1st Case - James Patterson Page 0,16

here?”

“Oh,” I said. That one I wasn’t expecting. I’ve always looked younger than I am, but it hadn’t even occurred to me that someone might think I was a student. My mind scrambled for the right thing to say.

“No, I just wanted to pay my respects” came out.

It wasn’t a lie, and it wasn’t the full truth, either, but the one thing I couldn’t bring myself to do was walk away. Not just yet. I felt like I owed it to Gwen to push myself, even now. If that meant asking a few more questions than I might have otherwise, so be it.

“Do you know if they have any idea who did this?” I asked. I felt like I was on a tightrope here, somewhere between doing the right and wrong things.

“I know who I think did it,” one girl said. Two of the others shot her a look, but she kept talking. “It was that scumbag from Precious Moments.”

“Precious Moments?” I asked. No turning back now.

Kallie’s expression flashed from sadness to something darker. “It’s this photography studio,” she answered. “There’s this super skeezy guy who took Gwen’s senior picture. Pietro something.” The girl on my left shuddered. “She said he was really gross about the whole thing.”

“He even had a camera in the changing room,” the shudderer said.

“That’s just a rumor,” another said.

“Well, I believe it.”

“I’ll bet you anything it was him,” the first girl said, and nobody spoke up to disagree.

“Did anyone tell the police about him?” I asked.

“Yeah, but it’s like they don’t even care,” another girl said. “They’re not even looking into it.”

I doubted that was true. If I’d learned nothing else so far, it was that the people behind these investigations cared about doing thorough work. But I also remembered what it felt like to not be taken seriously by adults.

“Supposedly, the FBI is going to be interviewing some of us, too,” Kallie added.

“Well, make sure you mention it to them,” I said.

I had all kinds of other questions, but my own common sense was finally knocking on the door. It was time to go before I’d dug myself a hole too deep to get out of.

“Anyway, I’m really sorry about your friend,” I said, and stepped back.

Kallie seemed to look at me with clear eyes for the first time. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” she said, “but who are you?”

I just wanted to keep from upsetting them more than they already were. So I gave the only answer I could before I got out of there and left them alone.

“I’m Angela,” I said.

CHAPTER 17

BACK IN THE car, I downloaded with Keats about my conversation with the girls, and especially about the Precious Moments photographer they’d mentioned. In return, Keats told me exactly nothing about his interview, or even who else he’d spoken with. Such is life at the bottom of the FBI food chain.

Although even then, there’s an argument that I was already coming up fast at the Bureau, and that all my silent annoyance was just so much whining. Fair enough. But I wasn’t stopping there.

I spent the rest of the drive asking Keats about himself instead—where he grew up (Potomac), what his family was like (close-knit, Catholic), how he’d landed at Quantico (recruited straight out of Georgetown). He was more forthcoming about all that, but I could tell something was still bothering him. I just wasn’t sure it had anything to do with the case itself.

When we got back to the office, he pulled his Explorer right up to the curb on Cambridge Street and left it running.

“You coming in?” I asked.

“I’m going to park in the lot and catch up with you,” he said.

“I think I can manage the walk,” I said. “I’ll even buy you a coffee at the Public Market.”

“Go on ahead,” he said, drumming the steering wheel without looking at me. Which is when I realized what was going on.

“You know, we’re allowed to ride in the same elevator,” I said. “We do work together. And we’re both adults.”

“Exactly,” he said. “So why open up any questions about it?”

I didn’t know if he realized how much of his own hand he was showing when he said that. It’s amazing how often men don’t.

“Are you afraid something might actually happen between us if you let it?” I asked, straight up. It didn’t seem worth being indirect or passive about this anymore.

Billy Keats gave me an incredulous look and a tiny, sexy smile.

“Is there any question you won’t ask?”