did it.”
I could see his mind working. He knew Ray was physically incapable of impregnating anyone—in my usual “reveal everything way too soon” manner, I had told him about Ray’s secret vasectomy soon after we had met.
I looked away. “Let’s do this another time.”
He let that go and put the sandwich down. He wiped his hands over his face, clearly exhausted by everything. “I’m sorry.” It took him a few seconds to form his next thought. “I worry about you.”
It wasn’t exactly “I love you” but it was close enough. I felt hot tears burn in my eyes. “I worry about you, too.”
He took my hand. “I promise you that I will find who did this,” he said. And for about the fiftieth time in our relationship, he reached in his jacket pocket and took out a clean square handkerchief. Crawford always has on a clean, white undershirt, and he always carries a nice pressed square of linen, seemingly for my use only. He handed it to me. “Listen, this is my last handkerchief. I’m going to have to switch to tissues if this keeps up.”
I wiped my eyes and blew my nose before commencing with the story of my postwedding Sunday. I told him about running into Terri, too, and the note from Gianna. Although I wasn’t sure what that conversation with Terri amounted to, I thought it was worth mentioning; I knew that Gianna’s note was a warning to me to stay away from her fatso husband and told Crawford so.
He listened to my story while he finished his sandwich, and when I saw him eyeing mine, I pushed it across at him. He worked on the chicken salad and wiped his hands on a paper napkin when he was finished. He pulled out his notebook and a pen and started asking me questions. “Tell me everything you talked about with Peter. And Terri.” I answered as thoroughly as I could and tried to hold my tears at bay, none too successfully. I didn’t want to be married to the asshole anymore but I had never wanted anything bad to happen to him, either. Okay—so that’s kind of a lie. I had wanted bad things to happen to him, only I wanted to be the perpetrator of said bad things, not some crazed Mob capo.
He collected all of the debris from lunch. “Please do your best to stay away from Peter Miceli. Got it?”
“Got it.” I was relieved now that I had told him everything. “Thanks, Crawford.”
He got up and pushed all of the garbage into a long, cylindrical garbage can by the door. We left the restaurant and stood on the street, facing each other under the elevated subway. “If I close this case, you’ll owe me,” he said suggestively, cupping his hand to my cheek. “And I’m bringing my handcuffs.”
I blushed deep red.
“Oh, Jesus, I was just kidding,” he said, exasperated. He held his arms out. “Come here.” I walked into his arms and stayed there for a few minutes, drinking in his clean laundry smell; I didn’t know when we were going out again, but I figured it would be a while until I got this close to smell it again.
I looked up at him and leaned in to give him a kiss but his cell phone rang, interrupting us.
He answered the phone and listened to the person on the other end. “Four-fifteen?” he asked. “Make it four-thirty. If I’m not there, wait for me, Alex. Don’t leave. I’m not kidding.” He waited a few seconds. “If you leave, Alex, I’ll find you. And it won’t be fucking pretty when I do. I’ll kick your fucking ass.” He looked over at me, again a little chagrined at the cursing and loss of composure. I looked down at my shoes. “Fine. Four-thirty.” He hung up and looked at me.
“Good friend?” I asked.
“Informant,” was his one-word answer. A train rumbled overhead, passing by slowly. Crawford started to say something else, but I couldn’t hear him because of the squealing train brakes. It sounded like “Christine,” but I couldn’t imagine what he would need to tell me about his wife. I pulled away and looked up at the train to see how long it would take before we could resume normal conversation; the sound obliterated everything else.
But when I screamed as the bullet tore through my upper arm even the train couldn’t drown out the sound.
Chapter 17
When I awoke, I was on a stretcher and the big, giant