LAPD poster tacked up behind a desk.
An interrogation room.
I'd wound up in custody?
I was lying on a metal bench, a handcuff connecting my right wrist to a security bar bolted to the wall. I'd been too groggy to figure out that's why I couldn't raise my arm.
The thought of Ariana jerked me to a sitting position, and my head nearly exploded. My right arm was pins and needles. I tugged up my T-shirt and held it with my chin. The skin on my chest was raw. Standing, I tried to stretch far enough from the bench to look in the two-way mirror and assess the damage to my face, but the cuff kept me inches shy of the mark.
My throat was too dry to allow words through, but I rasped for help. No one came.
I took stock of the room. Thick metal door with a dead bolt just out of reach on the same wall to which I was shackled. The white noise wasn't only in my head; the air conditioner was working double-time, recycling room- temperature air. In the adjoining room, a clock by the LAPD poster showed seven o'clock--A.M.? P.M.?--and a clear plastic tub next to an overstuffed in-box held my wallet, keys, and disposable phone. One of my pockets was inside out.
A scalding thought cut through the haze--She's dead--but my mind recoiled, fled toward other possibilities.
They could've released her. Or maybe the cops had rescued her when they found me. I was desperate to believe anything.
I was able to move four paces parallel with the wall, the cuff sliding along the rail until it caught. I could reach nothing. Swallowing a few times finally got my voice working. I stared at the two-way mirror. 'Where am I?' Hoarser than Brando.
An unseen door opened and closed, and a moment later a detective entered from the adjoining room, badge hanging around his neck. He was so broad that I almost missed his colleague slipping in behind him.
The big guy ran a hand over his blond, grown-out flattop and gave a businesslike wave at the mirror. 'Okay, we got him, thanks. You recording?' His wide face, big-featured and handsome, fixed on me. He looked quintessentially American, a Norman Rockwell football player. 'I'm Lieutenant DeWitt, and this is Lieutenant Verrone.'
Lieutenants. I'd been upgraded.
Verrone had a cigarettes-and-booze complexion--tinged yellow, rugged and sickly all at once--and he looked like he could fit in DeWitt's pant leg. His mustache turned the corners of his mouth, aiming at a handlebar but cut short, no doubt, in keeping with department regs.
'My wife,' I croaked.
'What about her?' DeWitt asked.
Verrone dropped into the chair in the far corner. His button-up shirt pulled tight against his torso, revealing a surprisingly sinewy build. He only looked insubstantial next to DeWitt.
'Is she okay?' I said.
'I don't know,' DeWitt answered carefully. 'Did you hurt her?'
'No, I--no.' There was a ring of shiny red skin at my wrist. My head wasn't back online yet; everything seemed so uncivilized, so bewildering. 'You . . . you didn't see her?'
DeWitt squatted in the middle of the white tile, facing me. Such a big guy and yet his movements were precise, graceful. 'Why should we see your wife?'
From his chair, Verrone continued to stare at me. Not a glower per se, but dispassionate eye contact, menacing only in its reptilian endurance. Since sitting, he hadn't broken eye contact or moved any part of his body, at least not that I could gather from the glances I'd allocated myself.
I shook my head to clear it, but that only compounded the pain. 'How am I . . . ?' The rest couldn't make it from brain to mouth.
DeWitt obliged the obvious question anyway. 'Stun grenade, military issue. You add the overpressure of being in a car, you're looking at a pressure wave of thirty thousand pounds per square inch. You're lucky you're not more seriously injured.'
Had it been my attacker's plan to knock me out all along? Or had he spotted the butcher knife at my side and decided to drop the grenade? They'd let me live. Which meant they still had use for me. Clearly they'd realized that the blank CD I'd brought was a sham. Maybe they thought I could still lead them to the real one. Hope flared in my chest; if that were the case, they'd keep Ari alive to ensure my cooperation.
If you talk to the cops, she dies.
Shivering off the remembered threat, I did my best to focus. I had to get out of here without revealing anything, and make myself available to Ariana's kidnappers. No step of which would be easy. First thing would be to get myself to a lower-security building. Like a hospital. 'Am I . . . Can I see a doctor?'
'Medics cleared you at the scene. You were conscious--remember?'
'I don't.'
'We brought you here, then you dozed off.'
'Where's here?'
'Parker Center.'
LAPD headquarters. Great.
'I should be at a hospital. I was unconscious. I don't remember anything.'
DeWitt cocked an eyebrow at Verrone. 'We'd better re-Mirandize him, then.'
'Nah, we got him on tape. And he signed.' Verrone's mouth had barely moved, and for a moment I wondered if he'd spoken at all. He remained eerily still.
I tried to stand, but the cuff jerked me back onto the bench. 'You can't arrest me. I can't . . . be in jail right now.'
DeWitt said, 'I'm afraid it's a little late for that.'
'Can I talk to Detective Richards?'
'She's no longer involved with this case.'
'Where's Gable?'
DeWitt said, more firmly, 'We're above Gable.'
'Sixth floor,' Verrone said.
My brain revved and revved but couldn't find traction. With Ariana's life on the line, was I finally out of plays?
'A neighbor called in the blast a few hours ago.' DeWitt eyeballed my handcuff, unconsciously jostling the dive watch on his own right wrist. 'Keith Conner's house, you know?' He whistled. 'So we got on our horse. Then you, there. Look at it from our perspective. I gotta be a hard-ass here and get some answers out of you.'
I could feel Verrone's impassive face pointed at me, those steady eyes posing some unspoken challenge. I realized he scared me.
'I don't know that I have any answers,' I said.
'Who assaulted you?' DeWitt asked.
'I didn't see. And I don't know names.'
'But they didn't kill you. Which means you must have something they want.'
'No, they don't want me dead. I'm the fall guy for Keith Conner's murder. If I die, it looks suspicious.'
'And this doesn't?'
'Sure it does. It makes me look suspicious. That's why I'm the one under arrest.'
'Listen closely, assfuck,' Verrone said. This time there was little uncertainty that he was talking. There was also little uncertainty about who would be playing bad cop. A crime-scene bag appeared from inside his jacket. The butcher knife. Swaying. 'We want an explanation for this. And we want an explanation for what you were doing at Keith fucking Conner's house.'
I said, 'Assfuck?'
'You know how to boil a frog, Davis?'
'I know the story,' I said. 'You can't throw it in hot water or it'll just hop out. So you put it in a pot of cold water on a stove, then you turn up the temperature, a degree at a time. It's so gradual, the frog doesn't notice. It
