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

I had never felt so connected to another person, or to a place. I arched against him silently, the lake lapping gently at our sides. I thought, If I speak, it will change everything.

Afterward I just lay there, tremors of warmth radiating through my body. I never wanted this to end, but I knew that it had to end. Reality always gets in the way, doesn’t it?

Chapter 101

SOMETIME THAT EVENING, I found myself starting to cry.

I had made spaghetti carbonara, and we ate in the moonlight on the deck with a bottle of pinot noir. Chris put a cello concerto by Dvoák on the stereo, but eventually we switched to the Dixie Chicks.

As we ate, Chris asked about where and how I had grown up.

I told him about my mom, and how my dad had left when I was just a kid; how she had worked as a bookkeeper at the Emporium for twenty years. How I had practically raised my sister.

“Mom died of breast cancer when she was only fifty.” The irony of this certainly wasn’t lost on me.

“What about your father? I want to know everything about you.”

I took a sip of wine, then told him how I’d only seen him twice since I was thirteen. At my mother’s funeral. And the day I became a cop. “He sat in the back, apart from everybody else.” Suddenly, my blood became hot with long-buried feelings. “What was he doing there?” I looked up, my eyes moist. “Why did he spoil it?”

“You ever want to see him?”

I didn’t answer. Something was starting to take shape in my head. My mind drifted, struck by the fact that here I was, maybe the happiest I had been, but it was all built on a lie. I was blinking back the impact of what was going through my mind. Not doing real well.

Chris reached over and grasped my hand. “I’m sorry, Lindsay. I had no right to…”

“That’s not it,” I whispered, and squeezed his hand. I knew it was time to really trust him, time to finally give myself over to Chris. But I was scared, my cheeks trembling, my eyes holding back tears.

“I have something to tell you,” I said. “This is a little heavy, Chris.”

I looked at him with all the earnestness and trust my worried eyes could manage. “Remember when I almost fainted in the room with Jenks?”

Chris nodded. Now he looked a little worried. His forehead was furrowed with deep lines.

“Everyone thought I was just freaked out, but it wasn’t that. I’m sick, Chris. I may have to go into the hospital soon.”

I saw the light in his eyes suddenly dim. He started to speak, but I put my finger to his lips.

“Just listen to me for a minute. Okay?”

“Okay. I’m sorry.”

I poured out everything about Negli’s. I was not responding to treatments. Hope was fading. What Medved had warned only days before. I was in stage three, serious. A bone marrow transplant might be next.

I didn’t cry. I told him straight out, like a cop. I wanted to give him hope, to show him I was fighting, to show him I was the strong person I thought he loved.

When I was done, I clasped his hands and took a monumental breath. “The truth is, I could die soon, Chris.”

Our hands were tightly entwined. Our eyes locked. We couldn’t have been more in touch.

Then he placed his hand gently on my cheek and rubbed it. He didn’t say a word, just took me and held me in the power and softness of his hands and drew me to him.

And that’s what made me cry. He was a good person. I might lose him. And I cried for all the things we might never do.

I cried and cried, and with each sob he pressed me harder. He kept whispering, “It’s all right, Lindsay. It’s all right. It’s all right.”

“I should’ve told you,” I said.

“I understand why you didn’t. How long have you known?”