Darker After Midnight (Midnight Breed 10)

"I'd prefer to stand," she replied. "And please, Detective Avery, call me Tavia."

He nodded, then strode over to a watercooler and countertop coffeemaker in the far corner. "I'd offer you coffee, but it's nasty even when it's freshly made. End of the day like this, it's worse than crude oil." He put a paper cup under the watercooler dispenser and pushed the lever. The clear jug belched a few big bubbles as the cup filled. "House white," he said, turning to hold the water out to her. "Yours, if you'd like it."

"No, thank you." Although she appreciated his efforts to make her feel at ease, she wasn't interested in pleasantries or delays. She had a job to do here, and a laptop full of schedules, spreadsheets, and presentations to be reviewed once she got home. Normally she didn't mind long hours of work that spilled into long nights of the same. God knew, she didn't have to worry about a social life getting in the way.

But she was on edge tonight, feeling the strange mix of mental hyperintensity and physical exhaustion that always dogged her after a round of treatments and examinations at her doctor's private clinic. She'd been under her specialist's care for most of the day, and while she wasn't thrilled about having to make an evening pit stop at the police station, part of her was anxious to see firsthand that the man who'd opened fire on a crowded room of people a few nights ago and then went on to orchestrate a bombing in the heart of the city this morning was, in fact, behind bars where he belonged.

Tavia walked closer to the viewing window and gave it an experimental tap with her fingernail. "This glass must be fairly thick."

"Yep. Quarter-inch safety." Avery met her there and took a sip of water. "It's one-way glass, looks like a mirror on the other side. We can see them, but they can't see us. Same goes for audio; our room is soundproof, but we have speakers tuned in to monitor their side. So when the bad guys are standing against that wall out there, you don't have to worry about any of them being able to ID you or hear anything you say."

"I'm not worried." Tavia felt nothing but resolve as she met the middle-age man's eyes over the rim of the Dixie cup. She glanced at the other officers and agents. "I'm ready to do this. I want to do this."

"Okay. Now, in just a minute, a couple of officers are going to bring a group of four or five men into that room. All you have to do is have a good look at those men and tell me if any of them could be the man you saw at the senator's party the other night." The detective chuckled a little and shot a wink at his fellow officers. "After the detailed description you gave law enforcement following the shooting, I got a feeling you're gonna ace this exercise here tonight." "Whatever I can do to help," she replied.

He swallowed the rest of his water and crushed the paper cup in his fist. "Normally we wouldn't disclose facts about our investigation, but since the guy confessed to everything and waived his rights to legal counsel, tonight's lineup is just a formality."

"He confessed?"

Avery nodded. "He knows we got him nailed on the trespassing and attempted murder charges. No way he could weasel out of that one when the sketch details you provided were a dead ringer for him and he's sporting fresh gunshot wounds from his escape."

"And the bombing downtown today?" Tavia prompted, looking to the federal agents for confirmation. "He's admitting responsibility for that too?"

One of the suits tipped his chin in acknowledgment. "Didn't even try to deny it. Says he orchestrated the whole thing."

"But I thought there were others involved. The news stations ran coverage of the police pursuit all day. I heard officers killed all three bombers at some local private estate." "That's right," Avery cut in. "He stated he enlisted the three backwoods malcontents to rig the explosion at the city's UN building. Obviously not the sharpest tools in the shed, seeing how they led us right to him. Not that he put up any kind of fight. He came out of the house and surrendered to police right after they arrived on the property."

"You mean he lives there?" Tavia asked. She'd seen images of the mansion and its expansive grounds on the news. It was palatial. The pale limestone construction with its soaring four-story walls, black-lacquered doors, and high, arched windows seemed more suited to old-money, New England elite than a violent maniac with apparent terrorist leanings.

"We haven't been able to substantiate who actually owns the property," the detective told her. "The estate has been held in private trust for more than a hundred years. Got about ten layers of lawyers and legalese wrapped around the title to the place. Our perp claims he's been renting it for a few months, but he doesn't know anything about the owner. Says it came furnished, no contract, and he pays the rent in cash to one of the top law firms downtown."

"Has he said why he did all of this?" Tavia asked. "If he confessed to the shooting and the bombing, is he offering any excuse for what he's done?"

Detective Avery gave a loose shrug. "Why does any lunatic do these things? He didn't have a concrete answer for that. In fact, the guy is almost as much of an enigma as the place he's been living."

"How so?"

"We're not even sure what his real name is. The one he gave us doesn't have a social security number or any record of employment. No driver's license, no automobile registration, no credit report, voter card, nothing. It's like the guy's a ghost. The only thing we did turn up was a donation given to a Harvard University Alumni association made in his name. The trail dead- ends there."

"Well, that's a start, at least," Tavia replied.

The detective exhaled a grunt of a laugh. "It would be, I suppose. If the record didn't date back to the 1920s. Obviously it's not our bad guy. I may not be the best judge of age, but I feel pretty certain he's nowhere near ninety years old."

"No," Tavia murmured. Thinking back on the night of Senator Clarence's holiday party and the man she'd witnessed firing from the second-floor gallery of the house, she would have placed him somewhere around her age, mid-thirties at most. "A relative, maybe?"

"Maybe," the detective said. He glanced up as the door in the other room opened and a uniformed officer stepped in ahead of the line of men behind him. "Okay, here we go, Tavia. Showtime."

She nodded, then found herself taking a step back from the one-way glass as the first of the suspects entered the lineup room.

It was him - the one she'd come to the station to identify.

She knew him on sight, instantly recognizing the chiseled, knife-edge cheekbones and the rigid, unforgiving jut of his squared jawline. His short golden-brown hair was disheveled, some of it drooping over his brow, but not enough to conceal the piercing color of his steel-blue eyes. And he was immense - every bit as tall and muscular as she remembered. His biceps bulged beneath the short sleeves of a white T-shirt. Loose-fitting heathered gray sweats hung from his slim hips and hinted at powerfully muscled thighs.

He prowled into the space with an air of defiance - of unapologetic arrogance - that made the fact that he was in a jail with his hands cuffed behind his back seem inconsequential. He walked ahead of the others, all long limbs and a loose gait that felt more animal than human. There was a slight limp in the otherwise smooth movement of his legs, she noticed. A spot of blood rode on his right thigh, a deep red splotch that soaked into the lighter fabric of his sweats. Tavia watched the stain grow a little with each long stride that carried him across the length of the lineup area. She shuddered a bit inside the warmth of her winter coat, feeling queasy. God, she never had been able to stand the sight of blood.

Over the speakers, one of the police officers instructed the man to stop at the number 4 position and face forward. He did, and when he was standing facing the glass, his eyes fixed squarely on her. Unerringly so.

A jolt of awareness arrowed through her. "Are you sure they can't - "