this to me? Or do you just want to hear about the sex?”
“Whatever you want to tell us about, Angie,” he said evenly. “It's important for you to talk about it. We're here to listen.”
“I'm sure you are. You like to hear about other people's pain and suffering. You're a sick little fuck, aren't you?”
A muscle ticked in Rob's cheek. He held on to his excuse for a smile, but it looked more like he was biting a bullet.
“You're trying my patience, Angie,” he said tightly. “I'm sure that's not what you really want to do. Is it?”
The girl looked away toward the fire for so long that Kate thought she would never speak again. Maybe she'd gone to the Zone she'd talked about. She held the utility knife in her right hand, pressing the fingertips against the blade.
“Angie,” Kate said, moving behind the couch, casually picking up the chenille throw from the back of it as she went. “We're trying to help you.”
She sat on the arm of the unoccupied end, holding the blanket loosely in her lap.
Tears gleamed in Angie's eyes and she shook her head. “No, you're not. I wanted you to, but you're not. You just want what I can tell you.” Her swollen mouth twisted into a bitter smile. “The funny thing is, you think you're getting what you want, but you are
“Tell us what happened that night at the Phoenix,” Rob prompted, trying to draw her attention back to him. “Kate dropped you off. You went upstairs to take a shower . . . Did someone interrupt you?”
Angie stared at him, slowly scratching the tip of the blade along her thigh over and over.
“Who came to take you, Angie?” Rob pressed.
“No,” she said.
“Who came to take you?” he asked again, enunciating with emphasis.
“No,” she said, glaring at him. “I won't do it.”
The blade of the knife bit deeper. Sweat glistened on her pale face in the firelight. The denim shredded. Blood bloomed bright red in the tears.
Kate felt ill at the sight. “Rob, stop it.”
“She needs to do this, Kate,” he said. “Angie, who came to take you?”
“No.” Tears streaked down Angie's battered face. “You can't make me.”
“Let her alone.” Kate moved off her perch. Christ, she had to do something before the girl cut herself to ribbons.
Rob's stare was locked on Angie. “Tell us, Angie. No more games.”
Angie glared at him, shaking visibly now.
“Where did he take you? What did he do to you?”
“Fuck you!” she spat out. “I'm not playing your game.”
“Yes, you are, Angie,” he said, his voice growing darker. “You will. You don't have a choice.”
“Fuck you! I hate you!”
Shrieking, she came up off the couch, arm raised, knife blade flashing.
Kate moved fast, flinging the chenille throw to cover the knife and diving into Angie from the side almost simultaneously. The girl howled as they crashed to the floor, knocking into the coffee table and scattering the victimology reports.
Kate held her down as she struggled, the first wave of relief washing through her. Rob picked up the knife, closed the blade, and put it in his pocket.
Angie was sobbing. Kate moved onto her knees and pulled the girl into her arms to hold her.
“It's all right, Angie,” she whispered. “You're safe now.”
Angie pushed free, staring at her, incredulous and furious. “You stupid bitch,” she rasped. “Now you're dead.”
34
CHAPTER
“THE SHARKS SMELL blood in the water,” Quinn commented as they watched the mob gather for the press conference.
Kovac scowled. “Yeah, and some of it is mine.”
“Sam, I can guarantee you, with Vanlees on the block, they could give a shit about you.”
The idea seemed to further depress Kovac. It did nothing for Quinn either. Having Bondurant's people leak information about Vanlees to the press was bad enough, but to have the police talk openly to the press about Gil Vanlees at this point was dangerously premature. He'd said so to the mayor, Greer, and Sabin. That they were choosing to ignore his advice was beyond his control. And yet he could feel the anxiety singeing another hole in the wall of his stomach.
He was the one who had come up with the initial profile, which Vanlees fit, nearly to a T. In retrospect he thought he shouldn't have been so quick to offer an opinion. The possibility of tandem killers changed everything. But the press and the powers running the show had Vanlees now, and were all too happy to sink their teeth into him.
The mayor had chosen the grand Fourth Street entrance for the setting of the press conference. A cathedral of polished marble with an impressive double staircase and stained glass panels. The kind of place where politicians could stand on the stairs above the common folk and look important, where the glow of the marble seemed to reflect off their skin and make them seem more radiant than the average citizen.
Quinn and Kovac watched from a shadowed alcove as the television people set up and the newspaper people jockeyed for status spots. On the stairs, the mayor and Sabin conferred as the mayor's assistant brushed lint from her suit. Gary Yurek was deep in conversation with Chief Greer, Fowler, and a pair of captains who seemed to have come out of the woodwork for the photo op. Quinn would join the circus in a moment and give his two cents' worth to the throng, trying to give the announcement of a suspect in custody a cautionary spin, which almost no one would listen to. They would rather listen to Edwyn Noble spin lies for Peter Bondurant, which was almost certainly what he was doing standing with a reporter for MSNBC.
There was no sign of Peter. Not that Quinn had expected him—not after this morning, and not with the possibility of incest allegations seeping out into the news pool. Still, he couldn't help but wonder at Bondurant's mental state, and what exactly had brought Lucas Brandt running with his little black bag. Jillian's supposed demise, or the revelation of what might have happened all those years ago?
“Charm,” Kovac said with derision, staring at Yurek. “Destined for a corner office. They love him upstairs. A million-dollar smile on lips he won't hesitate to use to kiss ass.”
“Jealous?” Quinn asked.
He made one of his faces. “I was made for chewing ass, not kissing it. What do I need with a corner office, when I can have a crappy little desk in a crappy little cubicle with no decent file cabinets?”
“At least you're not bitter.”
“I was born bitter.”
Vince Walsh heralded his arrival with a phlegm-rattling coughing fit. Kovac turned and looked at him.
“Jesus, Vince, hack up a lung, why don't you?”
“Goddamn cold,” Walsh complained. His color had the odd yellow cast of an embalmed body. He offered Kovac a manila envelope. “Jillian Bondurant's medical records—or what of them LeBlanc would release. There are some X rays. You want to take them or you want me to drop them off with the ME?”
“I'm out, you know,” Kovac said even as he took the envelope. “Yurek's boss now.”
Walsh sucked half the contents of his sinuses down the back of his throat and made a sour face.
Kovac nodded. “Yeah, that's what I said.”
PETER WAITED UNTIL the press conference was under way to enter the building. A simple matter of calling Edwyn on his cell phone from the car. Noble had no way of knowing he wasn't still at home. Peter had dismissed from the house the employees Edwyn had posted to keep an eye on him. They had gone
