Shaw tuned them out and thought about Jordie—more specifically how rancid her thoughts about him must be. Why did you do the rest of it? she’d asked, referring to all the awful things he’d subjected her to. Fear, deprivation, humiliation, browbeating.
A kiss.
What really sucked? She would forever think that the kiss had been just another maneuver to try to get information from her, and not a matter of life or death. His life, not hers. He’d had to kiss her. Simple as that.
Although it wasn’t simple at all. He was a federal agent. She was a material witness in a criminal investigation. Which, by the rule book, placed her off-limits in capital letters. But he bent rules all the time, and he had no control over his dirty dreams.
A half hour later, Wiley roused him from a light sleep. “Kinnard? We’re almost there.”
Wiley placed the heads-up call to Morrow. Shaw put on the hoodie, wincing as he pushed his arms through the sleeves, which caused a strain on his incision and all the internal stitches. The blue lenses of the sunglasses probably made his complexion look sickly. At least it felt sickly. He was clammy all over. His limbs were weak and shaky. His side hurt like the very devil.
He wished he could lie down, close his eyes, and stretch out along the backseat the way he’d stretched Jordie out, adjusting her inert arms and legs, lifting her hair off her cheek.
Swearing under his breath because he couldn’t stop thinking about her, he flipped the hood over his head, opened the backseat door, and got out. Instantly he was enveloped by the swampy heat, made worse by the fleece hoodie. Goddamn Hickam had chosen it on purpose.
The sheriff’s department annex was an old and ugly building. At the back corner of it was an unmarked employee entrance where Morrow was waiting for them. He frowned at Shaw. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“We tried telling him,” Hickam said.
“You look worse off than Royce Sherman,” the deputy said.
“I’m okay.”
“Listen.” Morrow held up his hand in front of Shaw’s chest. “Nobody in this department knows what we pulled this morning except the dispatcher and the two deputies who posed as the ambulance drivers. All friends of mine. Not even the sheriff himself knows. It gets out, I’ll probably get canned.”
“Nobody’ll hear it from me. I know you stuck your neck out. Thank you again.”
“You’re welcome. But it’s not just that. This building is full of officers who were in on the manhunt for you. They wouldn’t take kindly to you being here.”
“They should thank me for the overtime.”
“What I’m saying is, I don’t think this cool getup is going to fool anybody.”
“You’d be surprised. What people aren’t looking for, they rarely see.”
Still concerned, Morrow said, “If an officer does spot you, he might shoot first and ask questions later.”
“If it comes to that, feel free to blow my cover.”
“At least you shaved.”
“Part of the hospital’s grooming and personal hygiene service.” His identifying scar didn’t show up as well without a scruff, so he hadn’t objected when the guy who’d given him the bed bath started lathering his face.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Morrow ushered them into the building and led them down a short hallway to a doorway with a wired window. “Take a look.”
Wiley and Hickam looked first, then it was Shaw’s turn. He tipped down the sunglasses in order to see better. Inside the interrogation room, two officers were unsuccessfully trying to calm down a young woman whose head was bent low over her chest as she sobbed into her hands.
“Linda Meeker,” Morrow said. “The girl who left the bar with Royce Sherman last night.”
At that moment, she lowered her hands and raised her head to accept a tissue from a female deputy.
Shaw’s first sight of her face came as a surprise. He had expected an entirely different sort. “She’s just a kid.”
“Sixteen. Barely. Turned last month.”
Shaw watched Linda Meeker’s apparent distress for another few seconds, then said, “Friday night while I was at it, I should’ve killed Royce Sherman, too.”
The other three turned to him, but he didn’t take back what he’d said.