The 20th Victim (Women's Murder Club #20)(7)

“‘Do you love me? Do you love me?’”

He burst out of the bathroom in a robe singing the chorus.

“‘Now … that I … can dance.’”

I laughed and opened my arms to him, and he got into bed.

I put my arm across his chest. He drew me close, and I tipped my head up and kissed him again, this time putting a little heat into it.

He said, “Look at us. Two oysters in white. No caviar required.”

“Call your daughter,” I said, “before it gets too late.”

Joe got up, found his phone in his jacket pocket, and came back to bed. Together we FaceTimed my sister, her two shrieking little girls fighting over who should tell Uncle Joe about their day. And then we shared a sweet conversation with a sleepy Julie, who I could see was in bed with Martha. Julie said, “Mommy, say ‘woof.’”

I did it.

“Nooooo. Say it to Martha!”

Cat cackled in the background as Julie took the phone to my old dog. I woofed on command. Then Joe and I kissed Julie through the screen of the phone and told her to sleep tight.

When we were alone again, Joe told me that Ray Channing looked terrible, but that he couldn’t suppress his happiness at seeing Joe again after so many years.

“Told me I hadn’t changed a bit.”

We both laughed, and room service knocked and delivered.

Joe and I sipped wine. We nibbled. We talked, and then Joe put the candle in its little glass globe on the dresser before rolling the cart outside and locking the door.

He took off his robe and tossed it over a chair, came back to bed, and helped me out of mine.

“I have a confession,” I said.

“Now? You wish my chest wasn’t hairy?”

“I love your hairy chest. The lobster mac and cheese. That was my favorite course.”

“It beat out the mini donut?”

“It was the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”

Joe laughed. “Mac and cheese.”

“With lobster.”

“Got it. I think there’s a recipe for that.”

By eight thirty or so we were making love by enough candlelight for each of us to see into the other’s eyes.

Joe asked me, “What did you say, Blondie?”

“I’m so lucky.”

“Lucky me, too.”





CHAPTER 12





TWENTY MINUTES AFTER kissing my child, my husband, and my border collie good-bye, I parked my Explorer under the overpass on Harriet Street.

It was only a half block to the medical examiner’s office. I wanted to see my best friend, and I thought coffee with Claire would be a nice, soft entry to my Monday-morning return to work.

I pulled on the heavy glass doors, said “Hey” to Patrick, Claire’s new receptionist, who told me, “Dr. Washburn said go into her office. She’ll be there in a second.”

Five minutes later Claire and Cindy came through the office door, Claire looking harried, Cindy wearing her deep-in-a-story face. I stood up and put my arms around them both and gave them a group hug.

“Your hair smells wonderful,” Claire said.

“I got a hair mask. Me! What’s going on, you two? What’d I miss?”

Cindy said, “The day you left, did you hear about it? Roger Jennings gets shot in his car leaving the Taco King on Duboce Avenue.”

“I missed it.”

“Okay, well, he survives the shooting for a few days, unconscious, never says a word before he passes away late last night. You know who he is? Roger Jennings?”

“Sure. He was a catcher. Released by the A’s and picked up by the Giants, what—about a year ago? Was the shooter caught?”

Cindy filled me in. “No one saw the shooter, not even Jennings’s pregnant wife, who was in the seat beside him.”

Claire said, “The bullet entered through the center of the victim’s neck, severing multiple vertebrae and arteries, before exiting through the left side of his neck.”

Cindy said, “And someone, the shooter or an accomplice maybe, uses the chaos as cover to write the word Rehearsal on the back window of his Porsche Cayenne.”

“Rehearsal,” I said, thinking out loud. “The shooting was a trial run. Could be that Jennings was a random person in the wrong place.”

“Maybe,” said Cindy. “But I’ve been digging into Roger Jennings. I’m thinking he was lining up his next career. A little more dangerous than baseball.”

“How so?”

“He was dealing,” she said.

I said, “That’s a fact?”

“Trusted sources tell me that Jennings was selling MDMA to his teammates. There may be others. Chi and McNeil are on it. And now,” said Cindy, “I’ve got to get back and file the story.”

She blew kisses.

Then she was gone.





CHAPTER 13





AS CINDY FLEW out the door, Yuki blew in.

“I hope there’s coffee in here somewhere.”

Claire pointed to the coffeemaker, and when we were all topped off, arrayed around Claire’s desk, we started catching up. Claire had been working all weekend, trying to organize the cremains of five bodies recovered from a crack house fire in the Tenderloin.