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I felt anger overflow. “Why are you asking him for permission to talk to me?”
He turned to me, his face bathed in sweat. Jumpy eyes. An emotion in him I’d never seen before. He was nervous.
“Just five minutes, Terry. After that, I’ll leave you alone, I swear.”
I rolled my eyes, looked at Daniel. He gave a sheepish smile. “Maybe I’ll go grab another cup of punch.”
“Thanks,” Chris told him.
We both watched him walk away. When he was out of sight, Chris wiped his face with a handkerchief, then stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked on his feet.
“I’m sorry.”
I shrugged.
“Terry, I’ve been a real jerk. Not only tonight but these past months. I was angry at my situation and I took it out on you. But I’m not making excuses. I acted like a total and complete asshole.”
I shrugged again. “Who noticed?”
He was breathing audibly. Then he rubbed his neck and laughed. “That was real rich, Terry.”
“You want absolution, Chris, go to confession.”
“You know, Terry, we really deserve each other. I may be a motherfucker. But deep down inside, you’re a real bitch.”
Then he pounced on me. He shoved me against the Volvo and attacked my mouth with feral hunger. I could have protested. And I knew he would have stopped. But I didn’t.
Because I wanted it.
I clutched his neck and drank in his juices. His tongue wrestling with mine, moving down my neck until his mouth was between my breasts. He slipped his hands inside my dress, liberating my flesh, drawing my nipple to his mouth. He licked and moaned and so did I.
He hiked up my dress, picked me up, and sat me on the hood of the car. His mouth ravaging mine, he opened my legs and pressed himself on top of me. My back felt the chill of the Volvo’s cold steel, but my insides were scalding hot. I coiled my legs around his hips and drew him closer. He rocked against me, bringing a sweet ache to my loins. Our warm breath mixing as his lips danced with mine.
“Be with me, angel,” he whispered. “I’ll ditch her, you ditch him—”
“Chris—”
“We’ll make love until the sun comes up.”
He dipped his hand under my panties. I was sopping wet. “I’ll take you away, baby doll. I’ll take us both away forever! Out of reach of your parents, out of reach of my uncle, out of reach of everything except each other’s arms.”
“Chris—”
“Now or never, Terry.”
“Oh, God—”
“Say yes!”
“Yes!” I shoved him away and tried to catch my breath. I sat up and closed my legs. “Yes. Okay?”
He stared at me, flush-faced and panting. “You mean it?”
“I mean it.” I was breathing hard. “Do you mean it?”
“Yes.”
“What about Lor—”
“Screw her. Screw everyone except us! I can’t live without you, Terry. I don’t want to live without you. God, I love you so much I’m in pain. Baby, tell me you love me.”
“I love you.” I took a deep breath. “I love you, love you, love you. Help me down.”
He put his arms around my waist and swung me from the car. I attempted to tidy my appearance. I tugged on my skirt, smoothed out my hair, and redid my lipstick. He came toward me, but I whacked him back. “Daniel’ll be back any minute.”
Chris rubbed his neck. “What are you going to tell him?”
“I don’t know. God, he’s been so good to me.” I looked at him beseechingly. “Can you just give me tonight with him? It’s so cruel …”
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 cleared his throat. “Call came through dispatch at eight-oh-eight; Crock and I arrived on the scene at eight-twelve. First one we talked to was Dave Forrester, the front-desk clerk. He directed us to the room, and to Adela Alvera, the maid who found the body. She discovered it around eight this morning, doing routine cleaning.”
“Opened the door and wham.” Crock slammed his fist into his palm. “First thing the lady did was throw up. Then she called the front desk. Forrester called nine-one-one.”
Decker scribbled notes as he looked around the room. Typical cheap hotel room—a queen bed, a TV equipped with pay-per-view channels resting in a particle board dresser stained to look like wood, a small writing table and chair, two flimsy nightstands and a house phone that charged an arm and a leg for a local call. There was a menu on one of the nightstands. The place had a coffee shop downstairs. Evidently it provided room service.
Decker rolled his tongue in his mouth. “Does the victim have a name yet?”
Crock said, “No personal belongings found in the room. So it looks like we got a robbery/murder.”
“What about registration cards at the front desk?”
“No cards, nothing on computer,” Crock answered. “Forrester doesn’t understand how that coulda happened.”
Decker wrote: No reg card or computer entry. Clerk took bribe? Why? Victim young girl—Affair? Prostitute? “Did Forrester work the desk last night?”
Crock shook his head. “No, that would be Henry Trupp. We’ve called him, Sarge. Guy isn’t home or isn’t answering.”
“Either of you pull the cards for the rooms adjacent to this one?”
