Ashes to Ashes

15

CHAPTER

“SO, WHAT DO you think, John?” Sabin asked. “Is the girl holding back on us?”

They sat in a conference room in the county attorney's offices: Quinn, Sabin, Kate, and Marshall. Quinn looked at Kate, sitting across from him with her jaw set and fire in her eyes, plainly telegraphing violence if he stepped on the wrong side of this argument. Just another minefield to cross. He kept his gaze on hers.

“Yes.” The fire flared brighter. “Because she's afraid. She's probably feeling that the killer somehow knows what she's doing, as if he's watching her when she's talking with the police or describing him to your sketch artist. It's a common phenomenon. Isn't that right, Kate?”

“Yes.” A banked fire in the eyes now. Reserving the right to burn him later. He liked it too much that she could still feel that strongly about him. Negative emotion was still emotion. Indifference was the thing to dread.

“A sense of omniscient evil,” Marshall said, nodding wisely. “I've seen it time and again. It's fascinating. Even the most logical, sensible victims experience it.”

He played with the VCR remote, running the tape back to the beginning of Angie DiMarco's initial interview, which had occurred within an hour of her being picked up. They had already gone through it. Freezing the tape at significant points, when Marshall and Sabin would then turn and stare at Quinn, waiting for a revelation like the disciples sitting at the feet of Christ.

“She's clearly terrified here,” Marshall said, repeating with authority what Quinn had said the first time they'd run through it. “You can see her shaking. You can hear it in her voice. You're absolutely right, John.”

John. My buddy, my pal, my colleague. The familiarity rubbed Quinn the wrong way, even though it was something he purposely cultivated. He was tired of people pretending to know him, and even more tired of the people overly impressed with him. He wondered how impressed Rob Marshall would be to know he woke up in the middle of most nights, shaking and sick because he couldn't handle it anymore.

Marshall edged up the volume at a point where the girl lost her temper and shouted, voice quavering, “I don't know him! He set a fucking body on fire! He's some kind of fucking psycho!”

“She's not faking that,” he pronounced quietly, squinting hard at the television screen, as if that would sharpen his myopic vision and allow him to see into the girl's mind.

Sabin looked displeased, as though he had been hoping for some excuse to put the girl on the rack. “Maybe she'd feel safer behind bars.”

“Angie hasn't done anything wrong,” Kate snapped. “She never had to admit she even saw this creep. She needs our help, not your threats.”

Color starting creeping up from the county attorney's collar.

“We don't want an adversarial situation here, Ted,” Quinn said calmly. Mr. Laid Back. Mr. Coolheaded.

“The girl set herself up that way,” Sabin argued. “I had a bad feeling about her the minute I set eyes on her. We should have called her bluff right off the bat. Let her know we're not screwing around here.”

“I think you handled her perfectly,” Quinn said. “A kid like Angie doesn't trust the system. You needed to give her a friend, and Kate was the ideal choice. She's genuine, she's blunt, she's not full of crap and phony sympathy. Let Kate handle her. You won't get anything out of her with threats. She expects threats; they'll just bounce off her.”

“If she doesn't give us something we can use, there's nothing to handle,” Sabin came back. “If she can't give us anything, then there's no point in wasting county resources on her.”

“It's not a waste,” Kate insisted.

“What do you think here, John?” Marshall asked, pointing to the screen with the remote. He had run the tape back again. “Her use of personal pronouns—I don't know him. He's some kind of psycho. Do you think it could be significant?”

Quinn blew out a breath, impatience creeping in on his temper. “What's she going to call the guy—it?”

One corner of Kate's mouth twitched.

Marshall sulked. “I've taken courses in psycholinguistics. The use of language can be very telling.”

“I agree,” Quinn offered, recovering diplomatically. “But there is such a thing as overanalyzing. I think the best thing you can do with this girl is step back and let Kate deal with her.”

“Dammit, we need a break,” Sabin said almost to himself. “She barely added anything to that sketch today. She stood right there and looked at the guy, and the picture she gives us could be anybody.”

“It might be all her mind is allowing her to see,” Kate said. “What do you want her to do, Ted? Make something up just so you believe she's trying harder?”

“I'm sure that's not what Mr. Sabin was suggesting, Kate,” Marshall said with disapproval.

“I was being facetious to make a point, Rob.”

“She's valuable to the investigation regardless,” Quinn said. “We can use the threat of her. We can leak things to the press. Make it sound like she's told us more than she has. We can use her any number of ways. At this point she doesn't have to be a Girl Scout and she doesn't have to have total recall.”

“My fear here is that she's lying about the whole thing,” Sabin admitted, Edwyn Noble's skepticism having taken root.

Kate tried not to roll her eyes. “We've been over that. It doesn't make any sense. If all she wanted was money, she would have booked it out of that park Sunday night and never said a word until the reward was offered.”

“And if the only thing on her mind was the money,” Quinn added, “then she'd be going out of her way to give us details. In my experience, greed outranks fear.”

“What if she's involved in some way?” Marshall suggested. “To try to throw us off track or to get inside info—”

Kate glared at him. “Don't be absurd. If she was involved with this creep, then she'd be giving us a detailed sketch of a phantom to chase. And she isn't privy to any information the Cremator can't read in the paper.”

Marshall looked down at the table. The rims of his ears turned hot pink.

“She's a scared, screwed-up kid,” Kate said, rising. “And I have to get back to her before she sets my office on fire.”

“Are we done here?” Marshall asked pointedly. “I guess we are. Kate has spoken.”

She looked at him with undisguised dislike and walked out.

Sabin watched her go—his eyes on her ass, Quinn thought—and when she was out the door said, “Was she this headstrong at the Bureau?”

“At least,” Quinn said, and followed her out.

“You're defecting too?” she said as he caught up with her. “You didn't want to stay and let Rob suck up to you? It's what he's best at.”

He flashed her a grin. “You don't think much of your boss. Not that that's anything new.”

“You don't think much of him either.” Kate cast a precautionary glance back over her shoulder. “Rob Marshall is an obsequious, fussy little ass-kissing toad. But, in all fairness, he genuinely cares about the job we do and he tries to do it justice.”

“Yes, well, he is trained in psycholinguistics.”

“He's read your book.”

Quinn raised his brows. “There are people who haven't?”

The reception area outside the secured boundaries of the major prosecution unit was vacant. The receptionist had slipped away from her post behind a sheet of bulletproof glass. Stacks of the new Yellow Pages had been left on the floor. The latest issue of Truth & Justice lay on the end table with half a dozen outdated news magazines.

Kate blew out a breath and turned to face him. “Thank you for backing me up.”

Quinn winced. “Did it really hurt that much? God, Kate.”

“I'm sorry. I'm not like you, John. I hate the game-playing that goes on in a case like this. I didn't want to have to ask for your help at all. But I suppose the least I could do is show some genuine gratitude.”

“Not necessary. All I had to do was tell the truth. Sabin wanted a second opinion and he got it. You were right. That should make you happy,” he said dryly.

“I don't need you to tell me I was right. And as for what would make me happy: nothing much to do with this case.”

“Including my being here.”

“I'm not having this conversation with you,” she said flatly.

She walked out the door into the hall and took a left, going toward the atrium balcony. There wasn't another soul on the floor. Twenty-plus stories filled with people and not one of them convenient for a buffer. She knew Quinn was right behind her. And then he was beside her, his hand on her arm as if he still had some right to touch her.

“Kate, I'm sorry,” he said softly. “I'm not trying to pick a fight. Really.”

He was standing too close, the dark eyes too big, the lashes long and thick and pretty—an almost feminine feature in a face that was quintessentially rugged and male. The kind of face to make the average woman's heart skip. Kate felt something tighten in her chest as she drew a breath. The knuckle of his thumb pressed against the outer swell of her breast. They both became aware of the contact at the same instant.

“Kate, I—”

His pager went off and he swore under his breath and let go of her. Kate stepped away and leaned a hip against the balcony railing, crossing her arms over her chest and trying to ignore the feelings his touch had aroused. She watched him as he checked the display, swore again, and traded the pager for a slim cell phone from the pocket of his suit jacket.

The natural light that poured in through the south end of the atrium brought out the gray in his close-cropped hair. She wondered against her will if there was a woman back in Virginia worrying about his health and the level of stress he shouldered day in and day out.

“Goddammit, McCleary, can't you go two hours on this case without a fucking crisis?” he barked into the phone, then listened for a minute. “There's a lawyer involved. Shit . . . There's nothing you can do about it now. The interview is screwed. . . . Back off and go over the evidence again. See if there's anything you can blow out of proportion. What about the tests on that pad of paper? . . . Well, he doesn't know you haven't got it. For godsake, use it! . . . No, I'm not coming down. I'm tied up here. Handle it.”

Snapping the phone shut, he heaved a sigh and absently rubbed a hand against his stomach.

“I thought you'd be unit chief by now,” Kate said.

“They offered. I declined. I'm no administrator.”

But he was the natural leader for CASKU just the same. He was the resident expert the rest of the team would turn to. He was the control freak who believed no job could be handled as effectively without him being in charge of it. No, Quinn wouldn't relinquish his field duties for the unit chief's post. Instead, he would essentially do both jobs. The perfect answer for the man obsessed with his work and with his need to save humanity from its darker side.

“What kind of caseload are you carrying?” Kate asked.

He shrugged it off. “The usual.”

Which was more than anyone else in the unit. More than any one person could humanly deal with, unless he had no other life. There had been times she had labeled his obsession ambition, and other times she had looked past the obvious and caught a glimpse of him standing at the edge of a deep, dark internal abyss. Dangerous thinking, because her instinctive response was to want to pull him back him from that edge. His life was his own. She didn't even want him here.

“I have to get back to Angie,” she said. “She won't be happy I abandoned her. I don't know why I care so much,” she grumbled.

“You always liked a challenge,” he said, offering her a hint of a smile.

“I ought to have my head examined.”

“Can't help there, but how about dinner?”

Kate almost laughed, out of incredulity rather than humor. Just like that—how about dinner? Two minutes ago they'd been sniping at each other. Five years and a load of emotional baggage between them, and . . . and what? He's over it and I'm not?

“I don't think so. Thanks anyway.”

“We'll talk about the case,” he said, backpedaling. “I've got some ideas I'd like to bounce off you.”

“That's not my job. I'm not with the BSU anymore,” she said, moving toward the door into victim/witness services. The need to escape was so strong, it was embarrassing. “The BCA has an agent who's taken the behavioral analysis course and—”

“—is currently in Quantico for eight weeks at the National Academy.”

“You can bring in another agent if you want. You've got all of CASKU to call on for backup, to say noth-ing of every expert and pioneer in the field. You don't need me.”

With quick fingers she punched the code into the key panel beside the door.

“You were an expert in the field,” he reminded her. “It's victim analysis—”

“Thanks for helping out with Sabin,” she said as the lock relinquished its grip and she turned the knob. “I've got to get back to my office before my witness steals all my good pens.”

ANGIE MOVED AROUND Kate's office, restless, curious, jumpy. Kate was pissed off about the sketch. She'd hardly said a word all the way back from the police department.

Guilt pricked Angie like so many tiny needles. Kate was trying to help her, but she had to look out for herself. The two didn't necessarily go together. How was she supposed to know what to do? How was she supposed to know what was right?

You're nothing but a fuckup! You never do anything right!

“I'm trying,” she whispered.

Stupid little bitch. You never listen.

“I'm trying.”

Scared was what she was, but she would never speak the word, not even in her mind. The Voice would feed on her fear. The fear would feed on the Voice. She could feel both forces gaining strength inside her.

I'll give you something to be scared of.

She clamped her hands over her ears, as if she might be able to shut out the voice that echoed only in her mind. She rocked herself for a minute, eyes wide open, because if she closed them she would see things she didn't want to see again. Her past was like a bad movie playing over and over and over in her mind, always right there, ready to pull to the surface emotions better left buried deep. Hate and love, violent anger, violent need. Hate and love, hate and love, hateandlove—all one word for her. Feelings so intertwined they were inseparable, like the tangled limbs of two animals attacking each other.

The fear swelled a little larger. The Zone was zooming in.

You're afraid of everything, aren't you, crazy little bitch?

Trembling, she stared at the fliers tacked to Kate's bulletin board. She read the titles, trying to focus on something before the Zone could sweep in and suffocate her. Community Resources for Crime Victims, Rape Crisis Center, The Phoenix: Women Rising to a New Beginning. Then the titles blurred and she sat down, breathing just a little too hard.

What the hell was taking Kate so long? She'd left with no explanation, said nothing more than that she'd be back in a few minutes, which was—how many minutes ago? Angie looked around for a clock, found it, then couldn't remember what time it had been when Kate had left her. Hadn't she looked at the clock then? Why couldn't she remember?

Because you're stupid, that's why. Stupid and crazy.

She began to shiver. It felt like her throat was closing. There was no air in this stupid little room. The walls were pressing in on her. She tried to swallow as tears flooded her eyes. The Zone was zooming in. She could feel it coming, could feel the change in the air pressure around her. She wanted to run, but she couldn't outrun the Zone or the Voice.

So do something. Make it stop, Angel. You know how to make it stop.

Frantic, she shoved the sleeves of her jacket and sweater up and scratched a stubby thumbnail along the thin white lines of the scars, turning them pink. She wanted to get at the cut she'd opened yesterday, to make it bleed again, but she couldn't get her sleeve up that high and she didn't dare take her coat off for fear someone would come in and catch her. Kate had told her to wait there, that she would be back in a few minutes. The minutes were ticking by.

She'll know how crazy you are then, Angel.

The Zone was zooming in . . .

You know what to do.

But Kate was coming back.

Do it.

The shaking started.

Do it.

The Zone was zooming in . . .

Do it!

She didn't dare take the box cutter out of her backpack. How would she explain it? She could stick it in her pocket—

The panic was setting in. She could feel her mind begin to fracture just as her desperate gaze hit on the dish of paper clips on Kate's desk.

Without hesitation, she grabbed one and straightened it, testing the end with her fingertip. It wasn't as sharp as the razor. It would hurt more.

Coward. Do it!

“I hate you,” she muttered, fighting the tears. “I hate you. I hate you.”

Do it! Do it!

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” she whispered, the pressure building in her head until she thought it would burst.

She dragged the piece of wire across an old scar on her wrist where the skin was as thin and white as paper. She cut parallel to a fine blue vein, and waited for her tear-blurred vision to fill with blood. Rich and red, a thin liquid line.

The pain was strong and sweet. The relief was immediate. The pressure lifted. She could breathe again. She could think.

She stared at the crimson ribbon for a moment, some lost part of her deep, deep inside wanting to cry. But the overwhelming sensation was relief. She set the paper clip aside and wiped the blood away with the bottom of her sweater. The line bloomed again, bringing an extra wave of calm.

She drew her thumb down along the cut, then looked at the way the blood had smeared into the whorls and between the ridges of the pad. Her fingerprint, her blood, her crime. She stared at it for a long time, then raised her thumb to her mouth and slowly licked it off. She felt a kind of release that was almost sexual. She had conquered the demon and consumed it. She drew her tongue along the cut, taking up the last few beads of red.

Still slightly weak-kneed and light-headed, she pulled her sleeve into place and got up from the chair to move around the office. She took in every detail and committed it to memory.

Kate's thick wool coat hung on a wall rack with a funky black crushed-velvet hat. Kate had cool taste in clothes for a woman her age. Angie wanted to try the hat on, but there was no mirror to look in to see it.

A small cartoon on the bulletin board showed a lawyer grilling a witness—a groundhog. “So, Mr. Groundhog, you claim you saw your shadow that day. But isn't it true you have a drinking problem?”

The desk drawers were locked. There was no purse in sight. She tried the file cabinet, thinking she might find her own file, but that too was locked.

As she fingered through the papers on the desk, she was struck by how she had been in such a state of panic just a few minutes ago and now she felt strong and in control, just as she had slipping out of and back into Phoenix House undetected. She hated that part of her that let the Zone take over. She hated how weak that part of her was. She knew she could be strong.

I make you strong, Angel. You need me. You love me. You hate me.

The fresh strength let her ignore the Voice.

She flipped through the Rolodex and stopped on the name Conlan. Frank and Ingrid in Las Vegas. Kate's parents, she guessed. Kate would have normal parents. A father who went to work in a suit. A mother who made pot roast and baked cookies. Not the kind of mother who did drugs and slept around. Not the kind of father who didn't give a shit about his kids, who left and left them at the mercy of the jerks their mother brought home. Kate Conlan's parents loved Kate like normal people loved their kids. Kate Conlan had never been locked in a closet or whipped with a wire hanger or forced to go down on her stepfather.

Angie pulled the card from the Rolodex, tore it into tiny pieces, and stuffed the pieces into her jacket pocket.

A stack of mail sat unopened in the in basket. Another stack sat in the out basket. Angie picked the envelopes up and sorted through them. Three official pieces of correspondence in Hennepin County Government Center envelopes. One bright yellow envelope addressed by hand to someone named Maggie Hartman, the return address on a gold foil label in the upper left corner: Kate Conlan.

She memorized the address and put the envelopes back, her attention moving on to the collection of tiny angel statues she had spotted the first time she'd come into the office. They sat scattered atop the shelving unit on the desk. Each was different: glass, brass, silver, pewter, painted. None was more than an inch high. Angie singled out the one made of painted pottery. She had black hair and dots of turquoise on her dress. Gold edged her wings and circled her head in a halo.

Angie held the statue close and stared at its round face with black dots for eyes and a crooked little smile. She looked happy and innocent, simple and sweet.

Everything you're not, Angel.

Knowing better than to acknowledge the deep sadness that yawned inside her heart, Angie turned away from the desk, slipping the angel into her coat pocket just as the doorknob rattled. An instant later Kate came into the room.

“Where the hell have you been?” Angie demanded.

Kate looked at her, checking the instant retort before it could get to her tongue. “Damage control” was the most diplomatic thing she could say. “Sorry it took so long.”

Instantly Angie's bravado faded. “I did the best I could!”

Kate doubted that was the truth, but there was nothing to gain in saying so. What she needed to do was figure out how to get the whole story out of this kid. She dropped into her chair, unlocked the desk, and took a bottle of Aleve out of the pencil drawer. She shook out two, downed them with cold coffee and a grimace, then paused to consider the possibility that her charming charge might poison her.

“Don't worry about the sketch,” she said, rubbing at the tension in the back of her neck. The tendons stood out like steel rods. She swept her gaze discreetly across the desk. An automatic check that was second nature after she'd left a client alone in her office. One of her angels was missing.

Angie settled uneasily on the visitor's chair, leaning her arm on the desk. “What's going to happen?”

“Nothing. Sabin is frustrated. He needs something big and he was hoping you'd be it. He talked about cutting you loose, but I talked him out of it. For now. If he decides you're a scam artist just trying to collect reward money, he'll cut you loose and I won't be able to help you. If you go to a tabloid and try to give them something more than what you've given the cops, Sabin will throw your ass in jail, and no one will be able to help you.

“You're between a rock and a hard place here, Angie. And I know your first instinct is to pull everything inside you and shut the rest of the world out, but you have to remember one thing: That secret you're holding, you share it with one other person—and he'll kill you for it.”

“I don't need you scaring me.”

“God, I hope not. The man you saw tortures women, kills them, and sets their bodies on fire. I hope that scares you more than anything I could say.”

“You don't know what scared is,” Angie accused, her voice bitter with memories. She sprang up out of the chair and began to pace, chewing hard on a thumbnail.

“Then tell me. Tell me something, Angie. Anything I can toss Sabin and the cops to back them off. What were you doing in the park that night?”

“I told you.”

“You were cutting through. From where? From what? If you'd been with someone, don't you realize he might have seen this guy too? He might have caught a glimpse of a car. He could, at the very least, confirm your side of things and at the most he could help us catch this monster.”

“What do you think?” Angie demanded. “You think I'm a whore? You think I was there fucking some john for pocket money? I told you what I was doing there. So that means you think I'm a whore and a liar. Fuck you.”

She was out the door that fast, with Kate right behind her.

“Hey! Don't give me that bullshit,” Kate ordered, catching hold of the girl's arm, the thinness of it almost startling her.

Angie's expression held as much surprise as anger. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. This wasn't how the umpteen social workers she'd seen in her young life would have reacted.

“What?” Kate demanded. “You thought I'd go contrite and apologize? ‘Oh, gee, I offended Angie! She must never have done anything bad to stay alive on the streets!'” She feigned wide-eyed shock, one hand on her cheek, then dropped the act in a heartbeat. “You think I just rode in on the turnip wagon? I know what goes on in the big bad world, Angie. I know what women with no homes and no jobs are forced to do to survive.

“Yes, frankly, I do think you were in that park fucking some john for pocket money. And I know damn well you're a liar. You're a thief too. What I'm telling you is this: I don't care. I'm not judging you. I can't do anything about what happened to you before you came into my life, Angie. I can only help you with what's happening now and with what's going to happen. You're drowning in this thing and I want to help you. Can you get that through your thick head and quit fighting me?”

The silence was absolute for a second as they stood there in the hall of legal services, staring at each other—one angry, one wary. Then a phone rang in someone's office, and Kate became aware of Rob Marshall looking out his door down the hall. She kept her attention on Angie, and prayed to God Rob would keep his nose out of it. The bleakness in the girl's eyes was enough to break Kate's heart.

“Why would you care what happens to me?” Angie asked quietly.

“Because no one else does,” Kate said simply.

Tears rose in the girl's dark blue eyes. The truth of what Kate had said was right there. No one had ever cared a damn about Angie DiMarco, and she didn't dare trust that someone would start now.

“All I have to gain is a congratulatory pat on the ass from Ted Sabin,” Kate said, pulling a scrap of humor up through the thicker emotions. “Believe me, that's not my motivation.”

Angie stared at her for another moment, weighing options, the weight of those options pressing down hard on her. A single tear rolled down her cheek. She drew a shallow, shaky breath.

“I don't like doing it,” she whispered in a child's voice, her lower lip trembling.

Slowly and carefully, Kate put an arm around Angie's shoulders and drew the girl to her, the need to give comfort so strong, it frightened her. Someone had brought this child into the world, not wanting her for any reason other than to punish her for their mistakes. The injustice burned in Kate's chest. This is why I don't do kids, she thought. They make me feel too much.

The girl's body shuddered as she let go a fraction more of the emotion that was threatening to crush her. “I'm sorry,” she whispered. “I'm so sorry.”

“I know, kiddo,” Kate murmured thickly as she patted Angie's back. “I'm sorry too. Let's go sit down and talk about it. These damn heels. My feet are killing me.”