First to Die

Chapter 50

"WHAT'RE YOU DOING HERE?" I called back in surprise. I was pleased but suddenly tingling with nerves. My hair was pulled up, I was in an old Berkeley T-shirt that I sometimes slept in, and I felt drained and anxious from my transfusion. My little place was a mess. "Can I come up?" Raleigh said. "This business or personal?" I asked. "We don't have to go back to Napa, do we?" "Not tonight." I heard him laugh. "This time I brought my own." I didn't quite understand that, but I buzzed him up. I ran back to the kitchen, turned the heat down on the pasta, and in the same breath threw a couple of pillows from the floor onto the couch and transferred a pile of magazines to a chair in the kitchen. 1 put some lip gloss on and shook out my hair as the doorbell rang. Raleigh was in an open shirt and baggy khakis. He was carrying a bottle of wine. Kunde. Very nice. He tossed me an apologetic smile. "I hope you don't mind me barging in." "Nobody barges in here. I let you in," I said. "What're you doing here?" He laughed. "I was in the neighborhood." "The neighborhood, huh? You live across the bay." He nodded, abandoning his alibi without much resistance. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay. You didn't seem yourself back at the station." "That's nice, Raleigh," I said, looking into his eyes. "So? Are you?" "So. I was just feeling a little overwhelmed. Roth. This FBI thing. I'm fine now. Really." "I'm glad," he said. "Something smells good." "I was just throwing something together." I paused, thinking about what I wanted to say next. "You had dinner?" He shook his head. "No, no. I don't want to intrude." "That why you came with the wine?" He flashed one of those irresistible smiles. "If you weren't home, I have a corner on Second and Brannan I always head to." I smiled back and finally held open the door. Raleigh came into my apartment. He looked around with sort of an impressed nod, gazing at some of the pottery, a black-and-gold satin baseball jacket from Willie Mays, my terrace with its view of the bay. He held out the bottle. "There's one already open on the counter," I said. "Pour yourself a glass. I'll check on the food." I went into the kitchen, reminding myself that I had just come from the outpatient clinic for a serious disease, and we were partners, anyway. With an irrepressible flicker of excitement, I took out an extra place setting. "Number twenty-four, Giants?" he called to me. "This warm-up jacket is the real thing?" "Willie Mays. My father gave it to me for my tenth birthday. He wanted a boy. I kept it all these years." He came into the kitchen, spun a stool around at the counter. While I stirred the pen ne he poured himself a glass of wine. "You always cook for yourself like this?" "Old habit," I said. "Growing up, my mother worked late. I had a sister six years younger. Sometimes my mother didn't get home till eight. From the time I can remember, I had to make dinner." "Where was your dad?" "Left us," I said, whipping together some mustard, grape seed oil, balsamic vinegar, and lemon into a vinaigrette for the salad. "When I was thirteen." "So your mother brought you up?" "You could say. Sometimes I feel like I brought myself up." "Until you got married." "Yeah, then I sort of brought him up, too." I smiled. "You're pretty nosy, Raleigh." "Cops are generally nosy. Didn't you know that?" "Yeah. Real cops." Raleigh feigned being hurt. "What can I help you with?" he offered. "You can grate," I said, and grinned. I pushed a block of Parmesan and a metal grater his way. We sat there as he grated, waiting for the pasta to cook. Sweet Martha padded into the kitchen and let Raleigh pet her. "You didn't seem yourself this afternoon," he said as he stroked Martha's head. "Usually, you handle Roth's bullshit without even blinking. Seemed like there was something wrong." "Nothing's wrong," I lied. "At least not now. If you were asking." I leaned against the counter and looked at him. He was my partner, but even more than that, he was a person I thought I could trust. It had been a long, hard time since I had put my trust in anybody whose gender started with an M. Maybe, in a different time… I was thinking. Tori Amos's haunting voice hung in the air. "You like to dance?" Raleigh suddenly asked. I looked at him, really surprised. "I don't dance. I cook." "You don't dance… you cook?" Raleigh repeated, scrunching up his brow. "Yeah. You know what they say about cooking." He looked around. "What I'd say is that it doesn't seem to be working. Maybe you should try dancing." The music was soft and languorous, and as much as I tried to deny it, part of me just yearned to be held. Without my even saying yes, my goddamn partner took my hand and pulled me from around the counter. I wanted to hold back, but a soft, surrendering voice inside me said, Just go with it, Lindsay. He's okay. You know you trust him. So I gave in and let Chris Raleigh hold me. I liked being in his arms. At first we sort of stood there, swaying stiffly. Then I found myself letting my head fall on his shoulder, and feeling like nothing could all me, at least for a while. "This isn't a date," I muttered. I let myself drift to a real nice place, where I felt love and hope and dreams were still there to reach for. "To tell the truth," I told Raleigh, "I'm glad you stopped by." "Me, too." Then I felt him hold me close. A tingle raced down my spine, one that I almost didn't recognize anymore. "You've got it, don't you, Raleigh?" I said. "What's that, Lindsay?" Soft hands.