Ashes to Ashes

His face flushed as red as a bad rash.

A beeper went off and everyone in the room except the witness reached for theirs. Sabin scowled darkly as he read the message in the display window of his. He checked his watch again.

“Did you get a good look at the man, Angie?” Rob asked in a tight voice. “You could be such a help here. I know you've gone through something terrible—”

“You don't know shit,” the girl snapped.

A vein popped out in Rob's left temple and sweat beaded on his shiny forehead.

“That's why we're asking you, kiddo,” Kate said calmly. She blew a lazy stream of smoke. All the time in the world. “Did you get a good look at the guy?”

Angie studied her for a moment, the time and the silence stretching, then looked to Sabin to Liska to Kovac, and back to Rob Marshall. Gauging. Assessing.

“I saw him in the flames,” she said at last, dropping her gaze to the floor. “He lit the body on fire and he said, ‘Ashes to ashes.'”

“Would you know him if you saw him again?” Sabin demanded.

“Sure,” she murmured, bringing the cigarette to her lips for one final drag. The tip of it glowed like an ember from hell against the pale white of her face. When she spoke again, it was on a breath of smoke. “He's the devil.”

“WHAT WAS THAT about?” Kate went on the offensive the second they stepped from the interview room into the hall.

Sabin turned on her, his expression furious. “I was about to ask you the same thing, Kate. We need this girl's cooperation.”

“And you think you're going to get it by coming down on her like a ton of bricks? In case you didn't notice, she wasn't responding.”

“How could she respond with you butting in every time I started making some headway?”

“Force meets resistance, Ted. And it's my job to butt in—I'm an advocate,” she said, realizing she was inviting the wrath of a very powerful man. He had the power to take her off this case.

I should be so lucky, she thought. Already this investigation had the makings of a world-class cluster fuck. She couldn't possibly want to be stuck in the middle of it.

“You're the one who dragged me into this,” she said. “You want me to be this girl's friend, remember? That's going to be a tough enough job without you setting us up as a group force against her.

“She has to want to tell us what she saw. She has to believe we'll take care of her. Do you honestly think she trusts you not to take what she has to give and cut her loose? How do you think a kid like Angie ends up in a mess like this in the first place?”

“You didn't want this case because she's a kid,” Sabin said irritably. “Now suddenly you're an authority.”

“You wanted me on this because of my expertise, my frame of reference,” she reminded him. “Then you have to trust me to do the job. I know how to interview a witness.”

Sabin dismissed her by turning to Kovac. “You said the girl was apprehended fleeing the scene?”

“Not exactly.”

“She ran out of the park as the first unit arrived,” he said impatiently. “She was running away from a burning body. That makes her a suspect. Shake her down. Rattle her. Threaten her. Scare the truth out of her. I don't care how you do it. I've got a meeting in two minutes with the chief and the mayor. The press conference is set for five. I want a description of a killer by then.”

He walked away from them, straightening his jacket, moving his shoulders like a boxer who'd just gone five rounds. Kate looked to Kovac, who made a sour face.

“See the kind of shit I have to put up with?” he said.

“You?” Kate sniffed. “He could fire my ass. And still I don't care if he's on his way to a tryst with Janet Reno. Power doesn't give him license to harass a witness—or for you to do it for him. If you run over this kid with hobnail boots, I'll make your life a misery, Sam.”

Kovac grimaced. “Jesus, Kate, the big dog says toss her in the can. What am I gonna do? Thumb my nose at him? He'll have my cojones in his nutcracker for Christmas.”

“I'll use 'em for tennis.”

“Sorry, Kate. You're overruled. Sabin can castrate me and my pension. Look on the bright side: The tank'll be like Club Med to this chick.”

Kate turned to her boss for support. Rob shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “These circumstances are extraordinary, Kate.”

“I realize that. I also realize that if this kid had watched our psycho light up one of those hookers, there wouldn't be a press conference pending and Ted Sabin wouldn't even know her name. But that doesn't change what she saw, Rob. It doesn't change who she is or how she needs to be handled. She expects to be treated badly. It gives her an excuse to be uncooperative.”

His expression was a cross between wry and wrenched. “I thought you didn't want this case.”

“I don't,” Kate said flatly. “I have no personal desire to be ass-deep in alligators, but if I'm in this thing, then I'm in it all the way. Let me do my job with her or assign me elsewhere. I won't be a puppet and I won't have my hands tied. Not even by his high and mightiness.”

It was a bluff of sorts. She may not have wanted the job, but she was the best advocate for the job—or so Ted Sabin thought. Sabin with his hard-on for the idea of her as an FBI agent. As much as the obsession disgusted her, Kate knew it gave her a certain amount of leverage with him and therefore with Rob.

The real question was: What would it cost her? And why should she care enough to pay the price? She could smell the stench of this case a block away, could feel the potential entanglements touching her like the tentacles of an octopus. She should have cut and run. If she'd had any sense. If she hadn't looked past Angie DiMarco's defenses and glimpsed the fear.

“What's Sabin gonna do, Rob?” she questioned. “Cut off our heads and set us on fire?”

“That's not even remotely funny.”

“I didn't mean for it to be. Have some backbone and stand up to him, for Christ's sake.”

Rob sighed and discreetly pried a thumb inside the waistband of his slacks. “I'll talk to him and see what I can do. Maybe the girl will come up with an ID from the mug books by five,” he said without hope.

“You must still have connections in Wisconsin,” Kate said. “Maybe you can get a line on her, find out who she really is.”

“I'll make some calls. Is that all?” he asked pointedly.

Kate pretended innocence. She was well aware of her tendency to lead the dance, and perfectly unapologetic about it where her boss was concerned. He never inspired her to follow.

Rob walked away looking defeated.

“Ever the man of action, your boss,” Kovac said dryly.

“I think Sabin keeps his cojones in a jar in his medicine cabinet.”

“Yeah, well, I don't want mine added to the collection. See if you can get something out of this kid besides lies and sarcasm before five.” He clamped a hand on Kate's shoulder in congratulations and consolation. “Way to go, Red. The job's all yours.”

Kate frowned as she watched him retreat to the men's room. “And I ask yet again: Why do I always have to be the one in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

4

CHAPTER

SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT John Quinn walked out of the jetway and into the Minneapolis–St. Paul airport. It looked like nearly every other airport he'd ever seen: gray and cheerless, the only sign of emotion rising above the grim and travel-weary being the celebration of a family welcoming home a boy with a buzz cut and a blue air force uniform.

He felt a flicker of envy, a feeling that seemed as old as he was—forty-four. His own family had been geared for contention, not celebration. He hadn't seen them in years. Too busy, too distant, too detached. Too ashamed of