Thirst

by Jacquelyn Frank

  So that left her with the randomness of a street crime. An attempted robbery gone bad. Although, the victim’s wallet had not been taken, nor any of his rings…one of which had been a glaringly obvious diamond. Perhaps the perp had simply not had time once the witness had started screaming. But why rob a man in broad daylight, knowing you were risking being seen, only to come away with nothing to show for it?

  And why waste time biting the man?

  “I know that look,” Jimmy said from across their desks. “You’re thinking too hard.”

  She and Jimmy sat across from each other, the fronts of their desks butted up against each other. It made it easier for them to pass files and notes to each other. Easier to talk and discuss their next plan of action.

  “All right, here’s the thing…why the bite marks?”

  “The vic just came across a perfect storm of bad luck. Some whack job attacks him, bites him, gives him a heart attack, and he dies. I’d get my heart rate up too if some clown had me in his mouth by the back of my neck.”

  “Stella said this guy should have lived to see a hundred. That was how healthy his heart was. This doesn’t make sense to me!”

  “It doesn’t make sense to me either, but crime never does make sense. Sometimes shit happens.”

  “We need to attack the streets, see if anyone knows about a guy with cosmetically altered teeth doing robberies. It shouldn’t be all that hard to find him.”

  “With only that as a descriptor?”

  “We have the witness’s sketch.”

  “Oh yeah. Like that’s going to help,” Jimmy said dryly.

  He had a point. The witness’s sketch had turned out to be very generic in its way. The man was reasonably handsome, like Robert Redford in his younger years, the witness had said. In fact, the sketch was a dead ringer for Redford. It led Renee to believe that the woman had described Redford more than she’d described the perpetrator. She knew Jimmy felt the same way. But outside of the teeth, it was the only thing they had to go on.

  They had caught people with less before, Renee told herself, trying to bolster her spirits.

  “Let’s hit the streets,” she said, standing up and reaching to take her jacket off the back of her chair.

  “In this mess?” Jimmy complained. “No one’s going to be out on the street in a storm like this.”

  “Then we hit the shelters. We hit the bars. They will be full of people. Even weather like this doesn’t keep people from their alcohol.”

  “We’re gonna freeze our asses off.”

  “C’mon, Jimmy. Afraid of a little snow?” she dug at him. A few of the nearby detectives chuckled. Not because she was being particularly funny, she knew, but because Jimmy was beleaguered by the go-get-’em attitude of his partner. He was often teased for being saddled with her dogged personality.

  Renee didn’t care what any of them thought. She knew that if a crime wasn’t solved in the first forty-eight hours it was likely to stay unsolved, so she went all out until the first few days had gone by. And even then she rarely let things go. But it was hard when new murders were constantly coming across her desk.

  She pulled on her coat, checked her weapon, and looked at Jimmy expectantly. With a loud sigh he got out of his chair and into his coat.

  They started with the shelters closest to the crime scene—St. James church being the first. It was one of the nicer shelters in town, and it was just a block over on Madison Avenue. They went in armed with their sketch and descriptions and met with immediate resistance. If these homeless knew who the attacker was, they weren’t talking. They had the same results at the next two shelters. So, they switched tactics and went to the bars. Here they dealt with a higher caliber of people. There were no dive bars on the Upper East Side—not in that section of Fifth Avenue, in any event.

  “Yeah. I think I know him,” a woman at one of the bars said as she swiveled in her barstool to look at them. “This guy is a real looker. I don’t know about the teeth though. I’ve never seen anything like that about him, but this guy comes in here every so often. And I should know,” she said with a snort of laughter. “I’m here every night. I get off work and I come right down here. I like this place. It’s my favorite.”

  “Are you sure this is the guy?” Renee asked, trying not to get too excited.

  “Well, close enough anyway.”

  “Do you know which nights he comes in here?”

  “It’s completely random. I tell you what, if he comes in I’ll give you a call.”

  “Great. Here’s my card. That’s my personal cell on there, so feel free to call anytime. If you remember more or if he comes in. Anytime.”

  “Will do, Detective.” She smiled devilishly and gave Jimmy the once-over. “Can I get your number too, honey?” She winked. “Just in case the lady is too busy to pick up.”

  “Sure,” Jimmy said with a wolfish grin. He handed his card to the barfly. “Call me as soon as you lay eyes on the guy.”

  “Maybe sooner,” the woman flirted.

  Jimmy only gave her his best charming smile, then they took their leave.

  “A thief that frequents high-end bars?” she said once they were out of earshot of the bar patrons. “Maybe he chooses his marks here?”

  “Must be. But it sounds like he fits too. She said he was handsome, well-dressed. Maybe the thing on the street was an act of desperation, rather than a well-planned attack. Maybe her guy isn’t our guy at all.”

  “There’s too many maybes. We should see if he’s hit any other bars as well. Maybe he has a pattern and we can pick him up.”

  “Yeah. Definitely too many maybes. Let’s check out a few more bars then we can call it a day. I don’t know about you, but I have plans for tonight.”

  “In this storm, Jimmy? I thought you’d stay in with pizza delivery and a few hours of Call of Duty.”

  “You’re exactly right. Only the girl from the floor beneath me is coming to play with me. In more ways than one.”

  “Ugh! I don’t need the details of your sex life, Jimmy.”

  “Sure you do. Maybe it’ll make you want to get one of your own.”

  “How do you know I don’t have one of my own?” she asked him.

  “I would know,” he said confidently. “You’re pretty easy to read.”

  Renee forced herself not to think of Rafe in that moment. One kiss did not make for a sex life. But who knew? That might change given enough time.

  She pushed those thoughts away too. It was much too soon to be thinking like that.

  “Come on. Let’s hit a few more bars,” she said.

  —

  Rafe’s conversation with Bayram was the polar opposite of the one with Leopold. The prince of Turkey made demands and plenty of them, and it was Rafe’s job to see that those demands were met, within reason. Rafe had assigned an assistant to Bayram to help him organize his visit, but that wasn’t enough for the Turk. He wanted special attention. He wanted Rafe’s time. Rafe gave it to him, but only sparingly. He had an email to write, and he had no doubt that once it was sent out to all the delegates coming into New York for the summit, there would be a massive influx of calls—probably mostly protests. And it would be his job to field all of these calls and respond to each one in such a way as to coax agreement with the new addendum to the treaty. Because he had plans for the evening, it would be best to get it over with as soon as possible. So he drafted the email and sent it to the entire list of delegates. Then he warned Rachel about the firestorm that was about to fall down on them. But his assistant was not easily ruffled, so he had faith she would manage it well.

  Ten minutes after he hit “send” the first call came in. They came at a steady pace and Rafe dealt with each.

  He was worn out by the time six o’clock rolled around. He sent Rachel home, telling her to ignore any further calls and let voicemail pick them up. He went into the bathroom off his office, shrugged out of his suit jacket and shirt and bent over the sink for a quick shave. He put on a c
lean shirt from the selection hanging in a closet and skipped a tie. He left the shirt open at the collar and already felt a little better. Winding down wasn’t going to be easy, and his phone kept going off on his desk, but he had already determined he would shut off the ringer for the night, leaving the phone on vibrate only. That way he could surreptitiously glance at it to make note of who was calling without disrupting his dinner date. He would shut it off altogether, but he didn’t want to potentially miss a call from Simone, should she need him. He knew that once callers could no longer get to him, their next effort would be to contact Simone. Simone would take the calls or ignore them as she saw fit, and any fallout from that might need to be addressed by both of them.

  By the time Rafe pulled up to Renee’s brownstone, he had successfully shifted his mindset away from work and toward the evening to come.

  The opening at the gallery was not formal, so a fresh shirt and shave had been sufficient. But when Renee came to the door he immediately felt underdressed. Not that she was overdressed for the occasion, but to look so deliciously elegant as she did, she must deserve better than him. She was wearing red, a favorite color of his, and one that was quite flattering with her warm skin tone and her honey blond hair. The dress hugged every one of her charming curves, the skirt ending mid-thigh, showing off quite a bit of her legs. She wore a pair of shoes with sparkling red rhinestones and a show of toe, completely inappropriate for the snow-covered ground. She looked beautiful, but she was going to freeze to death.

  “You’re stunning,” he said, feeling a little like his breath had been taken away. It was a peculiar feeling. He knew many beautiful women. In fact, it was safe to say he was surrounded by them daily. Why she should affect him this way was beyond his understanding. Still, in that moment none of those beautiful women interested him and none could hold a candle to her. She was just right in so many ways.

  He watched her smile at his compliment. The ingenuousness of the reaction spurred warmth into him, even though he was standing in the cold.

  “I’m ready,” she said, pulling on the coat she had been holding.

  Rafe immediately maneuvered around her in the narrow doorway to help her. It brought their bodies into close contact and her body heat soaked into him. He felt her raw energy and it lit up a craving for her that he might have expected if he had gone several days without feeding, not mere hours after having already satiated himself on her. But her vibrancy could not be ignored and he found it remarkable that she had recovered so quickly. She should have at least seemed duller than usual, had less energy. But here she was, eager and bright and shining with exciting energy.

  He wanted to devour her. Feeling her eddy into him like this, he wanted to be a glutton and take so much more that he would burst from overindulgence.

  Instead, he took a deep breath, filled himself with the perfume she had lightly applied to her skin, and guided his cravings into a safer place. He focused his energy on her and showing her a good time tonight. He wanted to give her as much genuine pleasure as she gave to him.

  He reached out to stroke warm fingertips over the apple of her cheek. “You’re going to catch your death in this outfit. Those shoes alone are highly unreasonable.”

  “I know. But I wanted to look nice. I can take it. Will we be walking much?”

  “Not much, but still. I don’t want your feet to get wet.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Cold toes never killed anyone.”

  “I want to insist you put on sensible shoes if nothing else.”

  She laughed. “I have nothing else that would look right with this dress. And I’m not about to wear Uggs to a gallery opening.”

  “All right then. If you insist you will be fine I will try to forget about it. But I make no promises.”

  She smiled at that and he thought to make her smile more often. Her face lit up in the loveliest way when she did so.

  Rafe guided her out of the doorway and down the front stoop steps. He led her to his car, which he had left idling in front of the house. Once they were ensconced within, he drove into the city.

  “So, did you have a good day?” she asked him.

  He hesitated as he thought of the trials of his day. “It was busy,” he said vaguely.

  “What did you do?”

  “Nothing too exciting. I wrote an email that perturbed a lot of people.”

  “That sounds rather exciting actually. Can you tell me what it was about?”

  “I can’t go into much detail. Most of it is confidential. But my boss changed an agreement at the last minute and those signing the agreement were a bit miffed by the change. But most of them are using it as an excuse to get out of signing the agreement in the first place.”

  “And you had to smooth things over?”

  “Yes. A job that I’m afraid does not end at five o’clock. Do not think me rude when you catch me glancing often at my phone. I must be available to my boss if she should need me.”

  “I understand completely. I won’t take offense. As long as you pay attention to me the rest of the time.”

  “I think it will be hard for me to do otherwise. You are dazzling me tonight.”

  “Charmer,” she accused him. “You’re going to turn my head.”

  “Good. That’s my goal. I don’t say these things to charm you. I say them because they are the truth. There is no ulterior motive.”

  “All right,” she said.

  He would have to measure his words to her, he thought, lest she think he was trying too hard to impress her. He had no desire to make her feel uncomfortable. Quite the opposite. He wanted her to enjoy herself, to be at ease. And he wanted to be at ease as well. He needed it after the stressfulness of his day.

  He found somewhere to park that was near the restaurant where they had reservations. It was a short walk from there to the gallery, so he would not be needing the car again until it was time to return home.

  Rafe guided Renee toward the restaurant, lifting her over any particularly slushy piles of snow in order to protect her feet as much as possible. He made her laugh every time he insisted on keeping her feet off the ground.

  “You’re going to slip and fall!” she said.

  “I have very sure footing. Don’t worry about me.” He guided her into the restaurant and she exhaled a burst of breath. “Goodness it’s cold out!” She shivered theatrically.

  “Certainly too cold for a dress that short,” he scolded her, a warm glint in his eye.

  Renee smiled softly. She was flushed from all the times he had put his hands on her to help her through the snow. He was so strong and so undeniably male. She felt protected and cared for. It was a feeling she wasn’t used to. She found herself enjoying it immensely.

  “Tonight I’m willing to sacrifice warmth for vanity. I wanted to look good.”

  He smiled at that, one side of his mouth kicking up and his eyes warming as he took her in from head to toe. “Then I should mention your unbounded success.”

  He reached out toward her, but the maître d’ stepped forward into their space and interrupted the gesture.

  “Reservations?” he asked, reaching to help Renee out of her coat.

  “DaSilva,” Rafe said.

  “Ah yes. Mr. DaSilva. We have the table you requested this way.”

  After their coats were checked, the maître d’ led them to a table cozily tucked into the rear of the restaurant. It was private and they would be undisturbed there.

  “Sit. Let me warm your hands.”

  He held a chair out for her then took the seat across from her. He reached over the table for her hands and rubbed warmth into her chilled fingers. They ignored their menus, leaving their eyes with nothing to do but meet over the table. The intimacy was intense, closing the distance between them. Renee watched as candlelight flickered over his handsome features.

  After a minute she withdrew her hands from his and picked up her menu. Staring at him like that had been too intimate. She needed a moment to catch her br
eath. So she stuck her nose in her menu and began to search for something to satisfy her appetite.

  Rafe recognized her withdrawal for what it was. As he too picked up his menu, he tried to think of why the growing intimacy between them did not concern him as much as it should. Clearly she was taken off guard by it. She was pulling back, trying to protect herself from this easy connection they seemed to feel with each other. He should be equally cautious. But for some reason he was not. For some reason he found himself throwing himself into the feelings she elicited by her mere presence.

  They communicated their selections to the waiter, and then were left alone again.

  “So you had a beastly day?” she asked him.

  “Not so bad. Not most of it. The end of it was trying, but it has vastly improved since leaving the office.” He reached out and again took her hand, toying lightly with her fingers. “What about you?”

  “I spent it indoors mostly. But I did have to beat the streets a little to work a case I’m on.”

  “Yes, a homicide detective, I imagine, cannot spend the day inside watching the snow fall.”

  “I would have liked to. I’ve been trying to shake off a sense of lethargy all day.”

  Rafe frowned. “Perhaps we should not have gone out tonight.”

  “No. I’m fine,” she insisted. “I wanted to do something. I…I had a nice time last night. I thought we could repeat our success.”

  “It was a success,” he agreed. “I was pleasantly surprised considering I essentially picked you up in the market. One never knows how things like that will turn out.”

  “I confess I felt the same way. I thought I was out of my mind…but as the evening wore on I began to think I’d gotten lucky.”

  “I know the feeling.” He smoothed the tip of his thumb along the tips of her fingers. “So do you anticipate equal success tonight?”