Hearing a radio report of a crime in her precinct could get her out of bed even if she wasn't aware of hearing it. Now, April urgently needed the story of some catastrophe for her mother, that April could claim kept her working around the clock. She needed the story if she wanted to go home in peace.
Only three weeks ago, on April 25th, April Woo had celebrated her thirtieth birthday, but you'd never know it by the way her parents treated her. It was particularly humiliating to her that instead of bringing her the respect she deserved, her rank in the department and the ripeness of her age only served to pick up the pace of her mother's tirades on the subject of her low-life job and lousy marriage prospects.
In the Chinese culture, dragons can be both good and evil, can appear at any moment and have the power to make or break every human endeavor. April called Sai Yuan Woo 'Skinny Dragon Mother' because her mother, too, had the ability to change shape before her eyes, and had a tongue that spit real fire. April was no less afraid of her now that she carried two guns on her person than she had been as a small and defenseless child.
Lately, Skinny Dragon Mother had upped the ante on her disapproval of her only child, calling April the very worst kind of old maid, a worm old maid with an undesirable suitor. The undesirable suitor in question, Mike Sanchez, was a Mexican-American sergeant in the Detective Bureau like April. But unlike her, he was now assigned to the Homicide Task Force. Carefully, April turned her head to look at him, lying on his stomach beside her, sound asleep. One arm was curved over his head, the other cradled the pillow that hid his face. The sheet covered his calves and feet. The rest of him was naked.
The clutch hit her above the heart and below the throat, somewhere around the clavicle. His legs and butt, the muscles in his back and shoulders, the fine tracing of curly black hair on the backs of his arms more on his legs, seemed exactly right. His waist, though no longer exactly slender and boyish, was proportionately correct for his age and stature. He had smooth skin—in places it was as soft as a baby's—and the hard muscles of a trained fighter. His body was an interesting blend of hard and soft, dotted with a collection of scars from various battles, only a few of which she knew the origins.
The tightness in her chest rose to her throat as she thought of his welcome last night. When she'd gotten there at 1:30 A.M., he'd given her food and wine. Then, in the flickering light of a dozen candles, they'd made love for much of the night. The candles, she'd thought, were an unusually nice touch. She shivered as the dawn slowly infused the room. The idea of her former supervisor as a thoughtful and compelling lover was so alarming that part of her wanted to get off the slippery slope and slide right out of there with the morning, never to return. Another part told her to relax and go back to sleep. She was wrestling with the conflict when Mike spoke.
'Want some coffee,
'No thanks, I've got to get going.'
'Why? You don't have to be at work until four this afternoon?' He rolled over, stretched his arms above his head and arched his back, showing off his chest and stomach and the rest of the merchandise that was fully restored after very little sleep.
April busied herself tucking the sheet around her neck, looking everywhere but at the goods. 'You know my mother,' she mumbled.
Mike laughed softly. 'We're already acquainted,
'Not where I come from.'
'Don't you like to look at me?' He nudged her with his knee.
'Yeah, sure,' she mumbled some more, wimping out.
'So come on, take that thing off. We can look at each other in the light. Make my day.' He reached out to tickle her, but she turned around to study the clock and didn't see his digits coming.
'Oh my God, it's almost six. Gotta go.' She jumped when he touched her. 'No, no, really.'
He withdrew the offending fingers. 'Aw, don't pull the guilty number on me. You know you don't have to go home anymore. You can stay here with me. We could have coffee, sleep a little more. If you don't want, I won't bother you.' He lifted an edge of the sheet that covered her and pulled it over himself. The action got him closer to her. They were side by side now, touching from shoulder to knee, and the sheet did not succeed in hiding his intent.
She shook her head and laughed.
'What?' he demanded, his lush mustache twitching innocently.
'You know.'
He rose up on one elbow to look at her. 'Lucky me, you are one pretty woman in the morning,
'Yeah sure, I bet you say that to all the girls.' By her calculation, Mike was the good-looking one, and he had a rep. He was like Sarah Lee to the opposite sex: no one didn't like him.
'You're the only girl in my life.' He said this with just the right amount of huskiness in his voice, not too hokey.
April swallowed the hook and believed him, but didn't want to get all teary about it. She scrunched down, put her arms around him, and laid her head on his chest. She was trying to go with the flow' but wasn't finding it so easy. From the things Mike said and did m bed, she was aware that her own erotic repertoire was somewhat lacking. It made her afraid that regardless of what he told her right now, he'd be tired of her before the week was out.
He was able to distract her from this pessimistic speculation for a while by kissing her all over and encouraging her to return the favor, which didn't turn out to be so very difficult.
Then he got up, made coffee, and scrambled some eggs for breakfast. She was impressed by his domesticity. At nine, he showered and dressed for the day, collected his gun and his keys from the table, and took off without saying anything about the case that was bedeviling him. April decided to put off going home. What difference could a few hours make, she asked herself.
Time made a big difference in everything, though. If she had gone home either sometime during the night or early in the morning, she might have avoided a whole lot of trouble with her parents. If she had been a few minutes earlier or later in to work that day, or if she hadn't started the evening tour on radio call, driving around with her driver, Woody Baum, newly promoted to detective, new to the squad, and highly desirable to April because he didn't have any loyalties, she might never have been involved in the Popescu case.
As it was she didn't go home. She started work on radio call, and she and Woody had hardly settled into their gray unmarked unit when she got a call from the dispatcher to 10-85 the Midtown North Patrol Supervisor forthwith.
'Possible kidnapping, K,' the dispatcher squawked. 'Be advised the Midtown North Patrol Supervisor has also requested Crime Scene and Emergency Service Units, K.'
'Ten-four, Manhattan North Detective Supervisor on the way, K.' April turned to Woody. 'That's that fancy building at Seventh and Central Park South. Turn around.'
Woody threw the bubble on the roof, hit the sirens, and did a gut-wrenching u-ie on Fifty-seventh Street, leaving tire marks on the road.
The address of the requested investigation was a glass tower that curved around the corner from Central Park South to Seventh Avenue, sweeping up as much view as it could along the way. A driveway to the building entrance cut through the sidewalk, curving the other way. In front of the driveway was a tiny garden, consisting of a burbling fountain, a Japanese maple full of red leaves, and a thickly planted patch of gold and purple pansies. The building was already locked down. Yellow crime-scene tape was stretched across the entrance. Vehicles jammed the area. Uniforms swarmed everywhere. Three minutes from the 911 call, and the operation was already in full swing. The area was sealed off. The curious were clumped together outside police lines, talking, staring. The media was gathering.
'Park as close as you can and meet me inside.' Adrenaline kicked in, and April was all nerves. It looked like something really big.
As Woody tried to pull into the driveway, a tall uniform with a mustache waved at them to stop. Woody jerked to a halt to talk to him as April took out her shield and clipped it to her jacket's breast pocket. The uniform saw it and waved them on without a word, but April had already jumped out of the car and joined the fray. The first
