She didn’t. When did Alex-the-journalist turn into a tabloid headline-hunter? Maybe that’s what happened when a reporter went management. Now he was obviously trying to sell papers. All that cheesy POLICE DENY BRIDGE KILLER stuff. Maybe he wasn’t as attractive as she’d thought.
“Well, I figured this would be a good time to do some research on Moira.” She tried for a positive spin. “Background. Check out her roots, her background, what she did before signing on as a politician’s wife. Get inside. You know?”
“Get Gable,” Alex said. He stood up, looked at his watch. “We done?”
8
It was disconcerting to feel so anonymous. Here she was, in the midst of hundreds of Lassiter supporters, all from Boston probably, and not one of them recognized her. With her hair chopped, without the Channel 11 TV camera beside her, and wearing her cropped Levi’s jacket, black turtleneck sweater dress, and flat black boots, Jane could be a professor stealing a break from her classes at Emerson College. Or a Back Bay art collector, shopping the Newbury Street galleries.
The light turned green. Jane and the Lassiter crowd crossed Beacon Street, trooping up the steep ramp to the pink stucco pedestrian bridge over Storrow Drive. College-age kids, mostly girls, some wearing green LASSITER FOR SENATE baseball caps, iPod buds in their ears. Young mothers pushing complicated strollers, one carrying a crayoned sign reading LASSITER 4 YOUR KIDS. Beacon Hill matrons with heirloom hats and predictable shoes. Everyone with LASSITER FOR SENATE buttons, some more than one. So far, no gorgeous woman in a red coat.
Jane checked her watch. The rally was scheduled to start in half an hour. She’d called Gable HQ, as Alex instructed. They hadn’t called back. Plenty of time to scout.
The crowd began its descent from the arched bridge onto Boston’s Esplanade, a verdant stretch of still-green grass and fading willow trees on the banks of the Charles River. To the right rose the Longfellow Bridge with its salt-and-pepper shaker-shaped turrets. To the left, the Boston University Bridge. Across the whitecapped water, past the sailing J-boats and mallards, the pillared halls of MIT.
Jane felt a hard jab at the small of her back.
“Don’t move. Or it’ll be the last thing you do. And do not scream.”
She felt the man’s soft breath in her ear. Then his hands clutched her, hard, holding both her shoulders. His body pressed insistently against her. The crowd around her blurred into a mass of color. All she could see was the Longfellow Bridge on one side, the BU Bridge on the other. The Charles in front of her. A river, by a bridge.
No one was noticing them.
Is this how he began?
In the middle of a campaign rally?
She clutched her pen and whirled, trying to escape his grasp, ready to poke and kick and-and why not scream? She saw his face.
He was laughing.
“You incredible idiot.” Jane stamped a foot, then softly kicked Detective Jake Brogan in one blue-jeaned shin. “I thought you were the stupid Bridge Killer. I could have stabbed you, or screamed, or, or-”
“Yeah, but I’m a cop. Who you gonna scream for? I’m already here.” Jake smiled, the same caught-in-the-hall-without-a-pass smile that successfully extricated him from annoyed females and detention halls ever since he’d been the preteen heartthrob of Boston’s tony Back Bay. Jane was first exposed to his wattage at a Boston Police Department news conference, where she’d pushed him for details of a murdered city councilor’s financial skullduggery. He’d avoided the question. And after the news conference, he asked her out to dinner. She declined. He continued to ask. She continued to say no. Until, one night, when she didn’t.
“And now I might have to arrest you for assaulting a police officer.” Jake tucked her arm through his, just for a moment, holding her close. “Taking you into custody might not be a bad thing, come to think of it.”
Jane whapped him with her notebook and untangled herself from his grasp as they walked toward the rally. She pulled her jacket back into place. “Like I said, you’re an idiot. First, there’s a million people here. You know we agreed about this. We’re friends, only friends. Second, I’m working. Third, well, there is no third. We discussed this. I’m a reporter, and you’re a-”
“We discussed it on my couch,” Jake interrupted again. A squawk from the loudspeakers brought a groan from the crowd; then the Sousa blared again. “After a few glasses of pinot and my famous burgers. Before you decided to keep your clothes on, if I remember correctly.”
As if she could forget. He was verging on irresistible-tawny hair, green eyes, leather jacket, his own gorgeous cop cliché. Harvard education. Prominent family. Devoted to his work. He’d even rescued a golden retriever, Diva, whose tawny fur and cajoling eyes made them copies of each other.
Jake and Jane. She’d thought about it more than she liked to admit.
But Mr. Perfect’s job was the deal-breaker. Dating a potential source? She couldn’t believe she’d let herself come so close to such a career-complicating decision. One minute more on his couch, one second more, and she’d never have been able to change her mind.
If they were… together? Both their careers would be over. She’d never be able to cover the crime beat. No one would believe he wasn’t feeding her confidential stuff. He’d know things he couldn’t tell, and so would she. They’d never quite trust each other.
So they’d agreed-reluctantly, longingly, as one magical summer night became the reality of the next morning-that they’d have to remain just pals. And, because appearances mattered, to the rest of the world they’d be acquaintances. Professional. Separate.
Even though she could still feel his touch, there’d be no Jake and Jane.
“Thanks again for calling me with the lead on the Register job,” she finally said. She turned to him, drawing a finger, gently, briefly, down the front of his jacket. The battered cordovan leather was sleek and soft. “Thanks for calling them. You saved my sanity. I was pretty sad there, for a while. And hey. Thanks for sending all the pizza. And for staying away while I was trying to figure things out.”
“You took a huge hit, Janey. Pizza. Least I could do.” He gave her that twinkle. “And even with your clothes on, we’re still friends.”
Jane rolled her eyes, hit him with her notebook again. “Enough with the clothes.”
“But listen, seriously,” Jake went on, ignoring her. “Sellica ever call you? Admit she was your source? I can’t believe she walked, and you’re the one who got nailed. Any more ugly letters from-whoever it was? I know you think it was Arthur Vick. I also know you know you should hand them over to us.”
“Good try, Sherlock. You know I can’t talk about that.” No letters had arrived recently, anyway. And TV reporters always got mail from cranks and wackos. If you didn’t, you weren’t doing your job.
Jane scanned the crowd. Realized she was looking for Sellica. Stupid. Sellica Darden would call her, get in touch, someday. She has to. “But, Jake. How’d you know I’d be here?”
“I didn’t.” Jake waved toward the Charles, waggling his fingers as if announcing the title of a bad horror movie or a tabloid headline. “Bridge Killer.”
“You think there’s a Bridge Killer?” Jane’s voice changed, all business now. Jake was pretending to kid her, but this was new. News. The cops never said Bridge Killer. They’d dodged every question about serial and pattern. But if Jake was assigned here, even calling the guy the Bridge Killer, that meant the cops knew a whole lot more than they were telling.