I hang up without answering. My face is flushed, and my insides are in turmoil. I want to vomit. I put my head down on the cool surface of the desk until the wave of nausea passes. I push away thoughts of that skull-like face anywhere near Caterina and concentrate on the story I need to write for tomorrow’s edition.
Chapter 17
CONCRETE BLONDE’S SONG, “God is a Bullet,” is blaring from my car speakers as I park along Lake Merritt near Donovan’s apartment Friday night. The song talks about people who become cops because they were picked on as kids.
I’ve never dated a cop. Most cops are hard-asses with something to prove. When I became a police reporter, I vowed that it was one thing I wouldn’t do. So much for that, I think as I knock on Donovan’s door.
I’m a bit nervous, so I thrust my bottle of red wine and a small box of cannoli at him as he kisses me on both cheeks.
“Come on into the kitchen, I’m just finishing up.” He wipes his hand on a towel, then throws it over his shoulder.
I follow him, pausing to peer out the windows. Donovan’s fourth-floor apartment boasts floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Lake Merritt right across the street. Gondoliers paddle lovers around the lake in long boats lit with candles. A walkway around the lake is dotted with white lights, creating a fairy-tale effect. The Oakland skyline rears up in the distance across the lake.
His apartment is tiny—slightly bigger than my place because he has a separate bedroom—but with a stunning view. Two wall sconces softly light the living room along with votive candles scattered on tables and shelves. The soft strains of George Winston’s “Autumn” float throughout the space.
He uncorks the wine, pours me a glass, and explains he was lucky to get into his place eight years ago. Now the neighborhood is trendy, and the subsequent soaring rents reflect that. He tells me the manager keeps his rent low because she likes having a cop in the building.
Eight years ago? I wonder if that is when he got divorced. I’m not going to bring it up unless he does.
I grab my wineglass and sit on a stool at the bar counter that separates the living room from the kitchen, watching him work.
“It smells heavenly.” I inhale deeply as he opens the oven and pulls out pork tenderloin wrapped in prosciutto and drizzled with honey. He lets it rest on a platter while he finishes chopping tomatoes and avocados for the salad.
In a corner near the kitchen, against two walls of windows, a small bistro table is set with a white cloth, white china, and candles. He dishes up our plates and places them on the table. I smile and raise my wineglass to him.
“Well, dig in. Salut,” he says, and we clink glasses.
The pork dissolves into sweetness on my tongue. Roasted red pears and sweet potatoes melt in my mouth. The bread is still warm, and I smother it with butter. I savor each bite, making small sounds of pleasure, despite myself.
The conversation is easy, and I find myself wanting to know everything I can about this Detective Donovan. Like what possessed him to choose law enforcement for a career.
“Did you always want to be a cop? You know, ever since you were a kid.”
“Not exactly,” he says, laughing. “I had another plan, but it didn’t work out.”
I raise my eyebrows so he’ll go on. He hesitates. It’s just for a second, but I catch it, and become alert, my wineglass poised in midair, waiting for his next words.
“When I was a kid,” he says, “I wanted to be a monk. In fact, when I was sixteen, I dropped out of high school and joined a monastery. I lived at Holy Cross Fathers in Berkeley. For three years, I was Brother Sean Cecilia Donovan.”
“What?” I sit up straight and almost spit out my wine. “Are you serious? A monk? As in a bare-cell and no-sex-for-the-rest-of-your-life monk?”
“I took permanent vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity.”
I’m trying to wrap my mind around this. “So, what made you change your mind?”
Suddenly, he looks embarrassed. I make a guess based on his hesitation. “It was a girl, wasn’t it?”
He presses his lips tight together and nods.
“It was Brother Don Maria Cruz’s sister,” he says, leaning back and running his hand through his hair, making it stick up even more than it normally does. “On Sundays, we could invite people to come eat pancakes with us after Mass. He invited her. She was an art student at UC Berkeley. She sat by me. Somehow, we started talking about art. I invited her into the study to look at some art books after breakfast. From the first minute I saw her, I was a goner.”
When he says this, I’m filled with overwhelming jealousy. My chest hurts, and I suddenly, irrationally hate this girl he’s talking about. He’s grown silent, lost in his memories. I want him back here now with me, not daydreaming about some girl from his past. “So, you fell for her and left the monastery?”
“In a nutshell? Yes. I left because she made me realize I wasn’t cut out to be a monk. I don’t have the self-discipline to live that life. I thought I did. I was wrong.”
I relax now that we’re off the subject of his former love.
“So, you decided that if you couldn’t be a monk, you’d be a cop? Go figure,” I say. “You gave up a world filled with light and love and people doing good things and turned to a world filled with darkness and despair and people doing bad things.”
“Yep.”
“And you’re still Catholic?”
He shrugs and quickly changes the subject, asking me about why I became a reporter.
I give him a lame answer about choosing journalism because I was too intimidated to become a novelist. I know better than to talk about ex-boyfriends and deep psychological wounds on the first date, but for some reason I spill it and end up telling him a bit about my ex-fiancé and how I called off the wedding the night before when he confessed he didn’t want his wife to be a reporter.
Although we talk easily through dinner, I’m a little wary. I don’t know why, but I feel like I need to have my guard up around him a little bit, almost as if I can’t trust myself around him.
Maybe I’m afraid he’s going to grill me for information on Johnson. I take the last bite of my cannoli and use my fork to scrape up any remaining filling from my plate.
“Hey, Irish Boy, ’fess up, how does someone who is not even Italian learn to cook like this?” I push my chair back as Donovan refills my wineglass.
He smiles a slow smile and sits back. “My mother always told me, don’t let them know all your tricks.”
We leave the dishes on the table and take our wine into the candlelit living room overlooking the lake. I slip off my sandals so I can curl up on the couch. As I do, I notice I’m wearing two different black strappy sandals. What the hell? At least they are the same height, so I’m not wobbling around off balance. I give up.
And then Donovan says, “Tell me about your family.”
Chapter 18
THE MEN I’VE dated—even the man I almost married—never heard Caterina’s name come out of my mouth. But somehow I knew deep down inside from the minute I met Donovan I was going to tell him about Caterina. Maybe that’s what I’ve been afraid of this whole time, why I’ve been so wary around him. Is it because I knew that one look from him would make me drop my guard and spill everything? Why him? Why now? I don’t understand, but before I know it, I take a deep breath, and I’m telling him everything.
I tell him how Caterina was playing in our yard one minute and gone the next. I stare out the windows at Lake Merritt and the Oakland skyline as I speak.
“We were heading outside to play, but my mom told me to brush my teeth first,” I tell him, cringing inside at the memory. “By the time I got outside, it was too late. She was gone. They never arrested anyone. They found her body a week later. But my dad was already dead. They think the stress of the kidnapping caused his h
eart to fail.”
I push down the memory of the bottle I found near my dad’s head.
“So, really, that bastard took away both my father and my sister.”
Donovan looks sad but doesn’t act surprised, which sends off a little alarm in my head. Instead, he reaches over and gives me a big bear hug. When he squeezes me, I feel a little sob escape from my lips, but I quickly regain my composure.
He pulls back, looking thoughtful.
“I wonder what a shrink would say about your deciding to be a crime reporter after dealing with . . . what happened to your sister,” he says.
“You mean discovering that evil is real?”
When I was little, my mother used to tell me that the fiendish creatures in my nightmares were just my imagination. Well, after Caterina was kidnapped, she didn’t say that anymore. Not only did she make it clear that the monsters were real, but she also made it apparent that she was afraid of them, too. A row of dead bolts appeared on all our doors overnight. My brothers and I could no longer leave our mother’s sight, not even to play at the next-door neighbor’s house. All our friends had to come over to our house to play. My mother didn’t let me go to the movies alone with friends until I was in high school.
“Yeah, her kidnapping probably has something to do with why I’m a crime reporter,” I finally say, looking at Donovan. “I don’t know. I just know I’m good at my job. Most people claim to hate reporters, and yet, if you give them a chance, they’ll spill their guts every time.”
I think about my uncanny knack in getting people to talk.
“Even if they’ve done something really awful, I can usually find something we have in common, something that makes them trust me.” At this point, I’m just voicing my thoughts aloud, not realizing what I’m saying until Donovan pulls back from me a bit.
“Really? I’m not sure that’s a good thing—finding something in common with these creeps. Are you saying you can relate to Johnson?”
I think about it before I answer. “No. I don’t relate to him at all. But I can detach enough from myself to carry on a normal conversation with him and make him feel like we are friends.” I realize it is now or never and blurt it out. “My sister was taken twenty-two years ago, when we lived in Livermore,” I say. “Johnson told me something happened to him in Livermore twenty-two years ago that changed his life.”
Donovan turns toward me and looks me dead in the eyes. “I know.” Something in his face chills me. I watch him take a deep breath.
“Gabriella, everything you say in that jail is videotaped. They send over copies of the tapes and transcripts of your visits to Johnson. I don’t need to—or want to—pump you for information. I know everything already. After you mentioned the name Caterina to Johnson, I did a little digging and found out she was your sister. We’re looking hard to see if there is any connection between her and Johnson. If there is, I promise you, I’ll get him. I’ll nail him for it. He’ll never see the light of day again. I’ll make sure his life is hell. He’ll be sorry he ever heard my name.”
His words send hot tears to the corners of my eyes. Die before cry. I hide my face in my hands until I regain control of my emotions. I feel his arm around me, his fingers lightly rubbing my shoulder. I lift my head, and my eyes are dry. We talk more about Caterina’s abduction. I tell him about how I only have vague, blurry memories of it. I don’t tell him that those memories are surfacing more now that I’m writing about Jasmine.
Instead, I share a memory I love, of Christmas morning. We both woke when it was still dark out.
“Ella, are you awake?” she asked me.
I mumbled a yes.
“Let’s be quiet and see if we can hear the reindeer on the roof,” she said.
I smile at this memory. “We must have sat there for an hour straining our ears to hear Santa landing his sleigh on the roof. And then, right before the sunrise, we heard something. Now, I know it was probably just a squirrel running across the roof, but at the time, it sounded like little reindeer feet. I remember Caterina’s eyes growing wide, and we darted for the window, but of course didn’t see anything. My sister had a naive innocence about her and truly believed in everything magical. She believed in fairies and leprechauns and little people. She was so certain and excited about their existence, I couldn’t help but believe in them, too.”
I don’t say that when she died, I stopped believing in everything but monsters.
Donovan hugs me closer, and it feels like every muscle in my body has turned to mush as I ease my body into the crook of his arm. He softly trails a finger along my cheek. I find myself holding my breath. He pulls me toward him, putting his other arm around me, wrapping me in a strong, warm embrace. I can feel the hot breath from his mouth on my hair. Then he pulls back, meeting my eyes. “You’re so sexy.” His voice is husky and his mouth millimeters from mine. He cups my chin and kisses me softly on the lips, then pulls back. It’s not enough.
I curl my legs on the couch, pressing myself closer to him. He reaches for me again, this time gently caressing my head, then plunging his fingers through my hair. My scalp ripples with pleasure. His hand continues down through my hair, and his fingers softly follow the curves of my body, down my neck, along my shoulder, and then down my side. His touch sends flutters through my body as I feel his fingertips travel down the length of my torso.
He scares me and thrills me at the same time. Why am I still a little bit wary? Part of it was hearing about that other girl and the reaction it set off in me. I don’t want to feel that way. Ever. I don’t want to feel nearly ill with jealousy. I’m not the jealous type. Why does hearing about someone else he loved feel so awful? We barely know each other. It’s an absurd reaction on my part.
But there is something about him that both draws me in and makes me want to run away. I sense something in him, something tense and fierce that makes me just the slightest bit afraid.
I brush these thoughts aside as he pulls me close to him and stares into my eyes, sending shivers down my back with the intensity of his look. His fingers still roam across my body, but his gaze never leaves mine. My breathing becomes erratic.
Then he pulls me to him. His lips are urgent, velvety, and warm. Nothing else in the world exists besides his mouth. I don’t even notice at first that I have thrust my hands into his hair. He wraps an arm around my waist and easily pulls me to my feet. We stand with our hips pressed tightly together. I can’t help it, I gasp underneath his mouth. My arms fall from his hair and wrap around his back at his waist.
He breaks the kiss and takes my hand, leading me out of the living room toward the hall. He stops once to kiss me, and I grab his hand and lead the way. Soft light pours into the hallway from an open door at the end. Holding his hand, I feel like a child on her way to the park. I feel like laughing and skipping. I’m smiling in the dark. I hesitate in the doorway, taking in the scene. A bed with a fluffy chocolate brown duvet dominates the room. Votive candles in black, leather-covered holders are scattered on a dark wood dresser.
Donovan is behind me in the doorway. He wraps his arms around my waist from behind and dips his head, nuzzling the spot where my neck meets my shoulder. The friction from his unshaven face sends chills down my spine. I lean my head back, soaking in his sensual touch. Then I can’t help it and turn around so I can meet his lips with my own. He backs me up gently until I feel the bed against the back of my knees. He pulls back, and there is a question in his eyes. Right then, I know there has never been a doubt—not from the first moment I saw him. I have never been so sure of anything in my life.
Then he stops and pulls back, holding me at arm’s length. I answer the unspoken question in his eyes by tugging his shirt over his head.
Chapter 19
A CLOAK OF gray clouds presses down from above as I leave Donovan’s this morning, reluctantly dragging myself from his warm bed, the memory of his
lips on mine still vivid. I blush remembering how he wouldn’t let me go until I promised to return that evening. Thoughts of last night curl my lips into a smile and help lessen the anxiety of what awaits me at the paper.
Less than thirty minutes ago, Kellogg had called. On a Saturday. This can’t be good, I thought. It wasn’t. The Trib scooped me on a story. Apparently, an anonymous source said that Child Protective Services was investigating Kelly Baker.
“You better come into the office,” Kellogg told me.
“There is no way I’m going to get anything from CPS on a Saturday. I’m screwed.”
“I know. Evans wants you in anyway. You don’t want to piss her off any more than she already is. I have scorch marks on my ear from her call.”
I feel guilty that Evans bitched at Kellogg. It would have been completely within his rights to pass the ass chewing on down to me, but he didn’t. I really am grateful that Kellogg is my editor, but sometimes I wish he would stand up to Evans just once. He always defers to her idiotic wishes, even when I know he doesn’t agree with them. Maybe he’s desperate to keep his job so he can keep the hefty payments flowing to his Mercedes-driving, Chanel-wearing ex-wife.
Before I get out of my car in the newspaper parking lot, I’m nervous, so I make the sign of the cross.
The newsroom is empty. But to my surprise, Evans is already in her office. She crooks a finger at me as I try to sneak by her doorway.
“Close the door and please sit down.”
With her fastidious pale blue suit and puffy, coiffed hair, she reminds me of Nancy Reagan. She is about as humorless as the former first lady, as well. She is one of those newspaper executives who made it up the ladder without having ever been a reporter. She has no idea what reporters go through to get a story or how long it takes to develop sources. In her eyes, it should happen overnight. Her story ideas often stem from something she has a personal interest in, so she will pull reporters off news stories to work on articles such as whether leaf-guard gutters are really worth the investment. Crime doesn’t usually fit into this category. Maybe that’s why she has an inherent distaste for my beat—and as a result—me.
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