The 6th Target - James Patterson [62]
“I have only one problem with this working arrangement,” he said. “And it’s a big one.”
Rich bent to kiss me, and I wanted him to. My arms went around his neck again, and his mouth found mine. Our first kiss set off a chemical explosion.
I clung to Rich as he lowered me to the bed in the dimly lit room. I remember lying beneath him, our fingers interlaced, his hands pressing my hands against the bed, saying my name softly, oh so gently.
“I’ve wanted to be with you like this, Lindsay, before you even knew my name.”
“I’ve always known your name.”
I ached for him, and I had a right to give myself over to this. But when my young, handsome partner opened my robe and put his lips to my breast, a bolt of pure reasoned panic pulled the emergency brake in my brain.
This had been a bad idea. Really bad.
I heard myself whisper, “Richie, no.”
I clasped the edges of my robe together as Rich rolled onto his side, panting and flushed, looking into my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“No, don’t be.” I took his hand and held it to my cheek, covered his hand with mine. “I want this as much as you do. But we’re partners, Rich. We have to take care of each other. Just . . . not in this way.”
He groaned as I said, “We can never do this again.”
Chapter 86
I DROPPED THE KNOCKER ON THE DOOR of the Westwood Registry that sunless morning after our return from LA. Conklin stood beside me as a round-faced man cracked the door open. He was in his fifties, with blond-going-gray hair and clear gray eyes that peered at me through frameless lenses perched over a sharp beak of a nose.
Did he have something to do with Madison Tyler’s abduction?
Did he know where she was?
I showed him my badge, introduced my partner and myself.
“Yes, I’m Paul Renfrew,” said the man at the door. “You’re the detectives who were here a few days ago?”
I told him that we were, that we had some questions about Paola Ricci.
Renfrew invited us inside, and we followed the natty man down the narrow hallway, through the green door that had been padlocked when we’d last seen it.
“Please. Please sit,” Renfrew said, so Conklin and I each sat on one of the small sofas at right angles in a corner of the cozy office as Renfrew pulled up a chair.
“I suppose you want to know where I was when Paola was abducted,” Renfrew said to us.
“That’d be a start,” Conklin said. He looked tired. I suppose we both did.
Renfrew took a narrow notebook from his breast pocket, a thin daybook of the type that preceded handheld computers. Without prompting, he gave us a short verbal report of his meetings north of San Francisco in the days before, during, and after Paola’s death, along with the names of the potential clients he’d met with.
“I can make you a photocopy of this,” he offered. On a one-to-ten scale, ten being a three-alarm fire, the gauge in my gut was calling out a seven. Renfrew seemed too prepared and well rehearsed.
I accepted Renfrew’s photocopy of his schedule and asked him about his wife’s whereabouts during the same period.
“She’s taking a slow tour through Germany and France,” Renfrew told me. “I don’t have a precise itinerary because she makes it up as she goes along, but I do expect her home next week.”
I asked, “Do you have any thoughts about anyone who would have wanted to hurt Paola or Madison?”
“None at all,” Renfrew told us. “Every time I turn on the television, I see another news story about a kidnapping. It’s a virtual epidemic,” he said. “Paola was a lovely girl, and I’m deeply distressed that she’s dead. Everyone loved her.
“I met Madison only once,” Renfrew continued. “Why would anyone do anything to such a precious child? I just don’t know. Her death is a terrible, terrible tragedy.”
“What makes you think Madison is dead?” I snapped at Renfrew.
“She’s not? I just