Sucker Punch (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #27) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,183

thing,” I said, “you say that you and Jocelyn had a consensual relationship.”

“We’re in love,” he said.

“Okay, then, why do all the pictures on your phone look like stalker pics?”

“What are you talking about?”

“She looks asleep in all of them, like you snuck into her room and took them without her knowing. That’s not what couple pictures look like, Bobby.”

He looked angry, embarrassed. “This sounds so weak, but she didn’t want any pictures until after we went public with the relationship. She was adamant about no intimate pictures.”

“So, you did sneak into her room at night and take the pictures?”

“No, we’d make love and she’d fall asleep and then I’d take a few pictures. I loved her so much—I love her so much—that I wanted something to prove to myself that it was real. I know that’s not a good excuse for promising not to take pictures and then taking them anyway, but they’re not all like that. I have some of her smiling at me during the day, and those are good.”

“We didn’t find any pictures of her except the ones you took when she was asleep and the one video.”

He frowned at me. “I have dozens of pictures of her smiling and talking to me. I took them before she told me to stop.”

I glanced up at Olaf, and he nodded, which I took to mean that Bobby smelled like he was telling the truth. So either Bobby was truly delusional, or Jocelyn had found time to open his phone and delete the other photos. We needed to know if Helen Grimes had seen Jocelyn do it, or if Helen had left the phone alone for any length of time with the other woman. Jocelyn hadn’t been able to hear her own voice on the video, so she hadn’t known to erase it. If we hadn’t heard that one bit of evidence, we’d have had to believe that Bobby was truly delusional about her and probably had killed the only dad that either of them had ever known. But we’d all heard her voice inviting him into the shower for sex, so he wasn’t crazy. Jocelyn might have been one of the most cold-blooded and manipulative people I’d ever met. Considering some of the people that I’d dealt with over the years, that was saying something.

“Okay, Bobby, we’ll double-check the phone. Maybe we just missed them.”

I didn’t believe we’d missed them. I believed Jocelyn had made them disappear. A good computer forensic person could probably find them again with some techie magic, but since we were supposed to kill Bobby soon, they’d never have time to find the other photos, and once he was dead, so was the case.

I went for the door, and Olaf followed me like a big pale shadow.

“Anita, wait,” Bobby called.

I turned back to look at him. He was at the bars at the front of the cell, holding on to them. “How long do I have until . . . you know?”

I gave him the countdown. “We’re really trying to find another way, Bobby.”

“I believe you and Win are, Anita. I do.” He licked his lips as if his mouth was dry.

“You want some water or something?”

“No, Frankie made sure we had something earlier.”

“Hang in there, Bobby. We won’t just walk in here without telling you that we’re out of options. Okay? You don’t have to freak out every time we come through the door.”

“Do I get a last meal or request or anything?”

In all the years I’d been doing this, it had never come up, because I’d never had anyone be alive and in custody this long before execution. I glanced up at Olaf and he looked at Bobby. “We could arrange something.”

“I’ll think on it. I mean, what the hell do you have for your very last meal?”

“It won’t come to that, Bobby,” Deputy Troy said from the neighboring cell.

“You tried to kill him recently, Deputy. I don’t think you are in a position to help the situation.”

“You’re right. I’m an idiot, and I’ve probably ruined my career or my whole life. But if you let me out of this cell, I won’t run. I just want to help Bobby. I want a chance to make up for what I tried to do to him, please.”

“You’re Leduc’s problem, not ours,” I said, and went for the door again.

This time no one called us back, and we went back to the interrogation room. I did the soft knock, which is the only