“I want a lawyer.”
“Subject has requested representation. Interview end.”
“There’s money,” he said as she began loading the box. “I have a lot of money hidden away. Secure. I can make it worth your while if you lose that evidence.”
“Really? My while’s worth a lot.”
“Five million.”
“So, if I tamper with this evidence so you get off, you’ll give me five million dollars?”
“Cash.”
“Thanks.” She tapped her lapel. “I guess you didn’t notice my recorder. We’ll add attempting to bribe a police office to the roll.”
He screamed at her as she walked out, ugly invectives that were music to her ears. “Walk this down to Evidence.” She passed the box to the uniform she had waiting. “And you can take that ball of puss. He wants a lawyer.”
She kept walking. Roarke met her with a tube of Pepsi.
“God, that felt good. Now I feel good.” She cracked the tube and drank deep. “Now bright sounds right.”
“Peabody called to check. I told her I thought you were wrapping things up. I’m to tell you Trina’s waiting for you.”
“Shit. That was mean of you.”
He walked with her. “You did well. You . . . decimated him.”
“You were in Observation? I . . . I felt you.”
“Where else would I be?”
This time she took his hand, laced her fingers with his. Palm to palm, she thought. He was there. He
always would be.
“I know it sounds weird, but when I started to fill up with him, with my father, I felt you. I guess you could say I leaned on you. It helped me stay steady.”
He brought her hand to his lips. “Let’s you and I go find some of that bright.”
EPILOGUE
THE ROOM SMELLED LIKE A GARDEN AND SOUNDED LIKE A flock of birds—possibly chickadees—had just taken roost. Why, she wondered, did women so often sound like songbirds when they gathered together for one of their rites?
She sat, because she’d told herself it was her job to sit, in what Peabody had gleefully dubbed the Bridal Suite, while Trina slathered God-knew-what all over her face.
“Stop squirming.” Trina, her hair a puzzling maze of braids and twists in screaming red, kept slathering.
“When, by all that’s holy, are you going to stop?”
“When I’m finished. This product is going to help ease the bruising and cover it up. You could’ve at least tried not to get hit in the face right before the wedding.”
“Oh yeah, I should’ve tried harder not to get caught in a human stampede since a black eye doesn’t go with my dress.”
“What I’m saying,” Trina agreed. “It’s not so bad. We got a lot of it treated last night when you finally got here.”
“Would you get off my ass? Murderers, two vicious killers behind bars.”
“I’ll add it to your scorecard,” Trina said and snapped her gum.