Perfect Victim (Nadia Stafford 3.6)

Either way, did it matter, really? Victor had set the bomb for Atom. He'd planted the one in Angela's car, with Sheila's hair. Therefore Victor had been the threat to Angela, and he was gone. My job was complete.

That's what Jack would say. It's what Cypher would say. So I didn't share my doubts with them. As far as they knew, I was fine with the outcome and just meeting Angela for a celebratory drink.

Which was not why I was meeting her tonight at all. I needed information. I needed to test a theory that I liked even less than I liked questioning Detective Lee's conclusions.

I had an idea who might be responsible for the earlier murders. It was an outlandish theory with not nearly enough evidence for me to dare voice it. I felt ashamed even thinking it because the person I'd begun to suspect deserved my respect, not my suspicion. Total respect for selfless dedication to a cause. Now that I entertained this niggling doubt, I didn't feel like that overconfident softball player anymore. I felt like a two-bit thug trying to knock the pedestal from under a good person, just to bring them down to my size.

I was almost certainly wrong. But I couldn't leave until I knew that for sure.

When the server asked whether I wanted a refill, I realized I'd been sitting long enough for the ice to melt in my drink. I checked my watch. It was 9:20 p.m. I flipped through my messages. Yes, Angela said she'd meet me at nine. A glance at the bar name on the napkin. Yes, this was definitely the right place.

I sent her a text.

When five minutes passed without an answer, I called.

Her phone rang. And rang. And rang.

Voicemail picked up. I left a message. "Hey, it's Nancy. Just making sure we're still on for tonight. Give me a shout."

Another ten minutes passed. I sent another text. Made another call.

This wasn't good.

It wasn't good at all.

Time to pay my tab and get out of here.

Chapter Twenty-three

Jack

It was 9:10 p.m., and Jack had seen no sign of Angela Kamaka. He sat in a bar a few doors down from where Nadia waited, and he could see her on the patio, her back to him as she stared out at the water.

Every time Nadia shifted position, he tensed, ready to raise the drink menu and block his face. Which told him he shouldn't be here.

No, that wasn't entirely true. He should be here. He just should have warned her. Told her why he'd followed her. Why he was staking out her meeting with Angela. His phone weighed heavy in his pocket, needing only a single text to tell Nadia the truth. Yet it stayed in that pocket.

Victor Walling hadn't killed Mindy Lang or Albert Kim. That didn't make sense. The cops would figure it out eventually, but until then, Nadia was in danger. So he should warn her.

Yeah, it wasn't Walling. Not for all of it. Sorry. You screwed up. I know you tried, and you did great, but you're wrong. Let me take over now.

No fucking way was he saying that. Even if he worded it in the best possible language, she'd still hear: you fucked up, and I need to fix this.

Nadia had not "fucked up." Come tomorrow, when she relaxed and got some distance from what happened today, she'd see holes in the case. Today, she'd shot a man, and it didn't matter whether she had to do it, that still bugged her. The fact that she'd shot him before he blew her to bits, hell, she might act like that was no big deal, but Jack struggled to focus even thinking about how close she'd come to dying today.

Nadia would soon realize there was a problem with Walling as the sole perp, and Jack would have been happy to let it ride until she did. Then she set up this meeting with Angela and snared him in a dilemma. Did he warn her . . . and, in doing so, insult her? Or did he just watch over her? He knew option A was the smart choice. It was the choice she'd want him to make. Didn't mean he was making it, though. His head told him to warn her. His gut told him to shut up and watch.

One problem was that, in warning her, he'd have to admit exactly why he had a problem with this meeting. And she would not like that answer. Not one bit.

Jack didn't like Nadia meeting with Angela . . . because Angela topped his suspect list. In fact, right now, she was the only person on his suspect list.

Nadia liked Angela. She liked her as a person, and she liked her as a victim. Yeah, that last part sounded weird, but Jack meant that, for Nadia, Angela was the perfect victim. The exact sort of person she wanted to help. Someone who had risked her life, not for some heroic ideal, but simply because it was her damned job. Because other people needed her to do tha

t job. A very ordinary sort of heroism, which made it all the more admirable, because there would be no medal of honor in Angela's future. The most she'd hope to gain was more clients.

For Angela, though, those clients were a godsend. From those files he'd read in her house, he knew her firm had been struggling before she took on Charles Atom's clients . . . before she gained even more clients from that very public act, others who heard what she'd done and wanted her as their lawyer.

Not that she had killed to get those clients. That wouldn't make sense. Walling was definitely the one who set the bomb in Atom's grill. No, if Jack was right, gaining those clients had been happenstance rather than intent.