My voice faded.
Chris took a deep breath and blew it out. “What the hell! Give the guy a break. Have dinner with him. We’ve got a lifetime together.”
My heart took toward the sky. “You really mean that?”
His smile was dazzling. “Yes, I really mean that!”
He’d imitated my tone of voice. My laughter was mixed with tears. I erased lipstick from the corner of his mouth, then touched his cheek. I was hopelessly in love.
I said, “Besides, I’m sure Cheryl could use a break, too.”
“Yeah, she could use something.” He rotated his shoulders. “She’ll never die young because she’s getting old too fast.”
“At least you got your answer,” I said.
“Pardon?”
“You know if I’m wearing garters or panty hose.”
He laughed. “A lot of good it’ll do me.” He waited a beat. “That’s not what I wanted from you. I mean I wanted that too, but …” He shook his head. “I can’t believe all the time I wasted. Playing stupid mind games. I’m much better at revenge than I am at love.”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
“That’s good of you to say.” He looked at me. “Did you know, after you blew me off, I used to break into your locker?”
I stared at him. “Why?”
“Just to smell your jacket or your lunch or your books. I saved every page of notes you’d ever given me. Every pen or pencil, every …” He laughed. “Every eraser shaving you ever left at my place. You left a sweater in my closet. I used to sleep with it, that’s how obsessed I was with you. I still am obsessed with you. I’ve never, ever stopped looking at you, Teresa Anne McLaughlin. Even when you stopped looking at me.”
“I’m glad you’re obsessed with me. Because I’m obsessed with you.” I paused. “How’d you break my padlock?”
“Ain’t a lock around that I can’t pick,” Chris said. “Courtesy of my dad, mind you, not my uncle Joey. That’s why I got into so much trouble with B and Es back in New York. I was too good for my own good.” He kissed me again. “I ache for you, angel. You really want to be with Reiss tonight?”
“No, I don’t. But I owe him something, Chris.”
He shot me a chilly look. I ignored it and glanced up at the inky sky. “Should I call you when I get home?”
“Let me call you,” he said.
I paused. “Will you? This isn’t a game with you?”
“Good God, no, Terry! This isn’t a game! This is the most honest I’ve ever been in my entire life!”
“What about your uncle?”
“Good old Joey.” He raised his brow. “I don’t know. But I’ll think of something.” He kissed me on the forehead. “I’ll call you around one.”
“Swear?”
He crossed himself. “Swear.”
I got home at twelve-forty-five and waited.
At four-thirty in the morning, my resolve weakened. I picked up the phone and called him. The line connected after the third ring. He mumbled a sleepy hello. I couldn’t find my voice.
He muttered an obscenity under his breath, but into the phone he calmly stated, “Terry, don’t hang up. Let me explain—”
I slammed down the receiver, then took it off the hook. At sunrise, I went to sleep.
10
Stepping across the door’s threshold, Decker caught the photographer’s flash. Swell. Just when he needed his eyesight for detail, he’d be seeing a dancing moon for the next few minutes. Officer Russ Miller was trying to get his attention. Taking his notepad from his jacket, Decker detached the pen from the cover and clicked the nub at the end, bringing up the ballpoint.
“Backtrack for me, Russ.”
Someone shouted, “Anyone in fucking charge here?”
Decker looked up. Benny, the lab man, was irritated, sweat dripping from his forehead. Swaddled in his white lab coat, he swiped at his face with his arm, making sure not to contaminate his latex-covered hands. He caught Decker’s eye.
“Sergeant, I can’t do a goddamn thing with all these feet and hands flying in the air.”
“I just walked through the door, Ben. Let me get my bearings, okay?”
“It’s in your best interest to clear the bodies out.” Benny paused. “The live ones.”
The flash went off again. Decker shielded his eyes. Sticky moisture was coating his armpits. He took off his jacket and draped it over his shoulder. Then he did a head count. Ten officers—way too many people crammed into the double-occupancy hotel room.
Aloud he said, “Everybody freeze for a second. Who was first on the scene?”
“Crock and me,” Miller said.
“Then you two stay here.” Decker started pointing. “Howard and Black, you two canvass rooms on floors one and two. Wilson and Packard, this floor and the one upstairs. Be polite and be careful. Also, do a little crowd control. There’s a group of looky-loos that’s a potential fire hazard. Officers Bailey, Nelson, Gomez, and Estrella, back in the field. Go.”
As the room emptied, clearing the area around the bed, the victim came into Decker’s view. He started making notes—not much more than first impressions but sometimes they were valuable.
Nude, white female—late teens/early twenties.
He stopped.
Cindy’s age. And the bastard was still at large.
No, don’t even think about it, Deck. Because once personal crap starts interfering with work, you’re a goner.
He shook away his daughter’s image and went back to the victim. Her head was slumped to the side, her hands had been bound to the headboard by a bow tie and a stocking, her feet were untethered but crossed at the ankles. No visible gunshot or stab wounds, but fresh, deep bruises colored her neck. No distinct ligature marks: She’d probably been strangled by someone’s hands. Decker took in the silky ashen face, the silvery gray skin, the full but cyanotic lips. A pretty girl—a Picasso painting in his blue period. Her eyes were closed. Made it easier to digest the horror.
She was so damn young!
His eyes traveled to her hands dangling in the constraints. Graceful hands with long, tapered fingers. He wondered if she had ever played an instrument—piano or maybe violin. The nails were bright red as were the fingertips. Lividity. Blood pools to the low spots.
“I got room!” Benny, the lab man, stretched. “You want me to bag the hands and feet first, Sergeant? Or do you want to wait until the coroner cuts her down?”
“Do the bagging first,” Decker said. “Don’t want to lose any nail scrapings. Coroner will work around you. Lynne, you almost done?”
The police photographer looked up. “Just a few more snapshots and I’m out of here.”
Decker returned his attention to the lone pair of uniforms still in the room. Russ Miller was tall with broad features. His partner, Billy Crock, was a recent southern transplant who’d joined the force a week before the earthquake. His apartment building was now a vacant lot. Everything he owned had been buried under rubble. Crock had shrugged it off. Decker figured this was a guy with a future.
His eyes went back to his notepad. “Shoot, Russ.”
Miller