"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. 65
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!" 66
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." 67
"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. 68
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?" 69
"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. 70
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?"
"Sure did," Crock said. "A Mr. and Mrs. Smith to the left. Mr. and Mrs. Jones on the right."
"Terrific," Decker said. "I'll call Vice. Find out if this place is a hooker palace."
He gave the room another sweep with his eyes. Something pink and shiny lay crumpled in the corner. He walked over, gloved his hand, and picked it up. A sequined party dress. He thought a moment.
First Saturday night in June.
Prom night.
Man, did that kick in a few buried memories. Especially since Saturday had ceased to be a day in his vocabulary. Saturday had turned into Shabbos. On his pad, Decker wrote down the names of the three local high schools West Valley, North Valley, and Central West. 71
"Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and Mr. and Mrs. Jones." He raised his eyes. "I think we had some after-prom festivities here last night. Kids getting a head start on being sleazy adults. Something went awry. They all probably panicked and fled."
"I'll second that theory," the lab man said. "Lookie what I found under the covers." With a pair of pincers, Benny held a condom aloft, then slipped it into an evidence bag. "Guess she believed in safe sex."
Decker regarded the body. "Up to a point."
Crock drawled, "A lot different from my prom night back home."
"Mine, too," Decker said.
Not that he'd been a paragon of virtue. After the party, he and his buddies had taken their dates to an isolated park for a night of petting and binging bar vodka. Afterward, he had thought he'd been doing just fine. Then he had turned on the motor of his dad's truck, smiled at his girl, and proceeded to heave his guts inside the cab. His date had joined him for the barfathon. Lyle Decker's punishment had been simple but effective. Decker remembered all too well scrubbing tuck and roll with a toothbrush, cleaning scraps of detritus stuck in Godawful places.
He checked his watch. Eight-fifty-two. "Anyone check Missing Persons to see if a parent has called, wondering where the hell his or her daughter might be?"
Crock said, "I'll call Devonshire."
"Call Foothill, Van Nuys, and North Hollywood as well. And while you're on the horn, Billy, find out the names of the principals and the girls' vice principals of the three major high schools out here."
"West Valley, Central West, and ..."
"North Valley. Call them all up, tell them police need to meet them at their respective schools within the next hour, maybe two hours tops." Decker turned to Miller. "You go back to the maid. Get her story again, along with her name, address, and phone number. And search her purse. She may have vomited initially, but after the shock wore off, she may have lifted something from the room."
"Anything else?"
"Yeah, go down to the clerk and have him check the phone records. Maybe someone made calls from this room."
"Got it," Miller said. Then he and Crock left.
Decker ran his hand through thick, carrot-colored hair, stroked his chin and felt grizzle. Wakened from a rare morning of sleep, he hadn't had a chance to shave. He had said a shortened version of his morning prayers, then rushed off to work, throwing a kiss to Rina and the boys. Hannah was still sleeping. 72
Little Hannah. At that age, they were easy because your eyes never let them out of your sight. Not so with the big one. Please God, just keep Cindy safe!
Again he studied the victim. The poor kid hadn't had a chance to grow up. Decker felt low, wished Marge was here. But he was glad his partner finally had taken some time off. He hoped the Maui sun was being kind to her, hoped her new friend Roger was being kind as well.
The police photographer closed her camera case. "I'm all done, Sergeant. Meat wagon's outside. You want me to call in the boys for you?"
Decker nodded. "Snap me a couple of Polaroids of the face, Lynne. We don't have a name. I'll need them for ID."
"Certainly." Lynne took out a camera and aimed. "Pretty thing, wasn't she? Natural good looks, but not a natural blonde."
Decker looked at the body, at a dark bush of pubic hair. He wrote: Condom in sheet. Sex. Good pubic comb.
Lynne handed him four photographs. "Is this enough?"
"Great. Thanks, Lynne."
"Tell the boys to come in?"
"Please."
She gave a wave and left. Again, Decker studied the surroundings. The room was on the th
ird floor, the window barred, the escape lever untouched. Whoever did this walked in and out the door. He tore out a clean sheet of paper, dividing the space into four sections. Later he'd add the furniture.
Benny took out a fingerprint kit. "I can't dust until the stiff's out of here. Powder'll screw up the autopsy. Where's the men from the coroner's office?"
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