“I don’t mean it to,” Kat said quickly. “It’s just that I’m worriedabout you.”
For the briefest of seconds, she saw a flicker in Hannah’s eyes and gotthe strange sensation that the girl knew what she was going to say.
“Why?”
“I think you know why.”
“How could I possibly?” Hannah asked.
“I know what you did,” Kat said, deciding to just come straight outwith it.
“I truly have no idea what you’re talking about, Kat.”
“Okay, we’ll do it that way,” Kat said. “You came to visit me at myoffice one Saturday about a month ago. You were leaving as I arrived.”
“I remember,” Hannah said.
“Well, the strangest thing happened. I have these security protocols.Ever since my days at the psychiatric prison, I’ve been kind of compulsiveabout them. When I got up to my office, I noticed that a few of them had beenbreached. I won’t bore you with the details. But I was concerned so I checkedthe hidden camera in the office and found a familiar face rummaging throughsome files that I thought I’d hidden but apparently not well enough.”
“Weird,” Hannah said, not admitting to anything but no longermaintaining an expression of self-righteous indignation.
“I know, right?” Kat said, starting to warm up to the task. “Long storyshort, I did a little research and found out that one of the suspects I’d beeninvestigating in the case of a missing girl, an ex-con that I’d eliminated as asuspect, had been arrested. Apparently an anonymous tipster told theauthorities exactly where to find some child pornography concealed in hishouse.”
“That’s lucky,” Hannah said, impressively blank-faced.
“Yeah. The guy kept babbling about some girl who tried to sell himcandy for school before breaking in later and attacking him. The cops didn’ttake him seriously, even though he was pretty banged up. It sounded tooridiculous.”
“It does sound ridiculous,” Hannah agreed.
“All the same, I checked the security footage from the conveniencestore down the block, where the anonymous call was made. And even though thecaller was wearing a disguise, she looked awfully familiar to me.”
Hannah didn’t say anything, instead taking another bite of her breakfastand chewing it slowly.
“Are we really going to keep playing this game?” Kat asked. “We bothremember what happened with that drug dealer in the park last summer. We bothknow you have some kind of need to put yourself at risk. So are you going totell me why you broke into the home of a convicted child rapist and ended up inwhat sounds like a vicious fight?”
Hannah stared at her for a long time. She seemed to be genuinelyconflicted. After swallowing her latest bite, she opened her mouth to respond. Forwhat seemed like an eternity, no words came out. And then Kat saw her expressionchange. The hesitation was gone and her face grew hard.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Kat,” she finally said.
“Come on, kiddo, let me help you. Please, tell me why you did this? Orif you won’t tell me, talk to your sister or that psychiatrist she’s alwaysraving about.”
Hannah pushed her plate to the side and leaned forward. Her gaze wassteely.
“I can’t help you. I wish I could. But I would say this: if you knewthat your best friend’s sister had been putting herself in harm’s way formonths and you didn’t say anything, that would reflect really poorly on you. Andif you thought that I was the girl who went after this pedophile and didn’t gostraight to Jessie with your concerns, that would be a real breach of trust. It’sthe kind of betrayal that could end a friendship. And from what I understand,Kat, you don’t make friends so easy. Can you really afford to put this one atrisk?”
Kat felt a chill go down her spine. She knew what this girl had beenthough, the awful things she’d seen. And she knew that they had damaged Hannahin ways she couldn’t understand. But she hadn’t anticipated that the girl wouldbe willing to blackmail her into silence. She felt sick to her stomach.
“It doesn’t have to be like this, Hannah,” she pleaded. “We can find away to help you. But you have to let me. You have to be honest.”
Hannah stared back at her. Her face was a mask. Her eyes wereemotionless.
“I think it’s time for you to go,” she said coldly. “We only letfriends in the house.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Jessie waited until they were alone to start yelling.
She led Detective Peters into the very Harbor Room where they’dconducted interrogations only hours earlier and began a new one, on him.
“Now I know why there are almost no cameras in this place!” sheshouted. “It’s like one big key party!”
“Listen—” Peters began but Jessie cut him off.
“You knew all about it and never said a word. When Barksdale wastalking about privacy and confidentiality for guests, you knew they wereeuphemisms and you let him do it. Worse, you let me waste valuable time goingdown dead ends when I could have been pursuing real leads.”
“It’s not that simple,” he protested. “You saw what the captain’s like.He’s more the head of a tourist bureau than a cop these days. He hatescontroversy, anything that reflects badly on the island. How do you think he’dreact if I told some mainlander that the fanciest hotel in town is secretly ahaven for wealthy Angelenos to get their rocks off with glorified escorts?”
“Is that really the main concern for you?” Jessie demanded. “If yourboss is mad at you? What about the woman found with a knife in her chest?”
Peters jutted his lower lip out in a pout.
“There was no evidence that the hotel’s secrets had anything to do withthis. I didn’t think it mattered.”
“Everything matters,” she told him.
He looked like he wanted to say something more but stopped himself.That was fine because she wasn’t done.
“Detective Peters,” she began, before changing tacks, “Colby, we are tryingto catch a murderer here. Avoiding bad press is not the top priority. I shouldn’thave to tell you that. I get that you’re in a difficult position and I’m sureyou’re not psyched to have an outsider come in and take over your investigation.But that’s my mission—to find the person who
