First to Die

Chapter 110

"I HAVE SOMETHING TO TELL YOU," I said to Chris on the phone, my voice ringing with urgency. "Can you meet me for lunch?" "Sure. You bet. Where?" No doubt he thought I had some important news to break on the case. "Casa Boxer," I said with a smile. "That urgent, huh?" Chris laughed into the phone. "I must be starting to have a bad effect on you. When should I come?" "I'm waiting now." It took him barely fifteen minutes to arrive at the door. I'd stopped on the way at Nestor's bakery and picked up some freshly baked cinnamon buns. Then I popped a bottle of Piper-Heidsieck that I had saved in my fridge. Never in six years had I bugged out on a case in the middle of the afternoon. Especially one of this magnitude. But I felt no guilt, none at all. I thought of the craziest way I could break the good news. I met him at the door, wrapped in a bedsheet. His big blue eyes went wide with surprise. "I'll need to see some ID." I grinned. "Have you been drinking?" he said. "No, but we're about to." I pulled him into the bedroom. At the sight of the champagne, he shook his head. "What is it you want to tell me?" "Later," I said. I poured him a glass and began to unfasten the buttons of his shirt. "But trust me, it's good." "It's your birthday?" he said smiling. I let the bedsheet drop. "I would never do this for just my birthday." "My birthday, then." "Don't ask. I'll tell you later." "You broke the case," he exclaimed. "It was Joanna. You found something that broke the case." I put my fingers to his lips. "Tell me that you love me." "I do love you," he said. "Tell me again, like you did at Heavenly. Tell me that you won't ever leave me." Maybe he sensed it was Negli's talking, some crazy hysteria, or that I just needed to feel close. He hugged me. "I won't leave you, Lindsay. I'm right here." I took his shirt off--slowly, very slowly- then his trousers. He must've felt like the delivery boy who had stumbled into a sure thing. He was as hard as a rock. I brought a glass of champagne to his lips, and we both took a sip from it. "Okay, I'll just go with this. Shouldn't be too difficult," he said. I drew him to the bed, and for the next hour we did the one thing I knew I would have missed most in the world. We were in the middle of things when I felt the first terrifying rumbling. At first it was so weird, as if the bed had speeded up and was rocking faster than we were; then there was a deep, grinding sound coming from all directions, as if we were in an echo chamber; then the sound of glass breaking- my kitchen, a picture frame falling off the wall- and I knew, \ve knew. "It's a goddamn quake," I said. I had been through many of these- anyone who lived here had- but it was startling and terrifying every time. You never knew if this was the Big One. It wasn't. The room shook, a few dishes broke. Outside, I heard the bleat of horns and triggered car alarms. The whole thing lasted maybe twenty seconds- two, three, four vibrating tremors. I ran to the window. The city was still there. There was a rumble, like a massive humpback whale breaching underground. Then it was still- eerie, insecure, as if the whole town were holding on for balance. I heard wailing sirens, the sound of voices shouting on the street. "You think we should go?" I asked. "Probably… we're cops." He touched me again, and suddenly I was tingling all over, and we melted into each other's arms. "What the heck, we're Homicide, anyway." We kissed, and once again we were locked into a single, intertwined shape. I started to laugh. The list, I was thinking. The skybox. Now an earthquake. This suckers starting to get pretty long. My beeper went off. I cursed, rolled over, glanced at the screen. It was the office. "Code one eleven," I told Chris. Emergency Alert. "Shit," I muttered, "it's just an earthquake." I sat up, pulled the sheet over me, called in on the phone next to the bed. It was Roth buzzing me. Roth never buzzed me. What was going on? Immediately, I transferred to his line. "Where are you?" he asked. "Dusting off some debris," I said, and smiled toward Chris. "Get in here. Get in here fast," he barked. "What's going on, Sam? This about the quake?" "Uh-uh," he replied. "Worse. Nicholas Jenks has escaped."