D.D. DIDN'T HAVE a sense of humor. I had suspected that before. Now I knew it. Bobby half carried, half dragged my sorry ass up to D.D.'s room. No romantic tucking in of precious little Annabelle. Detective Dodge dumped me onto D.D.'s sofa. The sergeant doused me with a glass of ice water.
I bolted upright, sputtering wildly, then racing for the toilet to vomit.
When I came back out, footsteps still unsteady, D.D. greeted me with a fistful of aspirin and a can of spicy V8.
"Don't puke this up," she warned me. "It's from the minibar and it's costing the department a fortune."
Expensive V8 did not taste any better than normal V8. I tried not to be ill.
"Sit. Talk." D.D. still sounded pissed.
I managed to register now that she remained fully clothed, though we were passing one a.m. Her laptop was powered up on the desk, and her cell phone was winking madly that it had new messages.
Apparently, D.D. wasn't getting her beauty rest these days, and that made her one cranky bitch.
I tried to sit. It made the nausea worse. I went with pacing.
Later, when I thought about it, I was very sorry I had the champagne. Not because it made me sick, but because it lowered my defenses. It made me talk when a sober Annabelle would've known better.
"My father was an undercover FBI agent," I blurted out.
D.D. frowned, blinked her eyes, frowned at me again. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"My father. He was with the FBI. Catherine knew him. Hey, stop doing that!"
"Stop doing what?" Bobby asked.
"Exchanging glances. It's very annoying. Not nearly as cool as you two seem to think."
This earned me a pair of arched brows instead.
"Catherine has met your father?" Bobby asked skeptically.
"He went to her hospital room where she was recovering after being rescued." My chest practically swelled with pride. Or gas. "He visited her twice!"
"Your father questioned Catherine?"
"Yes. I'm telling you, he was an FBI agent. And that's what FBI agents do, they question victims of crime."
D.D. sighed, rubbed her forehead, sighed again. "I'm going to brew coffee," she said abruptly. "Annabelle, you've got a lot of sobering up to do."
"I am not lying! Ask Catherine! She will tell you. He came to her room twice."
"In the hospital," Bobby said.
I nodded, an ill-considered motion that almost made me puke again. "He said he was a special agent, FBI, and asked her all sorts of questions about her attack."
Halfway across the room, D.D. stilled, caught the pause, got herself moving again. "All sorts of questions?" she asked. "What kind of questions?"
"Well, you know, FBI questions. Who grabbed her, what did he look like, what kind of car did he drive. Where did the perp take her."
"The perp?"
"Oh yeah, the perp. Plus all the stuff you asked. Where, what kind of supplies, how long was she underground. What did Umbrio say, were there any other victims, how did she get away, blah, blah, blah."
The coffee was percolating now, the rich, caffeinated scent permeating the air.
"He visited Catherine twice?" Bobby asked.
"That's what she said."
"Did he show ID?"
"I don't know."
"Was anyone else with him? Another member of law enforcement? A partner?"
"She never mentioned anyone with him." I placed my hand on his muscled arm. "But I think partners are just a TV myth," I told him kindly. "The real FBI doesn't do that sort of thing."
"But they have secret undercover agents," he drawled.
"Oh yes."
"Who still live at home with their families?"
Across the room, D.D. was making frantic ixnay motions with her hand. That, more than anything, caught my attention. All at once, I heard how ridiculous my words sounded. All at once, the true implication of Catherine's words hit me, and I felt my stomach plummet, the floor drop out from underneath me. Except I couldn't be sick anymore. I couldn't pass out cold. I had already played my best denial cards under the influence of alcohol. I had no tricks left.
"They do have undercover agents, don't they?" I heard myself ask. "I mean, they could. . ."
My hand was still on Bobby's arm. He took it now, led me back to the sofa. I sat down hard. Didn't move.
He took a seat across from me, on the edge of the bed. D.D. brought me a mug of coffee.
"Did your father ever tell you he was an FBI agent?" Bobby asked quietly.
I sipped scalding black coffee, shook my head.
"Did you ever hear him tell anyone else he was an FBI agent?"
Another negative, another bitter sip.