Save Me from Dangerous Men (Nikki Griffin #1)(18)

As we reached San Francisco, the Boxster exited by AT&T Park. We passed huge Giants pennants and then the bulk of the stadium itself. The day was loud with construction from a hundred different building sites. In the sky, more cranes than clouds. On King Street the Boxster slowed abruptly. Looking for parking. Too close to brake, I accelerated past it. There was an empty metered spot on the right. She’d take it. I continued a block up and wedged my bike between two delivery vans, then unhurriedly walked back down.

I got my first look at Karen Li as she got out of her car. She looked about my age, a pretty Chinese woman in her early thirties with glossy black hair and large sunglasses. She was dressed stylishly, tight jeans and a leather jacket, a black leather handbag slung over her shoulder. She walked purposefully into a coffee shop.

I crossed the street and waited a full five minutes, eying the sidewalk to make sure she didn’t leave. If this woman was stealing company secrets she’d be highly alert. When I finally entered the coffee shop I went straight to the register. I ordered coffee and a bagel and bought a copy of the same newspaper I’d read that morning.

Karen Li was at a back table, alone, facing the door.

I sat as far away as I could, in the front corner.

There were about a dozen people around me. A middle-aged guy reading the paper, a college-age girl with an open textbook, a few couples, an old man filling out a crossword puzzle. Karen Li should have fit right in, but something about her was different. She wasn’t reading or doing crosswords or eating. A coffee and blueberry muffin stood in front of her, untouched. She was noticeably tense, fingers tapping against the table. One hand rested lightly on her handbag. She checked her watch and drummed her fingers restlessly.

Twenty minutes passed and then two men walked in. One wore a leather jacket and blue jeans, the other a beige sports coat over a red polo. Both were over six feet but the guy in the leather jacket was clean-shaven, with deep set, muddy eyes and the bulk to match his height, while Polo was thin, with a bristly Vandyke beard and a sharp triangle of nose like the prow of an icebreaker. They looked around while they ordered coffee. They looked like men who would notice things. I felt their gaze pass over me and kept my head buried in the newspaper.

They paid for their coffee and sat across from Karen Li.

She was nervous. But she knew them. That was clear.

The three of them fell at once into an intent, urgent conversation. I didn’t even consider pictures. The two men were very different than Karen Li. Definitely not the tech crowd. Something else. Something about them felt vaguely dangerous. Like feeling a nascent sunburn long before the skin reddened. I was thinking that whoever Karen Li was, and whatever she was trying to do, she had bitten off way too much. If offering advice I would have told her to forget all about corporate theft and find somewhere else to live. A different city. Maybe a different country.

After a half hour the two men stood. She stayed where she was. The one in the jacket leaned down, whispered a parting word, and the two of them walked past me to the door. A completely normal sight. A coffee, three friends, casual good-byes.

Except for one strange detail.

When they walked away, the man in the leather jacket was holding her handbag.

Karen Li sat for a few more minutes, then pushed her coffee away and gave the muffin a puzzled look as though wondering how it had gotten there. I got a good look at her face as she walked out. She was very pretty. Almond brown eyes, a delicate jaw, pronounced cheekbones, a small nose. She was thin but had a physical vitality as though she spent weekends paddleboarding and skiing. I waited another few minutes and then left as well. It didn’t really matter where Karen Li was going. I’d know where she was. I was thinking about something else. Human faces and expressions. In my line of work, I saw more than my fair share of intense emotion. Grief, confusion, anger, shock, lust. Usually the expression matched the situation. Catch someone cheating and you got shame. Track down a thief and you got fear. Faces mirrored feelings.

So Karen Li’s nervousness hadn’t surprised me. That was normal for someone in her situation. Someone involved in high-stakes corporate espionage. Someone doing something wrong. She was bound to be nervous.

Her face had been different, though. Karen Li hadn’t looked like someone stealing. She had looked like she was being marched to the firing squad. On her face had been nothing but naked terror.





12


I’d taught myself basic cooking in junior high, out of necessity, and got better in college while sharing an off-campus apartment with other undergrads. I had bounced around in my early twenties, lived in Marin for a while with an older guy who taught poetry at Sonoma State and couldn’t grease a pan to save his life. My favorite thing about that place had been a family of peacocks who’d wandered onto his property and seen no reason to leave. I hand-fed them blueberries every morning. After we split I missed the ex-peacocks more than the ex-boyfriend.

I hadn’t grown to really enjoy cooking until I had my own place and my own kitchen. My apartment was a one-bedroom in West Berkeley, close to the water and a few miles from the center of campus. The industrial part of the city, auto repair shops and warehouses and quirky artist spaces with glassblowing studios and sculpting. Close enough to the train tracks that I could hear the blasts from the Amtrak and cargo trains that rattled through. From the roof of my building it was possible to glimpse the lights and towers of San Francisco. I had lived there close to ten years and the area was changing noticeably, sleek new developments springing up at a breakneck pace, but the neighborhood still retained much of its former identity.