south against the tree line, followed the bow of the beach north, then back. Ten laps was a nice run.
Winter stepped down onto the sand.
“I hear you're quite a runner,” Dylan commented.
Winter didn't respond.
“Inspector Nations, didn't I hear you say something the other day about Winter competing in the Ironman? That the illustrious deputy finished in the top twenty twice. That's biking, swimming and running. Man's a triple threat.”
“Y'all better get going,” Greg told him curtly.
“What hasn't our deputy accomplished?” Dylan mocked. “I wouldn't be surprised if his turds came out shrink-wrapped in cellophane.”
“Dylan!” Sean scolded. “That's crude.”
Dylan's eyes registered the reprimand, but he didn't shift his gaze from Winter. “I'm sorry, dear. I get crass and crude mixed up. If I called the inspector there a jigaboo-would that be crude or crass? Sambo, crude or cute? Nigger, crude or factual?”
“Dylan?” she murmured placatingly. The color had drained from her cheeks.
“Darling, didn't anyone ever tell you that you shouldn't correct family in front of the help,” Dylan told her, his voice icy. She looked away, embarrassed, perhaps angry.
Greg smiled. Winter knew that, under other circumstances, Devlin would have been sifting through the sand for his teeth. Winter swallowed his anger at Dylan's remarks.
“Best go on your run now, Win,” Greg said. “Before the sun rises and sets Mr. Devlin there on fire.”
It appeared to Winter that Devlin was trying to see how far he could push before someone took him on. The killer knew how valuable he was to the attorney general, and he knew he could push pretty hard before anyone would dare push back. Winter had seen it before, a criminal who had to admit to himself that he had turned into the one thing all criminals hated-a rat-then needed to take his self-loathing out on others.
They started running north along the surf.
Dylan was quiet for the first hundred yards. Then he said, “Your boy sure was touchy this morning. Probably not getting enough sleep. You keeping that buck awake?”
“You here to run or talk, Devlin?” Winter said.
“Here to run, ironman.” Dylan sprinted ahead, showing off.
Winter stayed even with Sean. Her stride looked effortless; her arms and legs showed muscle definition from a pattern of exercise.
“We have a gym in the house,” she said, as if reading Winter's mind. “Weights and Nautilus machines. Dylan works out and runs every day. He says staying in shape is the single most important thing there is. You get lazy, let the workouts slide, and everything slows down: stamina, strength, eye-hand coordination. Even your mental ability.”
Winter managed a grunt.
“Winter-may I call you Winter?”
“Sure.”
“I want to apologize for my husband's remarks. He's never been remotely like this before. He's on edge, and who can blame him, really?” She sounded as if she was almost trying to convince herself.
“You don't need to make excuses to me.”
She stared ahead. “Dylan really isn't racist. He just-”
Winter had had enough. “No disrespect intended, ma'am, but I don't care what he was like before all this. We refer to the people we protect as packages, footballs, or units. The package's prejudices don't mean anything to us. An apology to Martinez or Greg won't make any difference, because they don't give a damn what Mr. Devlin thinks or says-just what he does. But as far as I can see, the idea that any of the deputies on this crew might get hurt trying to protect his life is an absurdity of biblical proportions.”
The effect of Winter's words was immediate. Her lips tightened, and she lengthened her stride, pulled ahead of him, and caught up with her husband.
Winter watched her body as she ran. It was a thing to admire. He would have liked to leave them, but he had to make sure nobody appeared from out of the water or behind the dunes and blew Dylan's brains out.
Something like that, while erasing an impurity from the surface of the planet, wouldn't look good on Winter's record.
18
“Assistant U.S. Attorney Avery Whitehead from the New Orleans District is visiting us today, kids,” Greg Nations announced at breakfast. “Let's look sharp.”
When Jet came through the kitchen door, Winter caught sight of the Devlins at the dining room table. Sean Devlin's expression was unreadable, but she was not holding hands with her husband-nor was there any laughter. That seemed like a healthy development. He couldn't help but wonder if Sean might be taking a fresh look at the wisdom of her spousal choice.
An hour after breakfast, a Navy-version Hughes 500 landed and deposited Avery Whitehead and his assistant.
Whitehead struck Winter as being one more arrogant prick in an expensive suit who felt condescension was a God-given right.
Greg led them into the dining room, where he searched them and their briefcases. Afterward, Whitehead set up at the table like a grand inquisitor, his assistant at his right elbow. When Dylan Devlin entered the room, he sat across the table from the prosecutor. Winter and Dixon followed Greg out, leaving the three men alone.
Forty minutes after Whitehead's arrival, Sean came outside, sat down in a chair four feet from Winter's, and opened her laptop. Within a few seconds she was totally immersed in what she was doing. With her hands on the keyboard and her eyes closed, she seemed to contemplate, then type. Then she read what she'd typed and repeated the process. Winter watched her fingers, thinking how beautiful her hands were. There wasn't anything about Sean's appearance that wasn't pleasing to the eye.
When Jet's cat sauntered around the corner of the house and rubbed against Sean's ankle, she set the computer on the side table and lifted Midnight onto her lap. She reached into her pocket for a small plastic bag, took out a piece of bacon, and offered it to the cat, who sniffed it before turning his head away.
Winter could see enough of the computer screen to make out the form of what was there. Sean caught him staring and turned it toward her.
“I like poetry,” he said.
“Do they teach poetry at police school?”
“You know the shortest poem in the history of literature?”
“No.” Her eyebrows rose.
“Fleas. Adam had 'em.”
She struggled not to smile. “You memorized all that? It's hardly ‘The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.'”
Winter was fully twenty lines into that poem before she interrupted him. “You learned Coleridge in high school? That's like Frost-hardly Ginsberg.”
Winter began reciting “Howl.”
“Okay, now I feel foolish.” She cocked her head. “And you have me convinced that you aren't entirely one- dimensional. Tell me how you got interested in poetry.”
“Before I went to police school I got a degree in American lit. I taught high school for four years before I decided police work was safer.”
She studied him for a moment, then turned the laptop toward him so he could read it. “Okay, critique this.”
Winter was sorry he had asked, figuring he would have to lie politely-until he started to read it. The lines contained powerful images. Winter wasn't easily impressed, but with amazing clarity, Sean had captured a child's relationship with a distant father. It struck a chord with Winter, and not just because of his own experience.
