WE WERE GATHERED on the deck of Rose Cottage, outside of Point Reyes, feeling the blessed night breeze on our cheeks. Yuki flipped on the heater for the hot tub, while Claire tossed a giant salad and made burgers for the grill.
This impromptu getaway was Cindy’s idea. She had corralled us in a conference call only hours before, saying, “Since our first attempt at a Women’s Murder Club Annual Getaway Weekend was canceled due to someone answering a call to return to work, we should grab this opportunity to drop everything and go now.
Cindy added that she’d booked the cottage and that she would drive.
There was no saying no to Cindy, and for once I was glad to turn the wheel over to her.
Yuki and Claire had both slept in the backseat during the drive, and I’d ridden shotgun with Martha in my lap, her ears flapping in the wind. I listened to Cindy talk over the car’s CD player, my mind floating blissfully as we neared the ocean.
Once we’d arrived at the rose-covered hobbit house with its two snug bedrooms plus picnic table and grill in the clearing at the edge of a forest, we’d slapped each other high fives and dropped our bags on our beds. Yuki had left her box of files in her room and come with Martha and me as we took a short run up a moonlit trail to the top of a wooded ridge and back again.
And now I was ready for a meal, a margarita, and a great night’s sleep. But when we got back to Rose Cottage, my cell phone was ringing. Claire groused, “That damned thing’s been ringin’ its buttons off, girlfriend. Either turn it off or give it to me and I’ll stomp it to death.
I grinned at my best friend, pulled the phone from my handbag, saw the number on the caller ID.
It was Jacobi.
I stabbed the send button, said hello, and heard traffic noise mixed in with the wail of fire engine sirens.
I shouted, “Jacobi. Jacobi, what’s up
Didn’t you get my messages
No, I just caught this ring on the fly.
The sirens in the background, the fact that Jacobi was calling at all, caused me to imagine a new fire and another couple of charred bodies killed by a psycho looking for kicks. I pressed my ear hard to the phone, strained to hear Jacobi over the street noise.
I’m on Missouri Street,” he told me.
That was my street. What was he doing on my street? Had something happened to Joe
There’s been a fire, Boxer. Look, there’s no good way to say this. You have to come home right now.
