Sucker Punch (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #27) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,184

time police don’t knock on a door like they’re trying to scare the hell out of someone inside the room.

Edward came to the door and stepped outside. I told him what we’d learned from Bobby. “Do you want to ask her or let me do it?” I asked.

“I’ll do it, but you can be in the room. Otto needs to wait out here.”

“I make her nervous,” Olaf said.

“You do.”

“She’s not as naive as she sounds,” I said.

Olaf shook his head. “She doesn’t know what I am. She is simply afraid because I am tall and male and do not flirt with her.”

“I don’t think your style of flirting would work for Helen,” Edward said.

“No, it would not,” Olaf said.

“You can get coffee or something,” I said.

“I will get ‘or something,’” he said, and walked back toward the office area.

We went back into the room, and Edward went to work, trying to charm Helen into telling things.

Helen didn’t know she was supposed to hide things from us, so she told the truth. “I gave the phone to Jocelyn so she could make sure he hadn’t changed the code or deleted the evidence. She was afraid no one would believe her if the pictures were gone.”

“And had he changed the pass code?”

“No, it was still her birth date.”

“Did you leave the room for any reason, Helen?” Edward asked.

“Jocelyn needed more water. She’d pushed the call button for the nurse half an hour before I arrived, and no one had checked on her. Can you imagine, a half hour and no nurse?” Helen was indignant about the nurses ignoring Jocelyn. It never seemed to occur to her that Jocelyn might not have pressed the button at all and had just wanted Helen out of the room so she could maybe delete some pictures.

“Thank you so much for all your help, Helen,” Newman said to her.

“I know it’s awful, but can I go back and tell Jocelyn that she doesn’t have to be afraid anymore, that you believe her and you’re going to do what needs to be done?”

Newman blinked at her and then put a smile back on his face. It almost reached his eyes. “Are you going back to the hospital from here, Helen?”

“Yes, Jocelyn is going to be discharged. I told her I’d help her get home.”

“That’s very kind of you.”

“Well, she doesn’t have any family left now.”

“I guess she doesn’t,” Newman said.

Helen got up and asked her question again. “Can I reassure Jocelyn that you believe her, and it will be all right now?”

“Let me take this one, Newman,” I said.

“Be my guest, Blake.”

“You can tell Jocelyn that we will follow the letter of the law, and she can be certain that we will do our job.”

Helen smiled at us. She’d heard what she wanted to hear. She left still smiling and reassured. Edward gave me a look that said he’d understood exactly what I’d meant.

Newman shut the door behind her and turned to me, frowning. “What the hell did that even mean?”

“You heard exactly what I said.”

“You cannot be thinking that you would harm Jocelyn.”

“If you have to kill Bobby, don’t you want to make sure that whoever is responsible for that pays the price?”

“If we have to kill him, then it’s over. We’re done.”

I shook my head. “The warrant gives us the latitude to kill anyone involved in the crime.”

“Are you seriously implying what I think you’re implying?”

“I’m saying that if Bobby Marchand dies because we couldn’t prove it wasn’t him, then I want whoever killed Ray Marchand and used us to kill Bobby to pay.”

“Once Bobby is dead, the case is finished, Anita.”

“Are you going to be able to pull the trigger on him?”

Newman looked away and then back at me. His hands were in fists at his sides. “If he was trying to kill me or someone else, yes, but shooting him through the bars of a cage . . . I don’t think I can do that.”

“Then sign the warrant over.”

“I was going to until this conversation. Now if I sign it over to you, I’m afraid you’ll use it to kill Jocelyn and Bobby.” He looked at me. I met his gaze and held it. He was the one who finally looked away. “Fuck, Anita, just fuck. I need some air.” He opened the door and pushed past Olaf.

“What is wrong, Newman?” he asked.

“I had to tell him that there’s no Santa Claus,” I said.

“I do not understand.”

“She overshared. Now he’s spooked, and he