“And saw the muzzle flash through the curtains.”His mouth twisted.“Did wonders for my blood pressure, let me tell you.”
Marsh groaned faintly on the floor, bringing them both back.
Marcus nudged him none too gently with his boot.“Who is he?”
“I’ll tell you everything,” Kate said. “Once I’ve had a hot shower and about three stiff drinks.”
“Lucky I got a bottle of Wild Turkey in the car.”
“That’s not luck, that’s planning,” she said.“Thank you for planning.And following me here.”
“Any time, partner.”
Outside, sirens wailed, growing louder—the local PD, the ambulance someone at Reception had sensibly called when the first shot went off.
Kate drew a breath, the metallic taste of adrenaline still bitter at the back of her tongue.
The story Marsh had promised might be the last she ever heard wasn’t, after all.
But she suspected it would echo for a very long time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
By the time the prison rose up in front of her again, Kate’s jaw ached from clenching.
Northbridge SMU sat in the light like the same concrete spaceship she remembered, dumped in the middle of rural Maine and wrapped in razor wire for luck.It was muggy and close day, the sky a bleached, indifferent grey.The fields beyond the perimeter were yellow and parched now instead of green; the hills hunched in on themselves as if waiting for a deluge.
She pulled into the visitors’ lot, eased the sedan into a space and killed the engine.The tick of cooling metal filled the silence.
Next week, she thought.Next week, it'll be me in a different kind of box.
The notice from Internal Affairs sat folded in the glove compartment, as if location could muffle meaning.Formal Review Board, re: conduct during active investigation.Failure to follow chain of command.Failure to notify SAC.Failure to notify partner, failure to notify commanding officer.Disregard of direct instruction from supervising AUSA.The list had gone on for a page and a half, neat bullet points marching like charges at a court martial.
Her association rep had read it over with her in the cafeteria, lips pursed around a toothpick.Peskoff looked like someone had carved him out of leftover Bureau granite and then forgotten to sand down the edges.Forty years in, silver hair buzzed short, shoulders still thick under a jacket that had seen three administrations.
“Could go either way,” he’d said finally, sliding the paper back.“You gave them a hell of a lot to work with, Valentine.”
“Thank you for that comforting assessment.”
He’d snorted.“You soloed it to Chi-town.You ignored orders, you put yourself in harm’s way without backup, you left it to your partner to work out that you were a thousand miles away from the investigation.On paper, this is a mess.Oh, and you damaged your gun.Government property.”
On paper.On a motel mattress, with a muzzle pointed at her head, things had looked decidedly different.
“But,” Peskoff had gone on, rolling the toothpick between his teeth, “you also closed a case nobody else was going to close.You stopped a killer, prevented a whole bunch of headlines nobody needs.And your jacket?”He’d tapped the file with a knuckle.“It’s not clean.I won’t lie.You’ve pulled some stunts over the years.But you’ve got a wall of commendations.They’re not going to pretend that doesn’t exist.”
“So which matters more?”she’d asked.“The list of stupid or the list of useful?”
“That’s the fun of review boards,” he’d said dryly.“Nobody knows until the coffee runs out.Best I can tell you is: it’s genuinely fifty-fifty.Some of them are True Believers, you know?Real by-the-book types, who prefer an agent with shiny boots to one with a stellar arrest sheet.But some of them remember what it’s like to be in the field.And some of them”—another tap—“like to be associated with people who catch famous killers.That kind of vanity works for you.”
“Marcus says your name sounds like an insult,” she’d told him, because it was easier than saying thank you.
“Marcus can kiss my pension,” Peskoff had replied.“Go do your job.”
“I’m suspended.”
“Oh yeah, well let me do mine.And for God’s sake, Valentine—no more side quests before the hearing, yeah?”
She’d nodded.But a nod wasn’t a promise.
