He was alive. I gibbered, “Stevie, are you okay, are you okay? Everything’s going to be all right.”
“I want my mom-my.”
I used my thumb to wipe away the lipstick from the side of Steven’s head, a mark so obscene, I couldn’t bear to look at it. I took the child out of the car and swung him onto my hip, holding him tight. “Okay, little guy. Your mommy will be here soon.”
Joe was leaning into the front seat. He fastened his eyes on the letters written on the windshield.
“What is it? What does it say?” I asked him.
“Aw shit, Linds. This guy is crazy.”
“Tell me.”
“It says, ‘Now I want five million. Don’t screw it up again.’ ”
He was going to kill more people if he didn’t get the money. He’d done it before. I swayed on my feet, and Joe put his arms around me and the boy in my arms.
“He’s desperate,” Joe said. “He’s a terrorist. Don’t let him get to you, Linds. It’s all bull.”
I wanted Joe to be right, but the last time the city hadn’t come through with the ransom money, Gordon had killed three more people.
Joe put his arm around me and led me back to his car, settling me into the backseat with Steven. He slid behind the wheel and locked the doors. I patted the boy’s back as Joe got Dick Benbow on the line. I thought about Stevie Gordon’s father, a homicidal maniac with nothing to lose.
Where the hell was he?
I didn’t think I could sleep until he was dead.
Part Four. MONSTER
Chapter 99
JACOBI HAD PUT a meaty hand on each of my shoulders and looked into my eyes. “Peter Gordon is the FBI’s problem, Boxer. You did everything you could do. The little boy is safe. Now, take a few days off. Take as much time as you need.”
I knew Jacobi was right. I needed a rest, physically and emotionally. I’d gotten so bad that I jumped when the drip coffeemaker hissed.
On Sunday, Joe and I reached Monster Park halfway through the first quarter. The 49ers were trailing the St. Louis Rams, but I didn’t care. I was with Joe. It was a great day to be sitting along the fifty-yard line. And, yeah, we were carrying guns and wearing Kevlar under our jackets.
A guard had to bump a couple of squatters from our pricey FBI-comped seats, but I forgot about that little skirmish as the screen pass unfolded below.
Arnaz Battle speared the slightly overthrown pass, tucked it in, and followed his blockers downfield. At the Rams’ forty, he cut to the right sideline and raced, untouched, to the end zone.
I was jumping up and down. Joe grabbed me and gave me a great big kiss, five stars at least. I heard someone shout from the tier above, a loudmouth yelling over the crowd noise, “Get a room!”
I turned and saw that it was one of the squatters we’d evicted. He was loaded and he was a jerk. I yelled back, “Get a life!” And, to my amazement, the lout got out of his seat and headed down to where Joe and I were sitting.
And he stood there, towering over us.
“What do you think?” the guy shouted, saliva spraying out of his mouth. “You think because you can afford these seats, you can do anything you want?”
I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I didn’t like what I saw. When a guy goes bug-nuts at a sporting event, the next thing you know, a lot of other guys want in on the action.
“Why don’t you go back to the seat you paid for?” Joe said, standing up. My fiance is over six feet and solid, but he was not as big as the flabby loudmouth’s three hundred pounds. “We’re missing the game, and you’re making the lady uncomfortable.”
“What lady?” said the jerk. “I see a big-assed bitch, but I don’t see no lady.”
Joe reached out, grabbed the guy’s jacket, and held it tight under his chin. I put my badge up to his face and said, “Big-assed cop, you mean.”
I signaled to the stadium cops, who were jogging down the stairs. As the loudmouth was roughly hustled up the steps over encouraging shouts from the fans around us, I realized I was panting, adrenaline flooding through my veins all over again.
I had been a nanosecond from pulling my gun.
Joe put his arms around me and said, “What about it, Linds? As the man said, let’s get a room.”
“Great idea,” I said. “I’ve got one in mind.”
Chapter 100
THE CURTAINS IN our bedroom were stirring with a light breeze coming in through the cracked-open window. Joe had cooked for us, bathed us, admired my “perfect bottom,” and wrapped me in terry cloth.
He wouldn’t let me do a thing.
I was on my back in the center of the bed, looking up at him, huge and gorgeous in the soft light coming from the desk lamp and the streetlight outside.
“Don’t move, Blondie,” Joe said.
He tossed his towel over the door without taking his eyes off me. My breathing had quickened, and I fumbled with the belt that cinched my robe at the waist.
“What did I tell you, Linds? Doctor’s orders. Don’t move.”
I laughed as he stretched out on the huge bed beside me.
“My nose itches,” I said.
“I’ve got an itch, too.”
“Okay, goofball.”
“Goofball, huh?”
He turned onto his side and kissed my neck, a certain way he has of getting me from zero to sixty. I reached up
