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Eight
Colleen waited in the interview room, aware Mark was watching with Red.
Aware that whatever they said could be heard.
Mark was tense and grim. Even Red had seemed to sense it. He’d made a strange sound before she’d left them to enter the room, something between a whine and growl, as if the room itself promised something evil.
She was barely seated before the guards brought in Carver.
The man beamed with pleasure as if a long-awaited relative had returned.
“Colleen! Special Agent Colleen Law. I’m delighted to see you. But to what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked. As he spoke, two guards seated him, attaching the manacles on his wrists to a hook on the table.
No one trusted the man.
“Well, I guess I’m curious, Mr. Carver.”
“Jim, please. And I’m calling you Colleen. That is what they call you, right? Or Collie, maybe? Too doggish, perhaps? Col? Hmm. Any darling little nicknames?”
“No. Just Colleen.”
“Oh, never ‘just’ Colleen.”
“Am I your type?” she asked flatly.
“Yes, absolutely. Does that scare you?”
“No.”
“Really? I’d thought you were so bright. Then again, maybe I’m your type—someone you would just die to sleep with.”
She gave him a hard smile. “I sleep with my gun, Mr. Carver.”
“I guess a gun will do—when you’ve got nothing else. Then again, a girl like you, well, you haven’t been alone that often, have you?”
“Mr. Carver, we’re here to talk about you.”
“I’m getting out of here. We can talk then.”
“I don’t think you’re getting out.”
“I have a really good lawyer. And the agents who came to my house, well, they played fast and loose with the law. I didn’t let the blond mammoth in or the dark-haired monster either. The one claimed to be a salesman, and the other was chasing after his dog. Sure. A police dog.”
“Red isn’t a police dog.”
“Oh, right. He’s an agent! Worse.”
“Mr. Carver, you were holding a young woman against her will.”
“She’s a liar.”
“You said you were The Embracer. The only Embracer.”
“I’ve just been playing with you assholes. Sorry—you are a good-looking asshole. Wow, I think I’ve got it. You sleep with your gun. Which one? The blond gun? Or the dark-haired one?” He started to laugh. “Not the dog, I hope!”
“I don’t think I’m your type at all, Mr. Carver. I sleep with a Glock under my pillow. I wake at the fall of a feather. I’ve taken just about every type of self-defense class known to man, and I’m not weak or vulnerable in the least.”
“That’s what you think?” he demanded. “Being kind is being weak and vulnerable?”
“Kind, hmm. I see. You chose the women you selected because they were kind and saw a man who needed help, and they stopped to help.”
“I didn’t select anyone. I just had sex with a girl who wanted it really kinky but didn’t want anyone to know. That was it. Hard sex. Because she wanted it. You never heard of bondage, huh?”
“You are a most confusing man, Mr. Carver. You were so proud of yourself. And so very angry when you heard another woman had been taken.”
“I wasn’t angry!” he snapped. “That had to have been your man. Again, all I had was sex—sex with a crazy woman who couldn’t find the kind of man she wanted to give it to her the hard way. She’s a liar—of course, she has to be a liar. That dude left her—the guy she’d been seeing. Writing! New places, new experiences. Bull. She was too much for him. Of course, they’re both going to lie. Oh wait—oh, I love it! My lawyer will drag in Mr. Academia and put him on the stand and ask him all about his sordid little sex life. And my lawyer will make sure everyone knows the nerd can’t get it up—not up enough for that wildcat. You see—it will be one person’s word against another’s.”
“Right,” Colleen said sweetly. “Sally Smithson and Brant Pickering have no arrest records whatsoever, and you were living under an assumed name. Oh, yes! You look honest—they don’t.”
“A jury must be obedient to the law. And you can’t prove Sally didn’t just come with me willingly.”
“And yet you know about Brant Pickering. How long were you spying on her before you decided she was the one you wanted?”
