Find Her Alive (Detective Josie Quinn #8) - Lisa Regan Page 0,113
hurt himself.
She jumped on his back.
He spun, once to his right and once to his left, but Josie hung on, applying a light choke hold on him as she spoke into his ear. “Dammit, Agent Nally. Stand down. Stand. Down!”
She felt him heaving beneath her, but his fight with the door had ceased. He stumbled down off the stoop, taking a few steps onto the grass in front of the house. When he stopped moving, Josie dropped off him. With mangled hands, he rubbed his throat.
“I’m sorry,” Josie said. “For choking you. But you were… I mean, you freaked out. Drake, you can’t—”
He didn’t look at her, his gaze on the grass, but he cut her off. “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. I just—I just lost it.” He looked at his hands. A large splinter protruded from the middle knuckle of his left hand. He shook his head. “Quinn, I think I love her. I’m in love with her.”
Emotion threatened to bubble up, but Josie pushed it back down. Focus. She had to focus. “You need to stow that, Agent. Put it away. Right now.”
He met her eyes finally. “Is that what you do? Is that how you do this?”
“I have to.”
“I used to be able to,” he said. “I never had a problem before…” He waved his bloodied hands. “Before this. I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize,” Josie said.
Drake laughed. “She’s your sister! How are you handling this better than I am?”
Josie put a hand on her hip. “I’ve had to do this since I was a child,” she admitted. “Compartmentalize. Maintain focus on one thing. It helps in my job, but it used to be a matter of survival.”
“You survived a lot,” Drake noted. “From what Trinity told me.”
“She told you? About my childhood? Wait till we find her. She’s going to be sorry. I’m going to throttle—oh my God.”
A realization hit her like a thunderbolt. Every fine hair on her body stood on end. Her vision tunneled momentarily and then came back into focus. Drake said, “Hey, are you okay?”
“I know how to find Zandra,” she said.
Sixty-One
Eight hours later, Drake stood with Josie and her team in the CCTV room next to Denton’s interview room one where two weeks earlier Mettner and Gretchen had questioned Jaime Pestrak. Now, Alex Thornberg sat calmly at the same table, waiting for his court-appointed attorney.
Drake said, “Quinn, if you do this, you’re going to blow this whole case.”
Noah raised a brow. “That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?”
Drake pointed to the television screen. “If you do this, you’re presenting this guy with a defense that could not only keep him off death row, it could even keep him out of prison. The best case scenario is that the case spends years in litigation because he’ll be deemed not competent to stand trial.”
From her seat at the table, Gretchen said, “That’s what trial experts are for—exactly these issues. The prosecutor will get a psychological expert to bolster their case. After everything this guy has done—everything he’s already admitted to doing—there’s no way he’s walking.”
Mettner added, “If the boss is right, it’s going to come out eventually. If I’m the defense attorney and I get even an inkling this guy has a psychological problem this deep, I’m milking it for all its worth. If the defense attorney doesn’t figure it out, and it comes out during trial, you’ve got a mistrial.”
Josie stared at Drake. “They’re right. I’m not jeopardizing the case. I’m trying to find my sister while there’s still a chance that she’s alive. His lawyer will be present. No funny business. Nothing out of bounds.”
A knock sounded on the door and Chief Chitwood popped his head inside. “Kids,” he said. “Thornberg’s lawyer is here. Shut down the CCTV and vacate this room while they consult.”
They turned off the CCTV apparatus and filed out of the room as Alex’s public defender entered the interview room. They went back to the great room where they waited in tense silence until she came to get them. “My client is willing to talk to Detective Quinn,” she said. “Detective Quinn only.”
“Thank you,” Josie said and followed her back to the interview room.
She waited a long moment until she knew her colleagues were in the CCTV room and saw the red light beneath the camera come on, indicating that the interview was being recorded. She noted the date and time as well as the names of all present for the camera before she looked at Alex.