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“You must know something more.” Nat was holding out on her. She had a right to know.
“They’re making him wait.” Foley heard Nat’s irritation on the line. “They want him nervous. You need to prepare yourself for the worst. You should’ve stayed at work.”
“I can’t concentrate.” It hurt to breath and her head throbbed. “I’ll come down. Maybe I can help.”
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nbsp; “Foley, this isn’t one of your work events where everyone pitches in. They’ll talk to him. If they can, they’ll charge him. If it’s clear-cut, well …”
She didn’t have to take instructions from Nat. She could be there as a council representative. “Call me when you know something more.”
Nat didn’t call again. She arrived home with Thai food. She was pissed off because radio stations were already running the story, beating her front page out. She wore both earrings. Drum was still at the station. There was no word on whether he’d been formally charged or was being represented by legal counsel. Foley played with her serve of Crying Tiger and went to bed with two headache tablets and no hope of sleeping.
Nat took phone calls from Nathan and her cop sources, and Foley listened in. They were releasing Drum overnight, but he’d be questioned again in the morning. No one thought this was a mistake.
She was at work by 6am, no longer able to be still, needing to find a way to be busy, till she could find a way to understand all this and how she’d been so taken in.
At 9am, she was in the conference room waiting for Hugh and Gabriella. It was time to brief Roger.
Hugh bowled in, coffee in hand. “Ooh, you look dreadful.”
“Thanks.” She aimed for sarcastic but there was a distinct lack of spice in her delivery.
“Why’d you come in? I heard you went home yesterday.”
“I’m feeling better today.” She felt like a horror movie, that inevitable scene where the stupid blonde went outside or into the basement where the evil forces lurked and everyone knew she was a bunch of screams away from dead.
Gabriella drifted in. “Morning.” She had a copy of The Courier in her hand. Foley had already seen it, and the smaller pieces in the two metro papers. Morning radio had screamed the story of the homeless man who squatted in a cave with a billion dollar view, arrested for assault.
“Does Foley need to be here?” Gabriella said to Hugh.
Hugh did a back and forth hand gesture, between the two of them. “You two work together, I assume you can sort out who needs to be here without me.”
Foley stood. “I’ll go.”
Gabriella would do her best to ensure if there was mud it would stick to Foley, but she didn’t care. All she cared about was knowing what was happening to Drum. Once he was formally charged she could get on with her life, try to forget what idiocy made her lose her senses over a man so sick he’d attack a woman. Before she got to the door, Roger came in.
“Foley, hello. Heard you went home crook yesterday. Should you be here?” Roger really was the nicest man. But the fact he’d hired Gabriella made Foley feel like slapping him every time she saw him.
“I’m fine, thanks for asking.”
Roger pulled the door shut behind him and closed her in. Seems she was staying.
“I’ve seen the papers.” He sat. “He’s mentally ill, this man. I assume the police know that? Is this harassment? Do we know if this is not a case of rounding up the likely suspects?”
“The paper reports the victim named him,” said Hugh.
“And we know how fallible they are,” said Roger. “With respect for the victim, if you get any sense that this poor fellow is being set up for this, I want to know.”
“Foley can tell you all about the man,” Gabriella said, slow loris like, secreting her poison, licking her talons. She smiled at Roger as if he were cake with frosting. Roger smiled back.
If Foley had eaten anything she’d have barfed up on them both. Roger shifted his focus to her. She sat. “He, ah. He.”
“Go on, you’ve been close to him,” said Gabriella. “You know about his mental state.”
Foley shot her a look at the implication that was so awkward it made her mouth go dry. “I. Ah. He’s complicated.”
“But mentally ill,” Roger queried. “Disabled in some way? I wondered if he was a veteran maybe, but I spoke to Nathan Rosen. He said, no, they checked with the Armed Forces.”
