“I’m terribly sorry if my headache inconveniences you.”
“I’ll get you some Tylenol after you talk to Baker. He should be here any minute, so relax.” He gives me one last look, then slides down in his chair, legs out in front of him, and closes his eyes like he’s going to nap.
“And you can’t let me see Deo while we wait?”
“Deo is fine. You’ll see him later.”
His tone is so very patronizing that I toy with the idea of kicking his feet out from under him, so I can watch him go splat on the floor.
Do it. I’d like to see his face. Daniel always did think he was in charge.
Yeah. I can see that. But there’s a cop in the corner and probably hidden cameras in the room, so no. You’ll just have to rely on your imagination.
Or . . . I can rely on memory.
She sends me a mental flash of a lanky kid about Deo’s age, drenched, furiously shaking partially melted snow from his head and torso.
We rigged it to fall on his head, and boy was he pissed! Taylor said he . . .
Molly doesn’t finish the thought, and I can tell from her little sigh that she’s shifted to thinking about what Taylor said a few hours ago, rather than what she said a few years ago.
I don’t think Taylor meant what she told you, Molly. She was just angry.
Yeah. I know that. But I also know she’s right.
Molly slides back. After a few minutes of listening to the fluorescent light buzz and watching Daniel Quinn take his stupid power nap, I open my phone, and since I can’t access any of my usual networked games, I take out my frustration on Fruit Ninja. It’s kind of liberating to pretend that the pieces flying across the screen are Daniel’s head, Aaron’s, Porter’s. Even Molly’s. Deo and I were doing just fine until I picked her up.
When the door swings open a few minutes later, I mentally run through my earlier conversation with Daniel. Didn’t he say Baker was a guy?
The person who just entered the room has very short dark hair, but that’s about the only thing about her that’s even remotely masculine. A burly man follows her into the room, and I think maybe he’s Baker, but he steps forward to take the coat the woman is shrugging off her shoulders. He folds the coat neatly across his right arm and steps back against the wall without waiting for her to remove her gloves. While I doubt coatrack is the man’s only function, it does seem to be one element in his job description.
Her trim bottle-green suit looks expensive—too expensive for a cop—and more like something you’d wear to a dinner party than to work. And she’s young, midtwenties at most. Below her short skirt is a pair of very long legs, and below that, a pair of matching stilettos that give me vertigo just looking at them. Deo would swipe those shoes out of her closet in a heartbeat. The uniformed policewoman slips outside, and Daniel, who must have actually dozed off, stumbles to his feet, confused. “Where’s . . . What happened to Baker?”
The woman peels the glove from her right hand. “Baker will be along shortly. Dacia Badea.” I’m not sure I’d have recognized the words as a name, but she steps forward to shake his hand as she speaks. Her eyes are almost level with Daniel’s and her voice is smooth, pleasant, with an accent that seems Eastern European. She flashes him a glimpse of something—a badge, maybe. “You look . . . familiar. We have met?”
Daniel’s face goes pale for a moment, but he recovers quickly, giving her a slightly wolfish grin. “No, ma’am. I’m certain I’d have remembered you. I get that a lot, though. I guess I’m kind of generic looking, aside from these green eyes.”
Green? I lean forward to get a better look, because I could have sworn his eyes were brown.
The woman’s forehead creases momentarily, and she rubs her hand across it. Her frown vanishes, almost as if the motion smoothed away her concern. “Yes. The other man, his eyes are dark like . . . like chocolate. And he has no beard. It was the dim light, perhaps.”
I wouldn’t exactly call Daniel’s light scruff a beard. It’s barely even a five o’clock shadow. But whatever interest the woman had in him has vanished.
“You will be so good as to wait outside,” she says, and there’s no question that it’s an order and not a request. “This will not take long.”
“I . . . I was told that Baker would be questioning her.”
“After I finish. I have places to be.”
Daniel nods. As he leaves the room, I feel Molly sliding forward, alert.
What is it?
There’s a brief pause before Molly answers.
Nothing. She reminds me of someone, but . . .