Thrill Kill (Matt Sinclair #2) - Brian Thiem Page 0,43
jogged down Hampton Road in a light drizzle. It was only two blocks from his house but far enough to get his body warmed up and awake. He spotted a Mazda Miata at the entrance to Crocker Park. Next to the little red sports car, a woman dressed in turquoise leggings and a yellow windbreaker was stretching her hamstrings. He slowed to a walk. “Didn’t know if you’d come out in the rain.”
Alyssa smiled. “A little bit of rain won’t stop me from working out.”
Sinclair had called the ER yesterday after Braddock wouldn’t give him Alyssa’s number. The nurse who answered said it was against policy to give out coworkers’ phone numbers, but she’d contact Alyssa and pass on his number. Alyssa texted him last night, and after a few rounds of hi, how are you?, he invited her to meet him for a morning run at 6:15. When she replied, OK, where?, he was excited, yet apprehensive. He knew Alyssa was the real deal, and he didn’t want to screw it up with her as he had with so many other women in his past. “All stretched?” he asked.
“Let’s start off slow until I get warmed up.”
Sinclair trotted down the road with Alyssa at his side. “How far you want to go?”
“I should be back here by seven so I can get home and showered before work.”
“I have a nice five-mile loop I think you’ll like,” he said.
A few minutes later, they passed Piedmont High School, and he sped up to an eight-minute mile pace. “Cathy says you’re a marathoner?”
“I ran the San Francisco marathon the last three years, but I don’t consider myself a marathoner,” she said. “Every year, when it’s over, I wonder why I put my body through that kind of abuse and for the next ten months I only run four or five miles a few days a week. Then I get the bug and start training again for the next one.”
They turned onto Oakland Avenue, a main thoroughfare in the sleepy little town of Piedmont. The vehicle traffic picked up, so they moved off the street. He fell in behind her on the narrow sidewalk, enjoying the view of her skin-tight leggings and ponytail swinging back and forth in cadence with her stride.
“Cathy told me all about your marriage and the divorce,” she said over her shoulder. “I never figured you as the marrying type back then.”
“I was getting ready to turn thirty,” he said. “Jill was smart, well respected in the DA’s office, and had her life together. I guess I figured it was time for me to get married, and marrying her would help me grow up.”
They reached the top of Oakland Avenue and turned onto a quiet residential street where they could once again run in the roadway. She dropped back to his side. “Interesting how we both married looking for stability,” she said. “Your wife wasn’t able to change you, and my husband wanted me to change too much.”
She didn’t even seem winded. “I’ve learned a few things since I’ve been sober,” Sinclair said, trying to control his breathing so Alyssa couldn’t tell he was sucking wind. “People like me seldom change until the pain resulting from the old behavior gets too great to handle.”
“I know you’re talking about your drinking. I know other alcoholics and understand about hitting your bottom, but I think people change all the time when they see positive outcomes resulting through change.”
“You mean I don’t need to be hit across the head with a two-by-four?”
“You don’t fool me, Matt. Cathy talks about how much you’ve changed since you two have been partners. The core you—those things that make you special—are beginning to shine through that rough exterior of yours.”
“She’s been pretty tolerant of my rough exterior.”
“Good friends are,” she said.
They finished their run in silence. Every minute or so, she looked over at him and smiled, and Sinclair felt comfortable alongside her without feeling the need to say anything.
*
Sinclair parked his unmarked car two blocks away from Perry’s in the San Francisco Design Center. Cummings and Roberts had briefed him and Braddock at the Waterfront Hotel an hour and a half ago that Special Ladies Escorts agreed to Carlos paying four thousand dollars, half up front, plus a round-trip ticket for Danielle to join him in Las Vegas for the weekend. The Feds bought Danielle’s ticket on Carlos’s credit card, e-mailed the confirmation to Danielle through Carlos’s e-mail account, and Danielle forwarded it to the