3rd Degree (Women's Murder Club 3)

Jill had just re-done the place in the past year. Patterned couches, melon-colored walls, a tufted leather ottoman for a coffee table. The house was dark and silent. We checked around the familiar rooms. No reply. No Jill.

Claire exhaled and said, “This is really starting to give me the creeps.”

I nodded and squeezed her shoulder. “Me too.

“C’mon,” I said to Claire, “I’m going up to check upstairs. We’re going to check.”

Climbing the stairs, I couldn’t put aside the thought of a crazed Steve charging out of some room like in some teenage horror movie. “Jill… Steve?” I called out again. I tugged at my gun just in case.

Still no answer. The master bedroom lights were off. The big four-poster bed was made. Jill’s toiletries and makeup in the bathroom.

When I last spoke with her she was going to bed. I was about to go back into the hallway when I saw it.

Jill’s briefcase.

Jill didn’t go anywhere without her “traveling office.” It was a running joke. She didn’t go to the beach without her goddamn work.

I took a cloth and held it by the strap, loosely. I met Claire back in the hallway. She’d checked the other rooms. “Nothing…”

“I don’t like this, Claire. Her car’s in the driveway.” My eyes drifted to her case. “This… She slept here, Claire. But she never left for work.”

Chapter 63

I HAD NO IDEA how to get in touch with Steve.

It was late—who the hell knew where he was staying. And Jill had only been missing for the day. She could show up and be pissed over all the attention. There was nothing to do but wait and worry ourselves sick and, in my case, feel guilty.

I called Cindy and she was there in fifteen minutes. Claire called Edmund and said she was going to stay for a while, maybe the night.

We sat in Jill’s den, curled up on couches. There was always the chance she’d had a change of mind and gone to visit Steve, somewhere.

Around eleven my cell phone rang. But it was only Jacobi, checking in, telling me no one in the Berkeley bars they’d checked admitted to recognizing Hardaway. Then we all sat around without speaking. I don’t even remember what time we dozed off.

I woke a few times in the night, thought I heard something. “Jill?” But it wasn’t her.

First thing in the morning, I went home. Joe had made the bed and left the apartment looking tidy. I showered and called in to the office to say I’d be late.

An hour later I was down at Steve’s office in the Financial Center. I left the Explorer right there on the street. By the time I pushed through the office doors, I could barely control the panic I was feeling.

Steve was right there, in reception. He was practically draped over the receptionist, sipping a coffee, his leg perched casually on a chair.

“Where is she?” I said. I must’ve startled him because coffee splattered all over his pink Lacoste shirt.

“What the hell, Lindsay…” Steve held up his hands.

“Your office,” I said, glaring at him hard.

“Mr. Bernhardt?” the receptionist said.

“It’s okay, Stacy,” Steve said. “She’s a friend.” Yeah, right.

As soon as we were down in his corner office I slammed the door. “Are you nuts, Lindsay?” Steve said.

I pushed him into a chair. “I want to know now where she is, Steve.”

“Jill?” He turned up his palms and actually seemed confused.

“Cut the shit, you son of a bitch. Jill’s missing. She didn’t show up for work. I want to know where she is.”