She did.
“Don’t drive in tomorrow. And be ready at seven,” Mark told her.
“Yes, sir!” She turned to study him. “Look, I’m sorry you don’t like me—”
“I don’t like or dislike you. I don’t know you.”
“You’re a bad liar for an agent,” she said. “It’s okay. I don’t like you either. You’re an arrogant ass. But at least I like Red. And whether you’re okay with it or not, Jackson has said I’m on this. With you. So, please quit treating me as if I’m an errant schoolkid.”
“I am not treating you like a schoolkid. I’m telling you that you need to be ready. I want to be out at the hospital and then the jail where they’re holding Carver by eight. All right?”
They’d reached her address. He pulled to the side of the road. She lived in new apartments that had been designed to resemble the old row houses in Alexandria.
“I will be standing on the sidewalk right here at 7:00 a.m. sharp!” she assured him.
They were both silent then.
Red whined.
Colleen turned to the dog. “I’m sorry, Red! You’re such a sweetheart. I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry I’m an arrogant ass, I take it?” Mark muttered.
“Well, you are.”
He lowered his head, surprised he was smiling. He shook his head.
“I’m sorry.”
“What?” she asked, frowning and startled. “You’re sorry you’re an arrogant ass?”
He smiled grimly. “Yes. I’m sorry if I’ve been an ass,” he said. “I found the second victim, dead in a pine box. And when we got Carver today. Well, I thought we had the bastard who’s been torturing and killing young women so cruelly. And now...”
“I... Yeah. I get it. Okay. I’m sorry too.”
He laughed. “So, you are sorry I’m an ass?” he asked dryly.
“No, sorry for calling you one to your face,” she told him. But she smiled. “Look, I know I’m a rookie, and you’ve been with the Krewe a few years, and before that—”
“US Marshals Service,” he said.
She pointed to herself. “Orlando Police. Does that help any?”
“And first in your class at the academy.”
She nodded, stroking Red’s ears. “Yeah. I’ve known since I was a kid I... I wanted to make being weird pay off.”
“That’s the way it was with many of us.”
“You knew since you were a kid too?” she asked him.
He nodded. “What happened when you were young?”
She hesitated and then shrugged. “First, I was just in the park across from my house, and I heard a woman screaming for help. She was all trussed up and stuffed in a guy’s trunk. Turned out our friendly neighbor was planning on disposing of his girlfriend. But she lived, and everyone wanted to know how I knew. They said I couldn’t have heard her, because she was unconscious. I was a kid and I felt like a freak. My parents were great though, and it wasn’t long before I discovered my siblings also had unique talents. They told me whatever it was, I’d saved her life, and doing that had been the best thing ever. Then...”
“Then?”
She looked at him.
“I was at a bus bench by the cemetery, and Mrs. Glenn—who had died the month before—asked me if I could hear the dead as well as the living. She wanted me to tell her son she’d left him a stack of bonds, but no one had found them because she’d hidden them in her mattress. Luckily, her son hadn’t emptied the house yet to sell it. It was easier for me that time. I said his mom had told me about not trusting banks, and she’d put little treasures in her mattress.” She took a deep breath. “So, I went to college and majored in criminology, worked for the Orlando Police for three years, then applied to the FBI and went to the academy. Like I said, I’m sorry I’m new and raw, and you’re stuck with me.”
“We all start somewhere,” Mark murmured.
Okay, he felt like an ass now.
It was just at first...
He’d found the woman in the pine box, he and Ragnar had found Sally Smithson, and while they weren’t supposed to let their feelings interfere...
Jackson had told them all they were no good if they lost their humanity.
And he was aggravated because they just didn’t know if Carver had been guilty of all the kidnappings and burials, or...
If someone was still out there.
As if she’d read his mind, she said, “Maybe it was Carver. And maybe it is over.”
“I wish I had that feeling,” he said.
“Gut instinct can be amazing. It’s not just a Krewe thing—gut instinct is shared by many law enforcement officers, not just the weird ones,” she said lightly, then added, “Tomorrow, I’ll just observe and be a good and silent rookie.”
He shook his head. “Gut instinct, huh? Is something else going on?” He frowned. “Do you read minds?”
She laughed. “I should say yes to that. But no—I just hear people when they’re crying out.”
“The living and the dead.”
“The living and the dead.”