Authors: Michele Martinez
“Then you could never be a cop. A lot of what I do is this. Sit someplace all night staring at nothing until my ass falls asleep.”
“I feel bad about missing Bernadette’s wedding.”
“You never know, we might still make it,” Dan said. “I got my suit downstairs in the car.”
“I have my dress in my office.”
“Yeah? What are you wearing?”
“The black halter with flowers.”
“Mmm, I like that on you.”
“Careful now. The guys’ll hear what you’re saying.”
“They know we’re going out,” Dan said, “and they’re all jealous.”
“Hey, pal, you better not be—”
But Melanie’s reply was swallowed up in her gasp as her eyes caught the computer screen.
“Oh my God. He wrote back.”
“Yeah, we just got it in here, too,” Dan said.
She opened the e-mail, and it was as bad as her worst fears.
I knew you would pull something stupid, you bitch. You think I can’t smell a setup? You think I don’t know what floor your office is on? You just made a huge mistake. I was planning to hurt you before, but now it’s gonna be so much worse.
T
he upside of having her plan
to catch the Butcher fall flat on its face was that Melanie got to go to her boss’s wedding. The tech squad went to work tracing the new e-mail, and Mark Sonschein made arrangements for the U.S. Marshal’s Service to begin providing round the-clock security for Melanie starting first thing in the morning. In the meantime, she’d be with Dan. Dan always carried his Glock nine-millimeter, and besides, they were going to a party full of cops who would be armed to the teeth, even while off duty. For added security, Dan instructed Agent Tim Crockett to take up position outside the church.
Bernadette was getting married in a magnificent Gothic edifice on a picturesque, brownstone-lined block in Brooklyn Heights. Dan and Melanie, decked out in their party clothes, pulled up in front of the church mere minutes before the ceremony was to begin. The New York City law enforcement community had turned out in full force, so not only was every parking space taken, but every legally parked car was blocked by double-and triple-parked ones, each with a police placard in its window.
“This looks bad. Should I run in and get us seats while you find a spot? You can watch me from the car to make sure it’s safe,” Melanie said.
“Not on your life, princess. I’m not missing the I-dos. I love weddings. If you’re lucky, I’ll start blubbering like a little kid and you’ll have something to blackmail me with.”
Dan threw the car into reverse and backed down the street at top speed. Then, taking advantage of a small gap between the parked cars at the corner, he threaded the needle, driving up onto the sidewalk with tires screeching.
“That defensive driving course comes in handy,” he said, cutting the engine and grinning. His smile took her breath away.
They leaped from the air-conditioned car into sticky heat. During the course of the afternoon, the weather had turned sultry in a way that felt permanent. The few hours of glorious summer New Yorkers were granted each year had ended, and they’d have dog days from now to September. As they dashed toward the church hand in hand, Melanie felt like she was running through warm water, and was grateful for her bare halter dress and high-heeled sandals. Halfway up the steps, she was gasping for breath and laughing when Dan abruptly turned and caught her by the waist.
“Hey,” he said.
“What?”
“C’mere.”
He pulled her tight against his chest, which felt hard as steel. In the glow from the setting sun, his blue eyes looked bottomless. She wanted to fall in and drown. They kissed for a long moment, and she forgot all the bad and scary things in life. All around her the sounds of the city hushed so that the only thing she heard was the beating of their hearts.
“Mmm,” she murmured.
Inside, the organist struck up “The Wedding March.”
“Let’s go. We’re missing it,” Dan said, and grabbed her hand, pulling her the rest of the way up the stairs.
The ushers had already disappeared. Melanie and Dan ducked into a back pew just ahead of the wedding party. The church was jam-packed and eighty degrees inside. All around the soaring space, papers fluttered as guests fanned themselves with hats, invitations, newspapers, anything they could find. Dan took her hand, and they turned to watch bridesmaids and groomsmen step in time down the aisle. Bernadette appeared on the arm of her frail father. She wore a true fairy-princess dress—pearl-encrusted bodice, enormous tulle skirt—and a long, trailing veil, and the incongruity of the costume on her calculating, tyrannical boss seemed to Melanie like the pure triumph of hope over cynicism.
As he’d promised, Dan’s eyes glittered with real tears. He raised Melanie’s hand to his lips and kissed it tenderly. With a price on her head, everything became clear. So there were ups and downs. So this relationship was intense and stormy. So be it. She wanted to be at his side.
I
n New York,
the line between the cops and the bad guys can be paper-thin, as befits people living cheek by jowl in the same colorful neighborhoods. The catering hall in Bensonhurst where the Albano-DeFelice reception was being held was straight out of a wiseguy movie, and so were a lot of the guests. Christmas lights twinkled in June. Naked nymphs danced in the wall murals, squirting wine from leather pouches into one another’s mouths. Men in pastel satin tuxes imitated them, feeding champagne to their big-haired, big-bosomed companions.
A ten-piece orchestra played as Melanie and Dan wound their way across the teeming dance floor to their table. They were seated with others from the Major Crimes Unit, next to a table full of judges and their clerks. Melanie slid into a seat beside Susan Charlton, who’d brought her girlfriend, Lisa. Susan wore a practical navy-blue business suit and Lisa a tank top and sequined peasant skirt. On the other side of Melanie, Shekeya Jenkins and her husband, Kwame, who worked for the MTA, were tucking into plates groaning with enormous piles of antipasti. Shekeya, who looked like a celebration in hot-pink satin, waved her fork enthusiastically.
“The shrimp is out of this world, girl. You got to get some before it’s all gone.”
Melanie glanced over to an adjoining table with cops and agents from Vito Albano’s Elite Narcotics Task Force. She spotted DEA Agent Raymond Wong, the guy she’d set her friend Sophie up with, sitting there among his colleagues. She waved at Ray-Ray, but he didn’t notice, so wrapped up was he in a conversation with the perky, athletic-looking blonde sitting next to him, who wore a red dress. As Melanie watched, Ray-Ray leaned in and smooched Detective Bridget Mulqueen full on the mouth.
She turned to Dan. “Hey, is something up with Bridget and Ray-
Ray?”
“They’re here together?” Dan asked, following the line of her gaze. “What do you know? They were sorta going out for a while, but I heard she dumped him.”
“I set him up with Sophie Cho.”
“Your friend Sophie?”
“Yeah, just last week. I had no idea he was dating Bridget. He never mentioned it.”
“Dating is an overstatement. He follows her around like a dog. Sometimes she lets him, mostly she just kicks him. But he’s a goner. I wouldn’t hold out much hope for your friend.”
“I thought Ray-Ray hated Bridget.”
“There’s a thin line between love and hate,” Dan said, and then laughed at himself. “Listen to me, the philosopher. Like I have a fucking clue.”
“You do okay,” Melanie said.
From across the table, Joe Williams gave Melanie a look so withering that it shocked her. Her stomach sank. Regarding the whole Clyde matter so far, Joe had been more than understanding, and now Clyde was cleared. Joe didn’t know that yet, but why would he suddenly get so angry? Had something changed? Joe was alone as usual,
the seat beside him empty. In all the years she’d known him, Melanie had never seen Joe with a date. She made up her mind to go sit next to him and find out what was wrong, but then the band segued into a romantic song.
“Come on,” Dan said, grabbing her hand.
“We just sat down.”
“It’s a slow dance,” he said.
The lust in his eyes worked on her like a narcotic. “Okay,” she said.
On the dance floor, Dan put his powerful hands on her hips. Their eyes locked together and their bodies melded from the waist down. His hands caressed ever so slowly from her bare back to her derriere and up again.
“I can’t stop thinking about the sex we had in your office,” he said, his voice husky and low, so only she could hear. “I can’t get the image out of my mind. You, bent over, looking back at me with those hot eyes. Aagh, let’s do that again.”
She rested her head against his broad chest, closed her eyes, and sighed. “Okay…but not in my office.”
“How about my car? Or better yet, the stairwell over there? Standing up against the wall. You like it like that.”
She opened her eyes and stared at him. “Now?”
“Don’t expect me to wait until I get you home. You’re way too sexy in that dress. Your ass looks amazing. I was walking behind you the whole way, drooling.”
“Dan, I’ve got a psychotic killer stalking me.”
“So what? He’s not in the stairwell.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ll check it out first,” he said.
She laughed. “Seriously, we can’t do that again.”
“Can’t do what?”
“Have sex like that. Where we can get caught by people I work with. It’s unprofessional. I mean, it could jeopardize my career.”
His face fell. “Don’t say that! I’ve been fantasizing about it non-stop ever since.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s how I feel.”
“Why not? People already know we’re going out.”
“Going out is one thing. Knocking boots on my desk could get me in trouble.”
“
I’m
in trouble. Have been from the day we met. Jump in, the water’s fine.”
She laughed.
“Come on,” he coaxed, leaning down to whisper in her ear. The soft buzzing made her melt all over again. “If we’re careful, we won’t get caught. That’s half the fun, the challenge of the thing. Don’t you want to have crazy memories to look back on when we’re sitting in our rockers on the front porch fifty years from now?”
“I never thought of you as so reckless,” she said, struck by his reference to the future. Fifty years from now. He’d talked of marriage when they first met, but not recently. Was that only because Melanie seemed like she wasn’t ready? She wasn’t ready, yet when he’d stopped mentioning it, she’d begun to worry.
“Look who’s talking. You locked the door and jumped me,” Dan said.
“You’re right. It was all my fault.”
“That wild streak. I can’t get enough of it. And what a contrast with how sweet you seem on the surface.”
The song ended. She shook her head, “Let’s sit down.”
“Fine, but I’m not giving up. A little vino, and maybe you’ll change your mind. A guy can always hope, anyway,” he said, smiling at her dreamily.
When they returned to the table, Joe Williams was gone. Shekeya said he’d gone to the men’s room, but when he didn’t return after a while, Melanie got worried. She thought about calling his cell phone, but she wasn’t sure what to say. What if Joe’s absence had nothing
to do with her? She’d just be harping on a sore subject. Then dinner was served. Melanie had prime rib and lots of red wine. Everybody seemed to be in a great mood. Susan danced with Judge Fox, who’d been threatening to sanction her the day before, and came back pink-cheeked, telling everybody what a charmer he was. Dan and Kwame got into a rousing argument about the Knicks that ended with them laughing uproariously and slapping each other on the back. By the time the best man, a hefty lieutenant with white hair whom Melanie recognized from somewhere or other, tapped on a wineglass to make the toast, she’d utterly forgotten that the Central Park Butcher was stalking her, or that one of her best friends had walked out on the wedding because he was so pissed about how she’d handled her investigation into his father’s activities. As Bernadette and Vito crammed fluffy white cake into each other’s face, Melanie cheered and hooted with the rest of the crowd as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
When the newlyweds stepped onto the floor for their first dance, most of Melanie’s table got up to join in. Melanie and Dan stayed behind, their fingers intertwined. She leaned toward him and they kissed, their tongues exploring, teasing. Before she knew it, she was thinking about that stairwell.
“Let’s go home,” she said, sliding her hands up his muscular thighs.
Just then, Dan’s phone buzzed in his jacket pocket. He pulled it out and held it up to read the display, which glowed a vibrant blue green in the romantically lit room. Melanie glanced at it, absorbing without intending to.
“Hold on, I have to take this,” he said, and despite the dim light, she saw his face flush red.
The number had come up as
DIANE CELL
. It took a minute for Melanie to get her mind around what her eyes had just seen. If his ex-wife’s cell-phone number was registering that way on his caller ID, it must be programmed into his phone. Yet Dan had assured her he never had contact with Diane.
“What’s up? Any news?” Dan said. She couldn’t help noticing that his tone betrayed no surprise at the call. To the contrary, he sounded as if he’d been expecting it.
“Aw, jeez, I am so sorry…God, I loved that guy. We knew it was coming, but that doesn’t make it easier…I can’t right now, I’m at a wedding right…Yeah, yeah, with Melanie,” Dan said, glancing up at her as he spoke her name.
Seeing the stunned expression on Melanie’s face brought Dan up short.
“Listen, Diane, I’m gonna have to call you back…No, I really have to go. Tell your mom to count on me for a pallbearer, okay? Bye.”
He hung up and thrust the phone back into his pocket. Within seconds, it started vibrating again insistently, but he didn’t answer.
“Your phone’s ringing,” Melanie said hollowly.