The 17th Suspect (Women's Murder Club #17)(39)

They each had a second glass of wine, but when the waiter came to take a dessert and coffee order, Yuki said, “No, thanks.”

Marc asked for the check, and Yuki said, “Are you sure, Marc? I can expense this.”

But he handed his card to the waiter and said to Yuki, “I’ll give you a ride home, okay?”

“I drove,” she said.

“Then I’ll walk you to your car.”

Yuki’s Acura was parked on California. Marc kept to the street side of the sidewalk, and when the car was in sight, he reached across her shoulders to straighten the collar of her coat.

Yuki looked up at him, and then his arm was around her and pulling her close to him.

“You have no idea how much I like you,” he said.

Yuki demurred, but Marc lowered his face and came in for a kiss. She was shocked and offended, and she pushed him away, saying, “Hey, Marc, no.”

He released his hold and tried to laugh it off. “I’m sorry. I’m just nothing but wide-open feelings right now. I have no defenses at all.”

“That’s not good,” she said.

“I’m really sorry. I didn’t plan that. It was an impulse.”

She said, “I have to get home. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

Yuki walked on ahead, unlocked her car, and, after buckling in, gunned her engine. She drove up California without looking into her rearview mirror and turned north onto the straightaway of Sansome.

Those last minutes with Marc had really thrown her and changed her feelings and her perspective on him. She was thinking now that his invitation to go out for dinner rather than meet in her office had been calculated. That, in fact, he had planned this or something like it.

Marc’s boyishness, the charm, this was his stock-in-trade. It was easy to imagine him as a flirt or as a rape victim. She thought back on the recording she’d seen so many times, which showed him being violated by Briana Hill. James Giftos had said that the recording started while the sex was already in progress. His theory of the case, Briana’s version, was that Marc had staged a rape game.

Was that true? Did Giftos know something that she didn’t know? Was that why he had put off his opening statement until she’d presented her case?

Yuki’s phone rang. It was resting in the cup holder in the console beside her.

She picked up.

Marc said, “Yuki, please forgive me, okay? I was inappropriate and I’m embarrassed. I won’t do that again.”

“Okay, Marc. All is forgiven. Good night.”

She clicked off and dropped the phone back into the cup holder. For the first time since she’d met Marc Christopher, Yuki had a sense of foreboding, like she had entered a tunnel and a bright light filled her vision.

Like a train wreck was looming, directly ahead.





CHAPTER 56


MICHAEL WAS LOITERING with purpose on the Embarcadero near the Ferry Building when he spotted her almost by chance.

Was it her?

He’d been wrong before.

His eyes locked on her features and he felt a contraction, a tightness that started in his groin and shot up the center of his body to his throat. It was as if he were zipped up.

The older woman was accompanied by an animated, stoop-shouldered younger man, who gestured expansively as he talked. He had the look of a junkie transported by the rush of a meth high.

The woman laughed. She was enjoying his company. She was dressed appropriately for a walk through the fog on a chilly night. Her coat was old but looked sturdy. She had a canvas carryall slung over her shoulder, and on her head she wore a knit cloche hat in several shades of green.

The pair of weirdos was on the move, taking a leisurely stroll. Michael fixated on her familiar rolling gait as she and her piece-of-shit companion continued past him.

He waited until they’d covered twenty-five paces, about two car lengths, then followed the couple as they cleared the smattering of pedestrians around the Ferry Building, crossed the street, and turned onto Mission, one of the main arteries through the South of Market neighborhood.

The traffic was sparse after 9 p.m. A wind blew through the canyon of office buildings, what Michael thought of as Wall Street by the Bay. He jammed his hands into his new well-used thrift-shop coat and gripped the gun butt with his gloved hand. It felt good. Like a handshake with a friend.

Up ahead the woman and her companion stopped under a streetlight and embraced, before the round-shouldered man crossed the street and the woman continued walking along Mission, crossing Spear. Michael kept his eyes on her while humming a made-up tune to the cadence of her unhurried walk.

And then, almost as if he had willed it, she stopped and reached into her bag, poked around inside it, and pulled out a wrapped sandwich. She was busy, intent on removing the clinging wrapper, her body limned in the glow of the streetlights. And not another soul was on that sidewalk. They were alone.

Michael closed the gap between them and called out her name. She looked up, watched him pull the gun from his pocket and point it at her.

She looked into his face and almost smiled. No fear.

That pissed him off.

“I thought it was you,” she said, holding her sandwich.

“Well,” Michael said. “For once you’re right. Any last words?”

“God help you,” she said.