Laura said, “She seemed almost at peace when she pulled the trigger. Both times. I remember wondering how she did it. How she had turned off her humanity. But I think what happened was that she turned it on. Does that make sense? She was completely at peace with what she was doing. That’s why she looked so serene.”
He raised his eyebrow again, and this time she knew that he was waiting for her to get to the point.
“I kept saying I didn’t want to see the video from the diner, but then I finally broke down and watched, and the look on my face was the exact same as Laura’s. Don’t you think?”
“Yes,” Nick said. “I noticed that, too.”
“I’ll do anything I can to protect my daughter. Anything.”
“Poor Penny found that out the hard way.”
He raised his eyebrows, waiting.
Laura left the bait on the line, though if she thought about it hard enough, she could feel Paula’s hot blood dripping down her hand.
She asked, “Have you seen Jasper on the news?”
Nick chuckled. “His grand apology tour. You know, it’s cruel to say, but I’m quite enjoying the fact that he got very, very fat.”
Laura kept her expression neutral.
“I suppose there’s been some kind of family reunion? A replenishment of the bank accounts from the Queller coffers?”
Laura didn’t answer.
“I will tell you, it’s been a pleasure seeing Major Jasper in person every fucking time my parole comes up. He’s so eloquent when he explains how my actions caused him to lose his entire family.”
“He was always good at public speaking.”
“Gets that from Martin, I suppose,” Nick said. “I was very surprised when Jasper went liberal. He could barely tolerate Andrew’s addiction, but when he found out he was a raving queer—” Nick made a slicing motion across his neck. “Oh, dear, is that too close to Penny?”
Laura felt her mouth go dry. Her guard had slipped just enough for him to wound her.
Nick said, “Poor, desperate Andrew. Did you give him a good death? Was it worth your choice, Jinx?”
“We laughed at you,” she told Nick, because she knew that was the easiest way to wound him. “Because of the envelopes. Do you remember those? The ones you said were going to be mailed to all the FBI field offices and all the major newspapers?”
Nick’s jaw tightened.
“Andrew laughed when I mentioned them. For good reason. You were never good with follow-through, and that’s too bad, because if you had kept your word, Jasper would’ve been in prison a long time ago, and you would’ve been on parole picking out furniture with Penny.”
“Furniture?” Nick said.
“I saw your letters with Penny.”
Nick raised an eyebrow.
The warden and the marshals who screened his mail had been clueless because they didn’t know the code.
Laura did.
Nick had made them all memorize the code.
She said, “You were still stringing her along. Telling her that you would be together if only you could find a way to get out of here.”
He shrugged. “Idle chatter. I didn’t think she’d actually do anything. She was always a bit crazy.”
Mike had said that a jury would see it the same way. Even writing in code, Nick was still careful.