"Ah," Braga said.
"Thanks, Mona," Kate said. Her nerves were raw, and watching Mona flirt was the last thing she wanted to do. What she desperately needed was to be alone, to have a small window of time to get her thoughts in order and her emotions under control.
Fat chance at that, too.
Her administrative assistant flashed her a reproachful look, but took the hint. "Well, I'll be in my office if you need anything."
Kate nodded. Fischback's gaze followed Mona as she left the room. Braga, on the other hand, was watching her, Kate discovered when she looked back at him and their eyes met. He smiled at her. The office suddenly felt way too small. She and Braga were maybe a yard apart, so close that she could see that his jacket was worn around the edges of the lapels and his morning shave was starting to grow out.
"After yesterday, I'm surprised you're at work," Braga said.
"You're working today," Kate pointed out.
"I already used up my sick days for the year."
From the hint of humor in his tone, Kate knew not to take that seriously. She was walking as he spoke, putting some much-needed distance between them by moving around the two men to set her briefcase down on her desk. That gave her a moment with her back to them in which she tried to relax the muscles of her face. They were so rigid with tension that the smile she had given them had felt like it had been dragged out of hardening cement.
Stay cool. They have no clue.
When she faced them again, they were glancing around her office. Like all the ADA's in her division, she had a ten-by-twelve rectangle with pale green walls (it was officially called celadon, but as Ben said, the shade was more akin to squished caterpillar), a standard-issue, L-shaped black metal desk with a faux-wood top that claimed the center of the room, a matching black metal bookcase and a pair of file cabinets shoved against the wall behind the desk, a big black leather desk chair that she used, and two small black-leather-and-steel chairs positioned in front of her desk for visitors. On the wall behind her desk were her framed diplomas. On her desk was last year's school photo of Ben. An empty coatrack stood in one corner. In another, a spindly fake ficus tree—Kate had given up on real plants long since, because she always forgot to water them—stood forlornly beside a double-hung window. The window was outfitted with narrow gray blinds that were almost always open, providing Kate with a thrilling view of the plain stone front of the office building across the street. Occasionally, her day was enlivened by watching pigeons perch on her windowsill or, for variety, the sills across the street.
If she went to the window and looked straight up, she could see a river of sky snaking above the high-rise canyon in which she worked.
"I saw you leaving the Justice Center behind a sheriff's deputy on a stretcher yesterday. I hope he's doing okay?" The best defense was always a good offense, and taking the lead in the conversation was a classic diversion strategy. A warm, interested tone was what she was shooting for. She wasn't sure she succeeded. Like her face, her voice felt stiff and unnatural.
Braga shrugged, and a shadow passed over his face. "He's alive, and the doctors say he's going to make it. He's still in ICU, though." His eyes flickered. "He's my brother."
That pierced her wariness a little bit. Clearly, he cared about his brother. She nodded with genuine sympathy. "I thought I saw a resemblance. The black hair."
A small smile touched his lips, lightening his expression, as he gave an acknowledging nod.
"Which brings me to the
other
reason why we're here. Do you mind answering a few questions?"
Caught off guard, Kate felt her face freeze. Her heart lurched. Her stomach clenched. Hoping against hope that it wasn't already too late, she tried her best to keep her instant, instinctive rejection from becoming apparent.
"I gave my statement yesterday. Some officers came by my house."
God, she'd been so rattled then—could she even remember what she'd said? The TV truck had been only the first of a wave of media that had descended on her house. They had knocked on her door and rung her doorbell incessantly until one of the pair of uniforms who had arrived to take her statement had gone to the door and told them to knock it off. By the time she'd finished giving her statement and walked the cops to the door, her front yard had become a sea of reporters and cameras and umbrellas and satellite trucks and dozens of flashing lights that popped at her like balled lightning through the falling rain as she stepped out onto the porch.
"Kate, is it true you shot your captor with his own gun?" "Kate, did you think you were going to die?" "Kate, can you tell us about your ordeal?" "Ms. White, how are you feeling?" "Ms. White, what did Rodriguez say to you?" "Kate, look this way!"
She had looked at the throng, horrified, and said, "I have nothing to say" when a reporter stuck a microphone in her face, stepped back inside the house, and slammed the door on them, carefully locking it behind her. Through the door she'd heard the cops yelling at them to leave the area. Even as they grudgingly obeyed, her phones had started to ring, both landline and cell. Her insides twisted into one big Gordian knot. Gritting her teeth, she turned the ringers off on both phones, then walked through the house, methodically closing all the drapes, checking the doors and windows to make sure they were locked. She ended up in Ben's room, where he was propped up in bed reading. Automatically, she turned on the lamp beside his bed—he was always reading in what she considered the dark—and he took his nose out of his book for long enough to look up at her.
"Mom, what were all those people doing outside? Did you really shoot somebody today?" He was wide-eyed with interest and—no mistake about it—awe at the thought that his mother might have actually done such a thing.
Clearly, all the commotion had pulled him from his book and he had looked out his window. No doubt he'd heard some of the questions shouted at her.
Her heart sank.
"No," she said, because she couldn't lie to him about something as enormous as that, because she didn't want him to think of his mother and violence in the same breath, because that wasn't part of the life experience she wanted for him. Then, because she had to, because if anybody asked him questions she couldn't have him saying, "My mom said she didn't shoot anybody," she then changed her answer to "yes."
And then his eyes got even wider and he scooted up taller against the pillows to stare at her, and she sat down beside him and told him the whole story. Sort of. With a lot of editing and a few crucial lies.
Just like she was getting ready to do again with these guys. Just like she'd done in her official statement.
The truth—most of her story had been the absolute truth. Because in almost every way that mattered, she
was
the victim here. She had nothing to hide. Except for the end ... and the beginning.
Her heart beat faster at the thought.
"It won't take very long." Braga correctly interpreted her hesitation as reluctance, although he was wrong about the reason for it.
She fought the urge to swallow. Her hands—damned telltale things!—had clasped at her waist without her even being aware of it. Now that she
was
aware, it was all she could do not to not to jerk them apart. But that would be a giveaway, too.
Fortunately, Braga was looking at her face, not her hands. Casually, she let them drop so that her fingertips just rested on the surface of her desk.
"Everything's in my statement," she tried again.
"I read through it this morning. But there's still a few things— while they're fresh in your mind."
"This won't hurt a bit, scout's honor," Fischback assured her with a flashing smile. He pulled the guest chair closest to him out a bit. Its sturdy metal legs made a scraping sound against the hardwood floor. "Mind if we sit down?"
He was already suiting the action to the words.
"Of course not. Go ahead," Kate said, like she had any choice. Braga sat, too, and pulled a small, flip-top notebook and a pen from his jacket pocket. She sank into her own chair, facing them across her desk, acutely aware that he was reading through scribbled notes. Notes, she had no doubt at all, pertaining to her statement.
"After Rodriguez pulled you back into the hall, did you see anyone? "
It took everything Kate had to keep her eyes from widening.
They know about Mario.
That was her first, instantaneous thought. She went cold all over. Her pulse raced. Her stomach cramped. Then she remembered Braga's brother, the other fallen deputy, and the other downed prisoner in the holding cell. Of course, Braga meant them.
She picked up a pen and fiddled with it to hide her relief.
"Besides Rodriguez, do you mean?" Her voice was amazingly steady despite the fact that her mouth had gone as dry as the Sahara in the split second before reason had regained its grip on her. She prided herself that her expression was just right—a little painful remembrance, a little curiosity, nothing more.
"Besides Rodriguez," Braga agreed.
"There were three men lying on the floor of one of the holding cells. I just got a glimpse. Two of them were deputies—your brother was one although I didn't know that at the time—and the third was wearing an orange jumpsuit, so I assumed he was a prisoner. I ... I thought at the time that they were all dead." A quick vision of them lying there made the little catch in her voice all too real.
He nodded and wrote something in his notebook. Fischback, Kate saw, was looking over her desk. A quick, searching flicker of her eyes confirmed that there was nothing incriminating—such as Mario's file, which earlier she had called up on her computer—to be seen. Her laptop was open but in sleep mode, and she didn't think he could see anything on it anyway, positioned as he was in front of her desk. The phone, stacks of files, piles of paperwork, a trayful of mail, a couple of plastic boxes crammed with computer discs, a few assorted books, a construction paper—covered tin can (Ben had made it; it was supposed to be a dog) full of pencils and pens—her desk was clean. She dared not look behind her, but she knew what he would see back there: big brown accordion files lined on top of the bookshelf, shelves crammed with books and manila folders and papers, a big seashell she and Ben had found during a visit to the shore. Both file cabinets were closed, with only a few yellow Post-its adorning their fronts. A fax machine was on top of one of them. Her calendar, which was stuck to the side of the other file cabinet by a pair of black Scottie dog magnets that had been a gift from Ben last Mother's Day, had nothing about today's appointment at the detention center on it. She was too much the lawyer now to ever write down anything that could possibly be used against her at a later date.
There was, she was sure, no trace of Mario to be seen anywhere on the premises.
She was just heaving a silent sigh of relief when her gaze fell on Braga again. He was watching her hands.
She was still fiddling with the pen, turning it over and over, end over end.
It took every bit of self-control she possessed not to clench her hands into fists and let the pen fall.
Instead, she set it down carefully, then folded her hands primly in front of her, fingers laced, so that they could give nothing away.
There was no way he could know that her palms were damp.
"So how did you come to 'just get a glimpse' inside the cell?" Braga asked.
Kate frowned. Here was one of the places where she had lied about what had happened, where she had to lie, because of course the reason she had seen inside that cell was because Mario had come out of it.
"Rodriguez pulled the door open for just a moment, I don't know why. He shoved me against the wall first, and I was in a position to look inside the door when it opened."
"And what did you see?"
"I told you. The three men—the deputies and the prisoner—lying on the floor. Like I said, it was just a glimpse."
"Did you see any weapons? A gun?"
"No. Except for the one Rodriguez was holding, of course."
"Okay." Braga consulted his notebook again. Kate tried not to sweat.
"Any idea where Soto got his gun, Ms. White?" Fischback asked.
Kate was on solid ground here. "None. Not at all." She thought back. One minute Soto had been sitting at the defense table, the next he'd sprung to his feet, gun in hand. "When he jumped to his feet in the courtroom, the gun was just there in his hand."
"And that's the first time you saw it?" Fischback's expression was unreadable.
Again, she didn't care, because on this point she was on solid ground. "Yes."
"So where'd you get the gun you shot Rodriguez with?" Braga asked, his pen poised over the notebook. There was only mild inquiry in his eyes, Kate discovered as she met them. Absolutely no suspicion at all.
Regardless, Kate felt sweat prickling to life under her clothes.
"It was just there—on the floor."
"It was lying on the floor in the hall?"
"Yes."
"You didn't see it earlier?"
"No." She had to fight the urge to look away, or to lick her lips. "He pushed me down, and I landed, and there the gun was just lying on the floor up against the wall, right next to the wall. I hadn't noticed it earlier."
Silence filled the room as he seemed to be waiting for her to continue. She met his gaze straight on, while her heart pounded and her nerve endings crawled and she had to fight the physical urge to jump to her feet and walk away. Her fight-or-flight response screamed
flight,
but she couldn't, she had to sit there and look calm and lie through her teeth and wait. As a lawyer, the one thing she had seen suspects do over and over again that got them into trouble was talk too much. She wasn't going to fall into that trap if she could help it.
"So you saw a gun on the floor against the wall," Braga said finally. "To your right or left?"
Kate tried to visualize the scenario she was creating in her mind.
"To my right."