15th Affair (Women's Murder Club #15)(2)

“I think I may have met you once before,” she said.

He freed the pearl buttons from their loops.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I would have remembered.”

He ran his hand over the tops of her breasts, then gathered up her hair, wrapped it around his left hand, and pulled her head back.

She moaned and said, “You paid me with three gold coins. I came to your room in the hotel overlooking”—she sighed—“the Trevi Fountain.”

“I’ve never stayed in Rome,” he said.

He turned her so that she faced away from him. He stroked the long side of her body down to her haunch and back. He enjoyed the soft sounds coming from her throat as she tried to twist away from him.

“Did you tell your husband?”

“Why would you ask me that?” she said.

“Because I want him to throw you out.”

He undid the closure at the waist of her jeans, pulled down the zipper, got to his feet, and removed her jeans and all of his clothes.

He didn’t hear the sound at the door.

This was unlike him. He had superior senses, but they were engaged. Ali was looking up at him with—what was that look in her eyes?

She said, “I heard a card in the lock.”

A voice called out, “Housekeeping.”

Chan said, “I didn’t lock the door. You?”

Ali said, “Hell no.”

Chan shouted, “Come back later,” but the door was already opening and the cart was bumping over the threshold. He grabbed his pants from the floor and, holding them in front of him, he went toward the foyer.

He shouted, “No! Wait!”

The three shots were muffled by a suppressor. If Michael Chan had known his killer, it didn’t matter now.

Lights out.

Game over.

Michael Chan was gone.





CHAPTER 3


IT HAD BEEN a rough week, and it was only Monday.

My partner, Rich Conklin, and I had just testified against Edward “Ted” Swanson, a cop who had, over time, left eighteen people dead before the shootout with a predatory drug lord called Kingfisher took Swanson out of the game.

All of the SFPD had known Swanson as a great cop. We had liked him. Respected him. So when my partner and I exposed him as a psychopath with a badge, we were stunned and outraged.

During Swanson’s lethal crime spree, he had stolen over five million in drugs and money from Kingfisher, and this drug boss with a murderous reputation up and down the West Coast hadn’t taken this loss as the cost of doing business.

After the shootout, while Swanson lay comatose in the ICU, Kingfisher figured that his best chance of getting his property back was to turn his death threats on the lead investigator on the case.

That investigator was me.

His phone calls were irrational, untraceable, and absolutely terrifying.

Then, about the time Swanson was released from the hospital and indicted on multiple charges of drug trafficking and murder, Kingfisher’s phone calls stopped. A week later, Mexican authorities turned up the King’s body in a shallow grave in Baja. Was it really over?

Sometimes terrifying events leave aftershocks when you realize how bad things could have become. Kingfisher’s threats had embedded themselves inside me on a visceral level, and now that I was free of them, something inside me unclenched.

On the other hand, events that seem innocuous at the time can flip you right over the edge into the dark side.

And that was the case with Swanson.

A dirty cop shakes up everything: friendships, public trust, and belief in your own ability to read people. I thought I had done a good job testifying against Swanson today. I hoped so. Richie had been terrific, for sure, and now the decision as to Swanson’s guilt or innocence was up to his jury.

My partner said, “We’re done with this, Lindsay. Time to move on.”

I was checking out of the Hall of Justice at just after six when my husband texted me to say that he would be home late, and that there was a roasted chicken in the fridge.

Damn.

I was disappointed not to see Joe, but as I stepped outside the gray granite building into a luminous summer evening, I formulated a new plan. Rather than chicken for three, I would have a quiet dinner with my baby daughter, followed by Dreamland in about three hours, tops.

I fired up my old Explorer and had just cleared the rush-hour snarl on Bryant when the boss called me.

Against my better judgment, I picked up.

“Boxer,” Brady said, “a bad scene just went down at the Four Seasons. I need you there.”

The only scene I wanted to see was my little girl in clean onesies, and me with a glass of Chardonnay in my hand. But Homicide was understaffed, my partner and I had a fresh gap in our caseload, and Brady was a good lieutenant.

I said, “Were you able to catch Conklin?”

“He’s on the way,” said Brady.

I made a U-turn on Geary, and twenty minutes later, I met up with my partner in the sumptuous lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel. Conklin was as tired as I was, but it looked good on him.

“Overtime pay, Lindsay.”

“Yahoo,” I said with an appropriate lack of enthusiasm. “What did Brady tell you?”

“To be smart, thorough, and quick.”

“Instead of what? Stupid, sloppy, and slow?”