The 8th Confession

Chapter 61

YUKI WAS SCARED out of her mind.

She couldn’t remember any day when she’d felt as special as she did with John “Doc” Chesney. And it seemed that the feeling was fantastically mutual.

Oh God. Twice now, he’d played his eyes over her face until her cheeks burned and she had to say something, anything, because she just couldn’t take so much attention.

Doc had met her early that morning out at the beach. He was wearing a navy-blue parka over his jeans, a color that turned his eyes bluer, his sandy hair blonder, the dazzling entirety of his being enough to make Brad Pitt jealous.

Yuki had cautioned herself not to get too gaga on their first real date, not to let her moony eyes show, reminded herself that she’d been a bitch when she’d first met Doc and he’d liked that about her.

And so she’d gotten a grip on herself and they’d spent the day exploring Crissy Field, a very pretty park that ran along the shoreline from Marina Green to Fort Point, a Civil War fort that was lodged underneath the Golden Gate Bridge.

She’d jogged a bit faster along the path than Doc did, laughed at him for not keeping up until he sprinted past her, kicking up a little sandstorm and calling over his shoulder, “Hey, girlie, just try and catch me.”

She’d collapsed on a weathered bench, laughing and panting, and he’d come back to her, also blowing hard, dropping down beside her, the smell of him filling her up, making her knees shake.

“You’re a show-off, you know?” he’d huffed, staring at her until she’d said, “Oh, look,” and pointed to the bobbing heads in the bay.

“Coconuts?”

“You’re kidding me, right? Those are sea lions.”

“You like all this nature stuff?” he’d said, untying his Reeboks, shaking out the sand. “All this big sky, these creepy life-forms -”

“Crabs and jellyfish -”

“As I was saying, you nature-lover -”

“Oooooooh, Doc, that really hurts.” Yuki laughed. “By the way, New Yorkers don’t have a lock on skyscrapers. I like cities as much as you do.”

“Yeah? Prove it.” He’d gri

But she’d proved it anyway, named her top-ten architects, seven of whom turned out to be his favorites, too, and told him about San Francisco landmarks, putting her Golden Gate Bridge up against his Throgs Neck any day of the week, her Folsom Street against his Fifth Avenue, and then she’d asked him what ocean he could see from midtown Manhattan.

Doc gave her props for “the ocean thing,” and they walked together to the Warming Hut, where they sat now at a small table, hot cocoa in hand, their cheeks flushed, gri

“You know, you’re gorgeous,” he said.

“Come on.”

“Yeah, you are.”

He reached over and rubbed her bristly head, and she touched the back of his hand and rested her cheek in his palm, waiting for the bubble to burst, which it did when his cell phone went off to “Somebody to Love.”

Doc sighed, removed his warm palm from her cheek, opened his phone, and a

“I’m not on call,” he said. “Isn’t that his problem? Okay, okay. I can make it in an hour.”

Doc put his phone away and grabbed both of Yuki’s hands in his. “I’m sorry, Yuki. It’s going to be this way until I move up in the pecking order.”

“I understand,” she said.

They walked back to their cars together, arms around each other’s waists, covering new territory, Yuki liking the feeling so much and equally relieved that the day had closed at the best moment. She was attracted to Doc, and she was scared.

He draped an arm over her shoulder, brought her to him, and kissed her, sweetly, softly, so she kissed him again, even more so.

When they broke apart, Yuki blurted, “I haven’t had sex in almost two years.”

A look passed over Doc’s face that she couldn’t read. It was like an eclipse of the sun. He hugged her, got into his car, and said out the window, “I’ll call you.”

“Okay,” she said, too softly for him to hear over the sound of the engine as he drove away.

What had she said to him?

Why had she said that?

Chapter 62

CINDY SAT IN a booth of a diner called Moe’s, just down the block from Bagman’s condemned Victorian house that had decayed into a crash pad for druggies.

Her grilled cheese and coffee were cooling, and Cindy was making notes for a sidebar: how many homeless died before the age of forty, how many were under the influence of alcohol or drugs when they died – 65 percent.

She was taking the data off the SFPD Web site, so it was automatic writing, not creative, but it was distracting her from the delicious aches and twinges caused by spending another entire night wrapped around Richard Conklin, this time at his place. And those memories only made her want to call him, make another date to wrap herself around him again.

She was in that luminous and dangerous state of mind when she felt a tug on her hair, turned to see a woman peering over the back of the booth at her and saying her name.

Cindy thought the woman looked familiar but at the same time didn’t recognize her.

“Sorry. Do I know you?”

“I’ve seen you at From the Heart.”

“Okay, sure,” Cindy said, pretty certain that she didn’t recognize this young woman from the soup kitchen – but she couldn’t place her anywhere else.

“Want to join me?” Cindy said, forcing herself to make the offer, because you just never knew. This woman with the messy blond hair could be the one who knew who killed Bagman Jesus.

“You look busy.”

“It’s okay,” Cindy said, shutting the lid of her laptop as the woman took the seat across from her.

Cindy could see the begi

“I’m Sammy.”

“Hi, Sammy.”

“I read your last story. About Bagman being a guy named Rodney Booker. That he went to Stanford.”

“Yes, he did.”

“I went to Stanford, too.”

“You dropped out, I’m guessing.”

“School can’t compete,” Sammy said.

“With what?”

“With life.”

Cindy blinked into the young woman’s face. She was remembering the cautions, not to speak too fast, move too quickly, appear in any way a threat. That as long as the meth addict was talking, it was safe enough. Silence meant she might be getting paranoid – and dangerous.

Cindy tried not to look down at the fork and knife on the table. She said softly, “Do you know who killed Bagman, Sammy? Do you know we’re offering a twenty-five-thousand-dollar reward?”

“What’s your life worth, Cindy?” Sammy said, her eyes darting all around the diner, then back to Cindy. “Would you sell your life for money you’ll never get to spend? That’s what I want to tell you. You’re wasting your time. No one’s going to say who the people are who killed Bagman Jesus. No one would dare.”