10th Anniversary (Women's Murder Club 10)

Chapter 36

CINDY STARED at her computer monitor, far too aware of the timer in the left-hand corner ticking off the seconds toward her four-o’clock deadline.

Oh, man, she was so stuck.

After nailing yesterday’s deadline, she still didn’t know how to write this story. The heartrending and truly terrifying interviews with the rape victims were quite vivid in her mind, but she couldn’t name the witnesses, couldn’t quote the nurses, and there was no “source close to the police,” because the cops weren’t actually working the case.

Cindy had boiled the facts down to their bare bones.

The attacks had happened to women who lived and worked in three different places in the city. The women were not of a single type. They were of different ages, occupations, and ethnicities. They looked nothing alike. And the worst fact of all: Cindy coul

d scare women readers half to death with this story, but she had no idea how they could protect themselves from the rapist.

Cindy reread her notes from her interview this morning with the latest victim, Inez Fleming. Like Laura Rizzo and Anne Bennett, Inez Fleming had woken up near her home after a blackout of many hours. During that time, she’d been raped, sloppily redressed in her own clothes, and dumped.

Fleming had been examined at nine that morning by a doctor in the emergency room at St. Francis. The head nurse had called Joyce Miller to say that she had a rape victim like the ones who had come into Metro earlier in the week.

Joyce had called Cindy. And Cindy had gone to see Fleming.

The first thing Cindy noticed about Inez Fleming was that she was no weakling. Weighing in at about two hundred pounds, Inez worked as a substitute teacher in a public school in the Mission. She seemed streetwise, and unlike the first two victims, Inez was married.

Inez told Cindy that she remembered hearing something when she was in some kind of dream state. She’d said, “It was about some kind of ‘big day.’ What’s that?”

Cindy wanted to know, too.

It was similar to the fragmented memories the other women had reported. Like Laura and Anne, Inez couldn’t even state that it was a memory. It could have been a fantasy or even something she overheard while she was lying in the alley.

Inez Fleming’s husband had arrived right then and told Inez not to talk to the press, and now, six hours later, Cindy was foundering in quicksand and running out of time.

Chapter 37

CINDY FLEXED HER FINGERS and tried out a headline: “Rapist Dopes and Dumps Victims.” She was typing her lede — Three women reported being raped and drugged when they awoke from a blackout — when her phone rang. She glanced at the caller ID.

It was Richie.

Should she take the call or let it go to voice mail? The time was 3:23. There was no time to talk to him. Not now. This was her only story and she had to work it.

On the third ring, she grabbed the phone.

“Can I call you back, Rich? I’m on deadline.”

“Just take a second,” he said, a playful tone in his voice. “There’s someone important I want you to meet.”

Cindy laughed, spun her chair around so that she wouldn’t see the clock. “Really? Who is this important person?”

“I’m not saying. Not right now.”

“What if it’s off the record?” Cindy asked.

“I like your style, Cin, but you still have to wait.”

“Bummer. Where are you now?”

“I’m on the street outside the Mark Hopkins, waiting for Lindsay. She’s with the Richardsons. Should be down in a second.”

Cindy pictured Richie leaning against the unmarked car, wearing blue like he always did, his soft light brown hair falling across his forehead.

“Any news on the baby?” she asked.