Raleigh and I froze. “Whose, Warren?” I pressed.
“I figure, I check it out, I can be a hero, bring home a signed copy. You ever read Lion’s Share by Nicholas Jenks?”
Chapter 69
JACOBI’S STATEMENT felt like an elbow to my solar plexus. At the same time it removed all doubt for me.
Kathy Kogut, Sparrow Ridge, the Clos du Mesnil champagne. Jenks was now tied in to all three murders.
He was Red Beard.
I wanted to run and confront Jenks, but I knew I couldn’t. I wanted to get up close, glare in his smug eyes, let him know I knew.
At the same time, a suffocating tightness swept up into my chest. I didn’t know if it was a flash of nausea, Negli’s, or the release of my bottled-up rage.
Whatever it was, I knew I had to get out. “I’m leaving,” I said to Raleigh. I was scared.
He looked stunned and confused as I rushed out.
“Hey, I say something wrong?” I heard Jacobi say.
I grabbed my jacket and purse and ran down the steps to the street. My blood was rioting inside me like an angry demon. A cold sweat had broken out all over me.
I ran out into the cool day, started to walk fast down the street.
I had no idea where I was going. I felt like a foreign tourist wandering in the city for the first time. Soon, there were crowds, stores, people rushing by who knew nothing about me. I wanted to lose myself for a few minutes. Starbucks, Kinko’s, Empress Travel. Familiar names flashed by.
I felt drawn by a single, irrepressible urge. I wanted to look in his eyes.
On Post, I found myself standing in front of a Borders bookshop. I went inside.
It was large and open, bright with merchandised stands and shelves of all the current books. I didn’t ask. I just looked. On a table in front of me, I spotted what I was searching for.
Lion’s Share. Maybe fifty copies, thick, bright blue, some stacked, some propped up.
Lion’s Share. By Nicholas Jenks.
My chest was exploding. I felt in the grip of unspeakable but undeniable right. A mission, a purpose. This was why I was an investigator. This very moment.
I took a copy of Jenks’s book and looked at the back cover.
I was staring at the killer of the brides and grooms. I was sure of it.
It was the cut of Nicholas Jenks’s face, sharp as a stone’s edge, that told me. The gray eyes, cold and sterile, controlling.
And one more thing.
The red beard, flecked with gray.
Book Three
RED BEARD
Chapter 70
JILL BERNHARDT, the tough, savvy assistant district attorney assigned to the bride and groom case, kicked off her Ferragamos and curled her leg up on the leather chair behind her desk. She fixed her sharp blue eyes directly on my face.
“Let me get this straight. You think the bride and groom killer is Nick Jenks?” she asked.