1st to Die - James Patterson [27]
Sunday mornings I had this place I always went to. My favorite place, I had told Raleigh.
First I drove downtown, to the Marina Green, in my tights, and jogged in the shadow of the bridge.
Mornings like this, I felt infused with everything that was beautiful about living in San Francisco. The brown coast of Marin, the noises of the bay, even Alcatraz, standing guard.
I ran my usual three-plus miles south on the harbor, then up the two hundred and twelve stone stairs into Fort Mason Park.
Even with Negli’s I could still do it. This morning it seemed to be letting me free.
I jogged past yelping dogs running loose, lovers on a morning walk, gray-clad, bald-headed Chinese men bickering over mah-jongg. Always to the same spot, high on the cliff, looking east over the bay. It was 7:45.
No one knew I came here. Or why. Like every Sunday, I came upon a small group practicing their tai chi. They were mostly Chinese, led, as every week, by the same old man in a gray knit cap and sweater vest.
I huffed to a stop and joined in, as I had every Sunday for the past ten years, since my mother died.
They didn’t know me. What I did. Who I was. I didn’t know them. The old man gave me the same quick, welcoming nod he always did.
There’s a passage in Thoreau: “Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it, but while I drink, I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper, fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars.”
I guess I’ve read that a hundred times. It’s the way I feel up here. Part of the stream.
No Negli’s.
No crimes, no faces twisted in death.
No bride and groom murders.
I did my Morning Swan, my Dragon, and I felt as light and free as I had before Orenthaler first dropped the news on me.
The leader nodded. No one asked me if I was well. Or how the week was.
I just welcomed the day, and knew that I was lucky to have it.
My favorite place.
I got home just before eleven, a half-finished coffee and the Sunday Chronicle in my hands. I figured I’d poke through the Metro section, see if there was anything on the case from my new best friend Cindy Thomas, shower, and be ready to meet Claire at one.
It was 11:25 when the phone rang. To my surprise, the voice on the line was Raleigh’s.
“You dressed?” he asked.
“Sort of. Why? I have plans.”
“Cancel them. I’m picking you up. We’re going to Napa.”
“Napa?” There was no trace of anything light or playful in his voice. “What’s up?”
“I went into the office this morning just to check. While I was there, someone named Hartwig got transferred from Central Dispatch. He’s a lieutenant in Napa. He’s got some couple out there who are missing. They’re newlyweds on their honeymoon.”
Chapter 29
BY THE TIME I HAD CALLED Claire to cancel, showered, put my wet hair under a turned-back Giants cap, and thrown on some clothes, Raleigh’s white Explorer was beeping me from below.
When I got downstairs, I couldn’t help but notice him looking me over—wet hair, jeans, black leather jacket. “You look nice, Boxer,” he said. He smiled as he put the car in gear.
He was casually dressed, in crumpled khakis and a faded blue polo shirt. He looked nice, too, but I wasn’t going to say it.
“This isn’t a date, Raleigh,” I told him.
“You keep saying that,” he said with a shrug, then stepped down on the gas.
We pulled up to the Napa Highlands Inn an hour and fifteen minutes later, the exact time, I noted, I was supposed to be pouring my heart out to Claire.
The inn turned out to be one of those fancy, high-end spas I always dreamed about going to. It was tucked into the mountains on Stag’s Leap Road. By the looks of it, with its main lodge built of stacked giant redwoods and arcing windows of tempered glass, the guests here were not exactly into self-denial.
Two green-and-white police units were parked along the rotary outside the hotel’s entrance. In the lobby, we were directed to the manager’s office, where