Marker by Robin Cook Page B

looked considerably younger.
    "What do you mean you're finished? Finished what?"
    With his hands clasped into fists, Jack stretched his arms over his head. "All my cases.
    I'm completely caught up."
    "Then what are all those folders doing in your inbox?" Chet used his index finger to point at the sizable stack threatening to spill out.
    "Those are just the cases waiting for material to come back from the lab."
    "Big deal!" Chet scoffed with a dismissive laugh before returning to his work.
    "Hey, it's big for me," Jack said. He stood up and touched his palms to the floor and held them there for a beat. After the unaccustomed bike ride to work that morning, his hamstrings felt tight. After straightening back up, he glanced at his watch. "Good grief!
    It's only three-thirty. Will wonders never cease? I might make it for the first run on the court."

"If it's dry," Chet said without looking up. "Why don't you come over to Sports Club L.A. The court will be dry there. If you were smart, you'd tag along with me to body-sculpting class. I tried it last Friday, and I'm telling you, the chicks are incredible.
    There was this one that was something else. She had on a full-body, black, skintight bodysuit that left nothing to the imagination."
    "Ogling chicks!" Jack mocked. "One of these days, you'll wake up and be able to look back on these difficult years of puberty and laugh at yourself."
    "The day I stop checking out the women will be when I'm ready for one of those pine boxes downstairs."
    "I've never been much for spectator sports," Jack quipped. "I'll leave that up to you wimps."
    Jack took his jacket from the back of the chair and headed out of the office, whistling as he went. It had been an interesting and stimulating day. When he reached Laurie's office, he poked his head in, wondering if she was inclined to change her mind about not coming back to his place that evening. The office was empty, though he noticed an open folder on Laurie's desk.
    Jack sauntered in and checked the name. As he'd guessed, it was Sean McGillin. He was curious why Laurie and Janice seemed so engrossed in what sounded to him like a routine case. Generally, he wasn't one to stereotype women, but he thought it odd that they had both displayed what he thought was rather unprofessional emotion. He flipped open the folder and shuffled through it until he found Janice's report. He read it quickly. Nothing jumped out. Other than the victim being only twenty-eight, the circumstances weren't particularly noteworthy. It might have been sad and a tragedy for the victim's family and friends, but it wasn't sad for mankind or the city or even the borough, for that matter. There were a lot of individual tragedies in a metropolis the size of New York.
    Jack quickly closed the folder and beat it out of the office as if he'd been engaged in something surreptitious and was fearful about being caught. All at once, he was less inclined to see if Laurie wanted to reconsider her decision to move back to her own apartment for fear of having to deal with too much emotion. Thinking about family tragedies was not a pastime he wanted to indulge in. He'd had too much personal experience.
    Down on the first level, Jack retrieved his biking paraphernalia as well as the bike itself. He waved to the evening security man, Mike Laster, as he carried his bicycle out onto the receiving dock and then down onto the pavement. The rain had stopped, and it was significantly colder than it had been when he'd arrived that morning. He was thankful for his gloves as he climbed on the bike and pedaled across 30th Street to First Avenue.
    In contrast to his morning ride, Jack enjoyed the afternoon slalom among the cars, taxicabs, and buses as he streaked northward, racing the traffic in daredevil fashion.
    Eventually, he cut over to Madison Avenue, using the brief crosstown traverse as a time to allow his circulation to relieve his aching quadriceps. Heading north again, he regained his speed. At