“I’m not afraid.” How could he see her fear? She’d buried it deep below the surface.
He held her gaze in the reflection. “It will be fine.”
The door on the other side of the glass opened. The movement made Angie flinch. She recovered quickly and folded her hands in her lap.
In the next instant Louise Cross entered the interview cell. She wore an oversized orange jumpsuit. Her gray curly hair hung wild and untamed around her face. Louise Cross might be an unfeeling monster, but the added lines around her eyes and mouth proved that prison had taken a toll on her.
Louise’s eyes, dark as a bottomless pit, flickered and sparked to life when she saw Angie. Through her narrowed gaze, she studied Angie for long, tense seconds before taking a seat and lifting the phone to her ear.
Angie raised the phone and glimpsed the reflection of Kier doing the same. “Thank you for seeing me, Mrs. Cross.”
The woman brightened, clearly savoring Angie’s respectful tone. Sociopaths believed they were the center of the universe and expected others to believe the same. Likely, Louise hadn’t got much kid-glove treatment since she’d arrived here.
“This is a surprise, Miss Carlson.” Louise’s voice telegraphed delight. “Have you come about your sister?”
“I was hoping you could help me with background on an old murder.”
“An old murder? That is intriguing.” Louise grabbed a tendril of gray hair and twisted it between her fingertips. “Who?”
“Fay Willow. She worked for my father at the Talbot Museum.”
Louise nodded. “I remember Fay from my days on the museum board. She was a lovely young girl. She was having an affair with my husband. Darius enjoyed his lovely young girls.”
“Darius was sleeping with Fay?”
“You didn’t know?”
“I suspected but wasn’t sure.”
“Rest assured, Darius was sleeping with her.”
Angie studied Louise’s face closely. “Fay was murdered.”
“Yes. It took a while to identify her, as I remember. Reduced to bones.” Louise smiled as if she’d just remembered a private joke.
Angie eased forward on her seat a fraction. “Do you know who killed her?”
Louise sat back in her chair, her shoulders relaxed. She liked playing games, especially when she had the upper hand. “If I talk, I want him to leave.” Louise’s gaze remained on Angie.
In the glass’s reflection she saw Kier shift his stance as if bracing for a fight. He wasn’t going anywhere.
Angie, like Kier, understood power plays. And it was important to establish which person really was in charge of the interview. “Kier stays.”
Louise smiled. “He leaves. Or I don’t talk.”
Angie shrugged. “Then don’t talk.” She hung up her phone, rose, and turned. Her posture was rigid just as it was when she faced a jury or judge.
Kier hung up his phone, no trace of dispute in his expression.
Angie crossed the small room in a handful of strides and wrapped long fingers around the door handle. She was betting Louise was starved for information and would compromise to get it.
A rap on the glass had Angie hesitating and smiling. Another more forceful rap had her losing the smile and turning.
Louise motioned for her to pick up her phone.
Kier’s face remained turned from the viewing window as he whispered, “Bingo.”
In no real rush Angie moved back to the phone. She picked up the receiver but did not sit down. Kier raised his receiver to his ear.
“He can stay,” Louise said. “But he doesn’t ask the questions.”
“It’s my interview,” Angie said. “Not his.”
“Okay. I’ll chat with you about Fay, but first I want to know how Eva is doing.”
Louise went right for Angie’s weakest spot, a favorite courtroom tactic of her own. However, recognizing Louise’s tactic didn’t diminish the stab of apprehension. Louise Cross had developed a fan following since her arrest, and Angie didn’t want to expose her sister to any danger.
“She’s doing well, Mrs. Cross.”
Dark eyes glistened. “Does she talk about me often?”
Angie understood how this game was played. Give Louise a little of what she wanted, and maybe she’d get what she needed. “She mentioned you the other day.”
Louise leaned toward the glass a fraction. “What did she say about me?”
“She admires your intelligence.” That wasn’t untrue. But Angie had carefully omitted Eva’s utter disgust for the brutal woman who’d slaughtered women and branded Eva.
“She admires my brains.” Louise sounded pleased. “That’s saying a lot. She’s a genius.”
“Tell me about Fay,” Angie said.
“I want to hear more about Eva.”
“Not yet.”
Louise narrowed her gaze as if she was clearly wondering how much she could push. “Fay Willow worked for your father for two years. I saw her from time to time when I sat on the board.”
“Who do you think might have killed her?”
Louise laughed. “You mean you can’t figure that one out?”
Angie said nothing, just stared at Louise.
Louise ran gnarled hands through her coarse gray hair. “Darius killed her.”
“You know that for certain?”
“Oh, I can’t prove it. But I know. Fay had dreams of being the next Mrs. Cross. I heard them arguing once. Darius of course was not going to let a little whore dictate what he did or did not do. No matter what she did for him in or out of bed.” She smiled. “And I was in Europe with the boys when she died. So you won’t be able to pin that one on me.”
“As you said, her bones were stripped. Someone must have been helping Darius. He didn’t dirty his hands.”
Louise shook her head. “Is Eva still dating Garrison?”
Angie hesitated. “They broke up six months ago.”
The lies tripped off her tongue without effort or hesitation. She sensed Kier’s gaze and could almost hear him reminding her that Louise couldn’t be trusted.
Louise nodded. “I didn’t think they’d make it. There is too much darkness in her. She’s a lot like her father.”
Angie swallowed her rebut. “You knew Blue Rayburn?”
“Sure. Is Eva still in school?”
“Yes.”
Louise twisted a strand of hair between her fingers. “She should be graduating soon.”
“Blue was head of security for my father at the museum.”
“Head of security. Is that what your father told you?” Amusement sparked. “Make no mistake, my dear girl, Blue worked for Darius, not your father.”
“Darius? No, he worked for my father.”
“Darius called the shots from the moment he gave your father that big fat donation check.”
Hadn’t Eva said that Darius always had a hidden agenda? “What did Darius have to do with the museum?”
Louise shook her head. “My turn. Does Eva still have the scar?”
Frustration mingled with fury. “Yes.”
“She’ll always remember me.”
Bitch. “What interest did Blue and Darius have in the museum?”
Louise leaned forward, pleasure deepening the lines on her face. “I’ll tell Eva. Have her come and ask me.”
“Eva is not coming here.”
“Why? I only want to talk.” She raised her hands, the shackles dangling and clanking together. “I can’t hurt anyone.”
“Tell me what Blue and Darius’s connection was to the museum, and I’ll talk to Eva about writing you a letter.”
“I want the letter first.”
“No.”
Louise moistened her lips. For long, tense seconds she didn’t answer, and then: “Darius said once he’d strip Fay of all her humanity if she ever went up against him.”
And then it hit Angie. “They stripped her bones using the museum’s facility.”
“Not they, my
dear—your father. Frank Carlson stripped the flesh from Fay’s bones, just as he stripped the flesh from the animals in his museum.”
“My father wouldn’t do that.”
“Of course he would. He loved you. Knowing Darius, my husband promised to do awful things to you if your father didn’t play along.”
All the years her father had pushed her away and kept her from the museum … he had been protecting her.
“Why not just bury her?”
“Darius wanted a memento of his time with Fay. My guess is that he saved one of the bones. Human bone can look like ivory when it’s carved and polished.”
Angie thought about the walking stick that Darius had always carried. It had been crowned with an ivory figurine. Oh, God. “Blue was involved as well?”
“Like I said, Blue did a lot of things for Darius. Taking care of Fay was just one job of many.” Louise picked at the chains linking her arms.