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Faith smiled, helping him relax again. "Good flying weather?"
"If you were lucky." He laughed, wistful. "Had to be careful landing—cold wind would whip that plane around like a flyswatter. Some days, I'd just close my eyes and hope I touched down on the field and not in the ice."
"Cold field," Faith pointed out, making a play on his name.
"Right." Henry said, as if he'd heard the pun many times. He put his glasses back on, all business. "Listen, I'm not one to tell other people how to go about their business, but why aren't you asking us about that other car?"
"What other car?" Faith echoed. "The one that stopped to help?"
"No, the other one we saw streaking down the road, opposite. It must have been about two minutes before we hit that girl."
Judith filled their stunned silence. "Surely you know this already. We told the other policeman all about it."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE DRIVE TO THE ROCKDALE COUNTY POLICE STATION WAS a blur that Faith filled with every expletive she could think of.
"I knew that jackass was lying to me," she said, cursing Max Galloway and the entire Rockdale police force. "You should've seen that smug way he looked at me when he left the hospital." She slammed her palm into the steering wheel, wishing she were slamming it into Galloway's Adam's apple. "Do they think this is some kind of game? Didn't they see what was done to that woman? For the love of God."
Beside her, Will remained silent. As usual, she had no idea what was going through his mind. He'd been quiet the entire trip, and did not speak until she pulled into the visitors' parking lot in front of the Rockdale County police station.
He asked, "Are you finished being mad?"
"Hell, no, I'm not finished. They lied to us. They haven't even faxed us the damn crime-scene report. How the hell can we work a case when they're holding back information that could—"
"Think about why they did it," Will countered. "One woman is dead, the other's just as good as, and they're still hiding evidence from us. They don't care about the people involved, Faith. All they care about is their egos, and showing us up. They're leaking information to the press, they're refusing to cooperate. You think us going in there with guns blazing is going to get us what we want?"
Faith opened her mouth to answer, but Will was already getting out of the car. He walked around to the driver's side and opened her door like they were on a date.
He told her, "Trust me on this one thing, Faith. You can't push a string."
She waved his hand away. "I'm not going to eat shit from Max Galloway."
"I'll eat it," he assured her, holding out his hand like she needed help getting out of the car.
Faith grabbed her purse from the back seat. She followed him up the sidewalk, thinking it was no wonder everyone who met Will Trent took him for a certified public accountant. She could not fathom the man's meagerness of ego. In the year she had worked with him, the strongest emotion she'd seen Will display was irritation, usually at her. He could be moody or wistful and God knew he could beat himself up about a lot of things, but she'd never seen him truly angry. He'd once been alone in a room with a suspect who had just hours before tried to put a bullet in his head, and the only feeling Will had shown was empathy.
The uniformed patrolman behind the front counter obviously recognized Will. His lip went up into a sneer. "Trent."
"Detective Fierro," Will replied, though the man was obviously no longer a detective. His sizable stomach pressed against the buttons of his patrol uniform like the filling oozing out of a jelly doughnut. Considering what Fierro had said to Amanda about greasing Lyle Peterson's pole, Faith was surprised the man wasn't using a wheelchair.
Fierro said, "I should've put that board back over your head and left you in that cave."
"I'm really glad you didn't." Will indicated Faith. "This is my partner, Special Agent Mitchell. We need to speak with Detective Max Galloway."
"About what?"
Faith was over the niceties. She opened her mouth to blast him, but Will cut her off with a look.
He said, "Maybe we could talk to Chief Peterson if Detective Galloway isn't available."
Faith added, "Or we could talk to your buddy Sam Lawson at the Atlanta Beacon and tell him those stories you've been feeding him are just your way of covering your fat ass for all the mistakes you've made in this case."
"You are some kind of bitch, lady."
"I haven't even started," Faith told him. " Get Galloway out here right now before we put our boss on this. She already took your shield. What do you think she's going to take next? My guess is your little—"
"Faith," Will said, more a warning than a word.
Fierro picked up the phone, punched in an extension. "Max, you got a couple'a cocksuckers wanna talk to you." He dropped the phone back into the cradle. "Down the hall, take your first right, first room on the left."
Faith led the way because Will would not know how to. The station was the usual 1960s government building with plenty of glass block and very poor ventilation. The walls were lined with commendations, photographs of police officers at city barbecues and fundraisers. As instructed, she took a right and stopped in front of the first door on the left.
Faith read the sign on the door. "Asshole," she breathed. He'd sent them to an interrogation room.
Will leaned across and opened the door. She saw him register the table bolted to the floor, the bars running along the sides so that suspects could be cuffed down while they were interviewed. All he said was, "Ours is more homey."
There were two chairs, one on either side of the table. Faith threw her purse in the one with its back to the two-way mirror, crossing her arms, not wanting to be sitting when Galloway entered the room. "This is bullshit. We should get Amanda involved in this. She wouldn't put up with this goat roping."
Will leaned against the wall, tucked his hands into his pockets. "If we get Amanda in on this, then they've got absolutely nothing to lose. Let them save a little face by jerking us around. What does it matter, if we get the information we need?"
She glanced at the two-way mirror, wondering if there was a peanut gallery. "I'm filing a formal report when this is over. Obstruction of justice, impeding an active case, lying to a police officer. They bumped that fat fuck Fierro back to uniform. Galloway's gonna be lucky if he gets to be county dog catcher."
Down the hall, she heard a door open, then click closed. Seconds later, Galloway stood in the doorway, looking every bit the ignorant hick he had the night before.
"I heard you wanted to talk to me."
Faith told him, "We just talked to the Coldfields."
Galloway nodded at Will, who returned the gesture, his back still against the wall.
Faith demanded, "Is there a reason you didn't tell me about the other car last night?"
"I thought I had."
"Bullshit." Faith didn't know which was making her angrier, the fact that he was playing at this like it was some kind of game or that she felt compelled to use the same tone she used when she was about to put Jeremy on restriction.
