Bordon’s cool fell back around him like a cloak. “I’m doing my time, Jake, just doing my time. I’ve said everything to you that I can. You’re the detective. You take it from here.”
Jake was disappointed. Bordon had put an end to the interview. He wasn’t sure what he’d thought he could get the man to say. Maybe he hadn’t expected him to say anything. He’d just been certain that if he saw Bordon, he would know. Know if the man was somehow involved again from behind bars.
Instead, he found himself no more certain than he had been before.
He pulled a card from his pocket. “If you decide you want to talk to me…”
“Yeah, yeah, I know the drill,” Bordon said. He stared at the card in Jake’s hand for a minute, then reached out and took it. He stared at Jake. Jake waited.
“Sure. Maybe I’ll call you sometime, Detective. As I said before, I actually kind of like you. Watch it driving home. It’s a long way. Over two hundred miles. How long did it take you to get here? Four, five hours? Or are Miami-Dade cops allowed to speed through other counties?”
“It took some time to get here,” Jake said evenly.
After a minute, Bordon shrugged. “I’ve got your card,” he said. “If I can think of anything that will help you, I’ll call.”
This particular interview was at an end, and Jake knew it. He stood and tapped at the glass for the guard to come to the door.
As he left the prison, he went over the interview in his mind. Step by step, word by word. Smoke and mirrors. Magicians. Distracting the attention of the audience…
What the hell had Bordon been talking about?
Other statements came back to mind.
…I just want to live, Jake.
He passed the barbed-wire fence, nearing his car, when he stopped short. I just want to live, Jake.
Was Bordon himself afraid of someone?
In his pocket, his cell phone went off. He pulled it out and answered, “Dilessio.”
“Detective, it’s Carnegie. Paddy Carnegie. Sorry it took so long to get back to you. You wanted to ask me some questions about the Fresia case?”
The Fresia case. Why the hell had he gotten involved?
No real question there. Because of Ashley Montague.
Because…
She seemed to know she was right about her friend. The same way he knew that he was right about Nancy…
Because there was that something about her that reminded him of Nancy. And because…
Hell, admit it. Because he dreamed of her at night.
“Carnegie, thanks for getting back to me. I’m in the middle of the state right now, but I’m heading back south. Can we meet?”
Throughout the morning, Ashley found herself sketching during her lectures. Stuart in his hospital bed. His folks, holding close to one another. Jake Dilessio, standing on the deck of his houseboat. She sketched Arne, sitting next to her now. She remembered the words he had spoken to her as they’d both slipped into their chairs earlier.
“Hey, we ate at your uncle’s place last night,” he’d told her.
“I heard. You and Len, right?”
“Yeah, I met up with him at the target range. We thought we’d come by, grab a bite to eat and try to cheer you up. You seemed so down about your friend. Didn’t occur to us that you’d be at the hospital, the guy being in a coma and all. But it didn’t matter that we missed you—we needed dinner and the food at Nick’s is good.”
“Thanks,” she said, feeling suddenly hungry but by then Sergeant Brennan was talking, so she figured she would hold off until lunch time and went back to drawing.
When the class ended, she set her pencil down and looked up. Shit. Brennan was staring at her.
He’d seen her sketching. He thought she hadn’t been paying attention. She felt a chill creep along her spine. Just last week, two of her classmates had been dismissed. They had failed one question too many on a test.
Her test scores had been fine, she reminded herself.
At lunch, she told her friends about Stuart’s condition, and that someone had told her to ask Dilessio if he could do anything. “I talked to him, and he basically said he couldn’t do anything. But then he showed up at the hospital. And he’s going to the cop who’s handling the case.”
“Did he give you any hope?” Gwyn asked.
“Not really, still…there’s more here than it looks like. I just pray that…I pray that Stuart comes to soon. And can help.”
“Brennan might have some information for you,” Gwyn said.
“Why do you think that?” Ashley asked.
“Because he was staring at you all morning.”
“You think?” Damn, he really had noticed her sketching.
“I know.”
She returned to class feeling unnerved.
To make matters worse, Captain Murray came in after the lunch break. He wasn’t speaking to the class; he was just observing.
It seemed to Ashley that he, too, was staring at her.
At one point she leaned across to Arne and whispered, “Am I crazy? Now it seems like Murray is watching me like a hawk, too.”
Arne wiggled a brow. “Maybe he’s got a thing for you.”
“Get serious.”
“You are cute, Montague.”