Chapter
I DON'T KNOW HOW we got all the way to my apartment in the Potrero. I don't know how Chris and I talked and drove and ignored what was tearing at us inside. Once we got through my door, there was no stopping it. I was all over Chris; he was all over me. We only got as far as the rug in the foyer, kissing, touching, fumbling for buttons and zippers, breathing loudly. I had forgotten how good it was to be held, to be desired by somebody I wanted, too. Once we touched, we knew enough to take our time. We both wanted it to last. Chris had what I needed more than anything else, soft hands. I loved kissing him, loved his touch, his gentleness, then his roughness, the simple fact that he was concerned about my pleasure as much as his own. You never know until you try it out- but I loved being with Chris. I absolutely loved it. I know it's a cliche, but that night I made love as if it might never happen again. I felt Chris's current, warming me, electrifying- from my womb to my thighs to the tips of my fingers and my toes. His grasp was all that held me together, kept me from breaking apart. I felt a trust for him that was unquestioning. I held nothing back. I gave myself to Chris in a way I never had to anyone before. Not only with my body and my heart; these were things I could pull back. I gave him my hope that I could still live. When I cried out, tremors exploding inside me, my fingers and toes stiff with joy, a voice inside me whispered what I knew was true. I gave him everything. He gave it back. Finally, Chris pulled off me. We were both tingling, still on fire. "What?" I gasped for breath. "Now what?" He looked at me and smiled. "I want to see the bedroom."
Chapter 89
A COOL BREEZE was blowing in my face. Oh, God, what a night. What a day. What a roller coaster. I sat wrapped in a quilt out on my terrace, overlooking the south end of the bay. Nothing moving, only the lights of San Leandro in the distance. It was quarter of two. In the bedroom, Chris lay asleep. He'd earned some rest. I couldn't sleep. My body was too alive, tingling, like a distant shore with a thousand flickering lights. I couldn't help but smile at the thought: It had been a great day. "June twenty-seventh," I said aloud, "I'm gonna remember you." First we find the book. Then we arrest Jenks. I never imagined it could go any further. But it had. It went way further. Chris and I had made love that night twice more, the last three hours a sweet dance of touching, panting, loving. I didn't want to feel Chris's hands ever leave me. I didn't ever want to miss the heat of his body. It was a new, electrifying sensation. For once, I had held nothing back, and that was very, very good. But here, in the dark of the night, an accusing voice needled me. I was lying. I hadn't given it all. There was the one inescapable truth that I was hiding. I hadn't told him about Negli's. I didn't know how to. Just as we had felt such life, how could I tell him I might be dying. That my body, which a moment ago was so alive with passion, was infected. In a single day, it seemed that everything in my life was transformed. I wanted to soar. I deserved it. I deserved to be happy. But he deserved to know. I heard a rustling behind me. It was Chris. "What are you doing out here?" he asked. He came up behind me, placed his hands on my neck and shoulders. I was hugging my knees, the quilt barely covering my breasts. "It's gonna be hard," I said, leaning my head on him, "to go back to the way things were." "Who said anything about going back?" "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." 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 unshaven- 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. "That we already knew," I said. He kept looking at me, as if I had somehow insulted him with the obvious. Then he lifted a bottle out of the open case. "Check the numbers, Lindsay. Each bottle's registered with a number. Look here, four-two-three-five-five-nine. Must make it go down all the more smoothly." He took out a folded-up green copy of a "Police Property" voucher from his chest pocket. "The one from the Hyatt. Same lot. Same number." Charlie smiled. The bottles were the same. It was solid evidence that tied Jenks to where David and Melanie Brandt were killed. It wasn't a weapon, but it was damning, no longer circumstantial. A rush of excitement shot through me. I high-fived the pale, heavy-set CSU man. "Anyway," Charlie said, almost apologetically, "I wouldn't have brought you all the way out here for just that." Clapper led me through the finely furnished interior of the house to the master bedroom. It had a vast picture window looking out on the Golden Gate Bridge. He took me into a spacious closet. Jenfes's. "You remember the bloody jacket we found at the hotel?" In the rear of the closet, Charlie squatted over a large shoe rack. "Well, now it's a set." Clapper reached behind the shoe rack and pulled out a crumpled Nordstrom's shopping bag. "I wanted you to see how we found it." Out of the bag, he pulled balled-up black tuxedo trousers. "I already checked. It's the other half of the jacket at the Hyatt. Same maker. Look inside; same style number." I might as well have been staring at a million dollars in cash, or a ton of stolen cocaine. I couldn't take my eyes off the pants, imagining how Nicholas Jenks would squirm now. Claire had been right. She'd been right from the start. The jacket hadn't come off the victim It had always belonged to Jenks. "So whaddaya think, Inspector?" Charlie Clapper grinned. "Can you close your case or what? Oh, yeah," the CSU man exclaimed, almost absentmindedly. "Where'd I put it?" He patted his pockets, searched around in his jacket. He finally found a small plastic bag. "Straight out of the sucker's electric razor," Charlie announced. In the bag were several short red hairs.