This keeps getting better and better,” I whispered.
“Doesn’t it? I can’t wait to see what happens next.”
Chapter 90
I HAD JUST GOTTEN TO MY DESK the following morning. I was flipping the Chronicle to the continuation of Cindy’s article on Jenks’s arrest when my phone rang.
It was Charlie Clapper. His crime scene team had spent most of the night meticulously going over everything in Jenks’s house.
“You make a case for me, Charlie?” I was hoping for a murder weapon, maybe even the missing rings. Something solid that would melt Jenks’s sneering defiance.
The CSU leader let out a weary breath. “I think you should come down here and see.”
r /> I grabbed my purse and the keys to our work car. In the hallway, I ran into Jacobi. “Rumors say,” he grunted, “I’m no longer the man of your dreams.”
“You know you should never believe what you read in the Star,” I quipped.
“Right, or hear from the night shift.”
I pulled myself to a stop. Someone had spotted Chris and me last night. My mind flashed through the red-hot copy that was probably running through the office rumor mill. Behind my anger, I knew that I was blushing.
“Relax,” Jacobi said. “You know what can happen when you get caught up in a good collar. And it was a good collar.”
“Thank you, Warren,” I said. It was one of those rare moments when neither of us had anything to hide. I winked and hit the stairs.
“Just remember,” he called after me, “it was the champagne match that got you on your way.”
“I remember. I’m grateful. Thank you, Warren.”
I drove down Sixth to Taylor and California to Jenks’s home in Sea Cliff. When I arrived, two police cars were blocking the street, keeping a circle of media vans at bay. I found Clapper — looking weary and un-shaven — catching a brief rest at the dining room table.
“You find me a murder gun?” I asked.
“Just these.” He pointed to a pile of guns in plastic bags on the floor.
There were hunting rifles, a showcase Minelli shotgun, a Colt automatic .45 pistol. No nine millimeter. I didn’t make a move to examine them.
“We went through his office,” Clapper wheezed. “Nothing on any of the victims. No clippings, no trophies.”
“I was hoping you might’ve come across the missing rings.”
“You want rings?” Clapper said. He wearily pushed himself up. “His wife’s got rings. Plenty of them. I’ll let you go through them. But what we did find was this. Follow me.”
On the floor of the kitchen, with a yellow “Evidence” marker on it, was a crate of wine, champagne. Krug. Clos du Mesnil.