cautiously here. However, between last night and today, the techs should have already processed your house. If you feel strongly about it, you can return home as soon as you’re done here.”
She nodded. “Great. Then I’d prefer to give my statement to Jase or Carrie as soon as possible.”
“Of course,” Stevens said. “Jase is waiting for you right now.”
Stevens escorted her to another room. There, Jase greeted her in a more subdued and professional manner than normal. It set the stage. Made Nina face the fact that her friendly interactions with Simon and his team were indeed coming to an end. Methodically, Jase told her about Cann and Hastings. He showed her sanitized photos and urged her to try to remember if she’d had contact with either of them, or if she’d ever heard Davenport talk about them.
She shook her head. “No. I don’t recognize them. I’ve never met them. You can always double-check what I’m saying by checking patient records at the hospital, see if they were ever admitted there, but other than that, I don’t know what else to tell you. I’m sorry.”
Jase nodded and made some notes. “That’s a good idea. Looks like both men have lived in the city for the past few years. I’ll check with the hospital records clerk. They won’t give me any confidential information, of course, but whether a particular person has ever been a patient there should be something they can—”
Both of them jumped as the door to the interview room suddenly banged open.
From the open doorway, Simon glared at them. “What the hell is going on here?” he growled.
Jase looked at him calmly. “Take it easy, Simon. I was just asking Nina a few questions, trying to see if she could tell us anything about Mr. Cann or Mr. Hastings, or how she or Davenport might be connected to them.”
“And who the hell told you to do that? The Cann and Hastings cases are mine. And DeMarco’s. You have no business taking over my interviews.”
“Stevens made it my business. He wanted to make sure she was interviewed by someone objective. Just to cover our asses from accusations of preferential treatment. You two have been working together. Hell, she helped you find that little girl. It’s in the press. If you want charges against Davenport to be rock-solid, we need to think two steps ahead of his attorneys.”
“Fine. If Stevens didn’t want me interviewing her, why not DeMarco?”
“DeMarco went home. He has some kind of bug. But you’re overreacting, Simon. I help you with cases all the time. Some reason you don’t want me helping on this one?”
“I don’t like the way you and Stevens went behind my back. You waited until I was busy with Davenport to pull her in here.”
“Simon,” Nina interjected. “It’s okay. Commander Stevens explained and—”
“Are you done here?” he interrupted, clearly addressing Jase.
“Yeah. We just finished up.”
Simon nodded. Looked at Nina. “Let’s go.”
* * *
AS HE DROVE NINA BACK to his house, Simon knew he was overreacting.
He trusted Stevens and Jase. He knew they trusted him.
Having Jase interview Nina about what she might know about Cann and Hastings had made sense. If he’d still been captain and one of his men had been in his position, he’d have maneuvered things the same way.
He knew all that. So why was he feeling so off balance and pissed? As if his own team had posed a danger to Nina when she’d already had enough to deal with as it was?
“Do you want to talk about it?” Nina asked.
He glanced at her as she sat beside him. “About what?”
“Your doubts that Davenport committed these murders.”
His eyes widened in surprise. “What are you talking about?”
“I watched you questioning Davenport for the last five minutes of your interview. He denied killing those men and I could tell part of you believed him.”
“Part of me found him persuasive,” he corrected. “A persuasive liar. There’s a difference.”
“But there’s part of you that believes he might be telling the truth, isn’t there? Or part of you that’s willing to consider it?”
He forced back his automatic denial. Forced himself to be the straight shooter he’d consistently told her he was. “Yeah,” he said finally. “There is. At least until I have more, something to connect him to the two men that were murdered, some part of me has to consider that his role in all of this is limited. The theory that I posed, that he’s trying to kill the mental illness that killed his