I tried to remember the details of my conversation with Angus. “He was terrified.”
It was over anyway. He had Angus’s phone number. In a matter of hours, Angus would
Angus would be willing to back that story once he was officially under suspicion for murder.
unofficial peek into Angus’s home? The answers to these and other obvious questions
He said slowly, as though he were thinking aloud, “It’s reasonable that you could have
“What lead?”
about the kid, and I gave you my cell phone number and told you to call me if you heard
occasionally more – with a gay man.
the perp’s prints. Anyway, your fingerprints aren’t on file, and there’s no reason for you to be
He spoke confidently, working it out as he went along. Contemplating him from what
His eyes flicked to mine. “Or even seriously interviewed,” he said as though I hadn’t
Oh, good. Promotion ops for Jake.
He shook his head. I’m not sure my words actually registered.
opened it, touching the knob as little as possible. Opening the screen door, he stepped out,
He grabbed my shoulder. “You’re wrong,” he said roughly. “I wouldn’t compromise an
I couldn’t help a bitter laugh. “This isn’t for me.”
I sure didn’t, but it troubled me that he was destroying possible evidence. The harder
But then, we weren’t trying to hide the fact that I had called Jake, we were concealing
I was going to have to lie for Jake, and I wasn’t sure I would be able to. I wasn’t sure I
then turned down the volume.
I hesitated, wondering if he was awake, maybe listening in the darkness for one
I quietly replaced the receiver in its cradle.
arrested.
Wanda, handcuffed, trying to hide their faces, were escorted by burly sheriffs through a mob
afford legal defense. He’d wind up with some court-appointed public defender.
home. You’d have thought they had nabbed the Zodiac Killer.
questioning? The minute he found out that Jake was the cop who’d discovered the body, he’d
I considered Jake’s theory that Angus had tried to set me up the night before. It didn’t
onto the crime scene. If anyone was being set up, wasn’t it most likely Angus? The body had
skipping out. Was it too much of a leap to suppose that, when they’d been unable to retrieve
Or to approach from another angle: Angus’s defection had posed a kind of threat to
murder wasn’t anything new.
she was part of Angus’s…what was it called? Coven? According to Guy Snowden, Angus had
species as Kinsey and the Poison Dwarf. Angus had been frightened of his former friends; the
did that mean?
chess game. He could be a pawn, though.
Cradling the phone between my cheek and shoulder, I glanced over at Velvet. She was
yesterday trying to print labels. In the end we’d decided it would be faster to do it by hand.
on that money, helping that boy would never be an acceptable reason.”
“He’s not a friend, Adrien. He’s someone who works for you. Someone whom I have
“Jake has nothing to do with anything. Angus is my responsibility.”
“All I needed to know,” I said crisply and hung up.
for the phone to ring.
* * * * *