Guilty (21 page)

Ben grimaced. "Practicing basketball."

"You don't like basketball?" That much was clear from the kid's tone.

Ben shook his head.

"So why were you outside practicing it? After dark?" He remembered what Kate had said. "On a school night?"

"Because I suck. And we're having this dorky basketball tournament in gym next week."

Tom nodded. "So you were outside practicing basketball. Then what?"

"The ball rolled away and I went to get it and that man just came out from behind the tree and asked me if I was Ben."

"What did you say?"

"I didn't say anything. I was too scared."

"Where was your mom?"

"Over by the goal. I think she saw the man talking to me, because she came running."

"When did she come outside? "

"She was out there the whole time. She was helping me practice." He made a face, and his voice lowered and his expression turned confidential as his eyes sought Tom's. "Don't tell her I said this, but she really isn't much help. She sucks at basketball, too."

"Your dad's not around?"

Ben shook his head. "He died in a car crash when I was a baby. There's just me and my mom now."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Tom felt bad for bringing it up. If he weren't so tired, maybe he would have picked up on the fact that there was no evidence of Ben's father being present earlier. On Kate's desk, for example, there had been one photo: her son. No family shot, no husband. "Just for the record, my dad died when I was a kid, too. I wasn't a baby, though. I was nine."

"That's how old I am."

"Oh, yeah?" His estimate had been off by a year or so. The kid was small for his age.

Ben nodded.

"Do you guys usually go out and practice basketball—or just go outside—about that same time? When it's dark?"

Ben shook his head. "This is the first time. 'Cause Mom thinks if I practice, I'll get better." He pulled his knees up to his chin and wrapped his arms around them. "I won't. I don't know why people even like stupid old basketball anyway."

"Sometimes it can be fun. Once you get the hang of it." Tom looked at Ben's huddled form, and felt a twinge of sympathy. He remembered what it was like growing up without a dad: in a word, hard. "Your mom's right: Practice helps. You throw the ball at the basket enough times, you start to make a few, and one day something clicks."

"Did you ever play basketball?"

"I was pretty good in high school. I made the team, but I had to quit after freshman year."

"Why?"

Tom shrugged. "I had to get a job after school to help out my family. There were five of us kids, so it took a lot to keep us going." He turned the subject back to the topic at hand. "Look, Ben, have you noticed anybody hanging around your house or yard lately?"

Ben shook his head.

"Your mom have any old boyfriends who might be mad at her?"

Ben shook his head again. "She doesn't have boyfriends. She's pretty busy all the time."

Tom let that pass without comment, although he figured that it was nearly impossible that a looker like Kate White didn't have a boyfriend or two in the wings. Apparently, she kept her love life separate from her kid.

"Did you see which way the guy went when he left?"

Once more with the head shake. "I was over by the garage by then. Mom told me to go inside, and pushed me away."

Tom frowned. "She stayed?"

Ben nodded.

"Did you hear what the guy said to her?"

"No. I was trying to get in the house to call the police. Then you came." Then, before Tom could ask anything else, he added in a small voice, "Is somebody trying to hurt my mom?"

"What?" Tom's attention was caught. He processed that, then leaned a little toward Ben, his forearm pressing into the thick rolled arm of the couch, his gaze suddenly intent. "Why do you ask that?"

Ben's brow wrinkled as if he was thinking hard. "There was that thing yesterday at where she works. Somebody at school said she was almost killed. Then that man came to our house tonight. And you're a cop, and you're here, too. And ... and ..." his voice trailed off, then picked up again. His eyes held Tom's. "I think she's scared."

Smart kid.
Tom almost said it aloud, because there it was: That was the vibe he was picking up from Kate. She was afraid. Not just tonight but earlier today as well, when he and Fish had visited her in her office. But then he heard rattling sounds approaching, accompanied by soft footsteps. The lady of the house must be heading their way with the coffee. Time to redirect the conversation until he could think this whole thing through.

"So you were chasing your ball and the man just appeared from behind the tree," Tom said to Ben. "Did you say anything to him?"

Ben shook his head. His gaze shifted to his mom, who walked into Tom's line of vision with two thick white mugs, a couple of napkins, and a saucer in her hands.

"Nine o'clock," she said crisply to Ben as she handed Tom one of the mugs and set the saucer and napkins down on the coffee table. The saucer, he saw at a glance, held a few chocolate-chip cookies. The packaged kind. Chips Ahoy, unless he was mistaken.

It was only as he looked at them that he realized he was hungry. He'd forgotten all about dinner.

"Thanks," he said, meaning it, and reached for a cookie.

"You're welcome." Her gaze shifted to Ben. "Bath and bed."

Ben groaned, but apparently this was a nonnegotiable issue, because he slid to his feet without argument. Tom was impressed. His nephews and nieces did argue about bedtime. Loudly and vehemently, every time Tom was around them and they were sent to bed.

"Say good night to Detective Braga," Kate directed as Ben trudged past them on his way to the stairs.

Ben flicked a sideways look at him. There was meaning in it, and after a second Tom could tell that Ben was silently charging him not to repeat what he had been told.

"Good night."

" 'Night, Ben," Tom replied.

"Call me when you're ready," Kate said to her son. Ben nodded. Then Tom lost track of him as Kate, steaming mug in hand, sat down in the gold chair the kid had just vacated, and of its own volition, his attention focused completely on her.

With her hair pulled back in a ponytail that allowed just a few wavy blond tendrils to frame her face, she looked more like a teenager than a prosecutor. The small Band-Aid under her cheekbone reminded him of how close she had come to being killed yesterday, and he sent an automatic little prayer of thanks winging skyward that she had survived. Her bone structure might or might not be classically beautiful— hell, what did he know about classic bone structure, anyway?—but it appealed to him. Her rounded forehead, high cheekbones, and square jawline made him wonder if maybe she had Vikings in her family tree somewhere. Her mouth—wide and soft-looking and deeply pink— was both feminine and determined. Her nose was long and elegant, her chin obstinate. Her collarbone was just visible above the loose neckline of the too-big gray sweatshirt she wore with faded jeans and sneakers, and the sweatshirt itself swallowed her up so that her curves—and slight as she was, she did have curves, as he was more than well aware—weren't readily apparent. Okay, she was on the skinny side, no doubt about it, but it was a lithe, fine-boned kind of skinny that he was actually starting to find sexier than the voluptuousness he usually preferred.

Her eyes—Tom tried not to remember Fish describing them as big, blue bedroom eyes—were unmistakably wary as they focused on him.

She's hiding something.

He was almost certain.

"Thank you for coming to my rescue again." Kate took another sip of coffee, watching him over the rim of her mug.

Tom helped himself to another cookie to give himself time to consider how best to play this.

"Not a problem." He smiled at her. "That's what us police officers do."

"Was Ben able to add anything to what he already told you?"

Was she fishing? Oh, yeah.

"Not really." He polished off the cookie and gulped some coffee to wash it down. "By the way, you got a great kid there."

He smiled at her again.

"Thank you." This time she smiled back, a crocodile smile if he had ever seen one that didn't touch the wariness in her eyes. It was becoming almost crystal clear: Something was up with her. The question was, what? He thought of Ben, and found himself suddenly hoping that it wasn't what he was beginning to fear: that she was, in some way, part of yesterday's murderous plot.

"Must have been hard for you, raising him on your own."

"We've managed." She must have heard the sudden frostiness in her own voice, because barely a beat later she added in a softer tone, "But, yes, it was hard."

"You have family around to help you out?"

"No." This time she didn't even attempt to mitigate the coldness. Instead, she took another sip of coffee, then set the cup down on the lamp table between them before looking directly at him. "So, Detective, what can I do for you?"

"Tom," he corrected.

"Tom." If there was impatience in her tone, only someone as attuned to the nuances of her voice as he was beginning to be would have noticed it.

"You can tell me what you're afraid of, to begin with." It was a shot in the dark, but it definitely hit home. Her eyes widened, flickered. Her lips parted, and she sucked in air. He knew then, without a doubt, that he was on the right track. But as quickly as her expression changed, it changed back, closing down, hiding the truth from him. Her eyes went big and blue and innocent. Her brows went up in questioning surprise.

"What in the world are you talking about?"

She was good, he had to give her that. But it was too late: He had already seen everything he needed to see.

"What really happened yesterday, Kate?" His eyes never left her face. His voice was almost tender.

There it was again—that telltale flicker of her eyes. A quick downward sweep of her lashes that she was probably not even aware of. Then the lids snapped up and she met his gaze head-on.

"You know exactly what happened—I told you. I gave a sworn statement and I answered your questions. All of them." She sat taller in the chair. Her nails—oval, well cared for, shiny with clear polish— dug into the ends of the armrests. Her nostrils flared. Her eyes blazed at him like twin blue headlights. "What exactly are you accusing me of? "

Her attempt to take the war into the enemy camp was pitch-perfect. Her voice was steady. Her spine was straight. Her chin was up. Her eyes shot indignant sparks into his.

Too bad it all happened just a split second too late.

"I'm not accusing you of anything. But I think there's something you're not telling me."

For a moment she simply held his gaze. Then she gave a short, derisive laugh.

"Like what? My shoe size? What I had for lunch? My mother's maiden name? Tell me what you're asking for, and I'll tell you if I know anything about it."

"Who was the other man in the corridor with you and Rodriguez? "

She didn't move, didn't flinch. There was no flicker, nothing.

"We've been over this. Your brother and another deputy and a prisoner were lying on the floor of one of the holding cells. Other than that, there was no one."

"I believe there was."

Her brows twitched together. "Ben believes in Santa Claus, but that doesn't mean he exists."

Touché.

If she was lying, she'd just gotten exponentially better at it. Maybe Charlie was wrong. Maybe there hadn't been another prisoner besides Rodriguez in the corridor. Hell, maybe Charlie had been hallucinating. Or seeing double. Even if he hadn't been, even if he was one hundred percent correct, given the condition he'd been in at the time, his uncorroborated testimony would never hold up in court.

"Who else do you think was back there, Detective?"

Forget calling him Tom. She was hostile now. Her eyes held a militant gleam, her lips had thinned, her jaw was tight. All hallmarks of an innocent woman wrongly accused.

Or a very good actress.

Anyway, she had him there. He had no idea—yet.

Not that he meant to tell her so.

Let her stew.

"Look, Kate. We have a whole lot of people, including a judge and a number of deputies, dead. Murdered. Shot in broad daylight in and around a high-security area of the Criminal Justice Center by prisoners attempting an escape. It's my job to get to the bottom of what happened. I'm attempting to do that."

"And you think I had something to do with it?"

The incredulity in her voice struck him as sincere. Tom narrowed his eyes. It almost—
almost
—made him believe in her innocence.

But if she was innocent, what was she afraid of?

"Mom!" The yell from upstairs caught them both by surprise. It was only then, as Ben's voice sliced through it, that Tom realized how thick the tension in the air had become. "I'm ready!"

Kate's eyes bored into Tom's for a moment longer, and then she glanced toward the stairs as she rose.

"I'm coming," she called back. Her gaze shifted back to him. Her expression was stony.

"I always go up and tuck Ben in and read to him before he falls asleep. So ..."

Her voice trailed off, but it was obvious from her expression that she was asking him to leave.

Tom smiled.

"Would you mind if I wait here until you're finished? If you could come back down, that would be great. I still have a few more questions to ask."

Her eyes turned to ice.

"I've told you everything I know. I have nothing to add."

"I understand. But I still have to ask the questions. Of course, if you'd rather, we could do it tomorrow. At the Roundhouse."

It was clear from her expression that she understood the implied threat. If she didn't cooperate, he could always show up at her office the next day and take her down to police headquarters for additional questioning. Of course, given the fact that she was an ADA, the whole thing got a little trickier. When they found out about it, as they certainly would, the DA's office would be outraged. The powers that be at the PPD probably wouldn't react much better. In any case, he had little doubt that she could make some phone calls, file a motion, slap a harassment charge on him, or in some manner find a way to prevent it from happening, at least for a day or two, until he could get all his ducks in a row, explain things to the DA's office, to the brass at the PPD. But he was betting on the fact that she wouldn't want that to happen. Any word that she was being asked to come in for questioning at police headquarters, with its implication that she was under suspicion of something in this most high-profile of cases, would raise a lot of eyebrows. Something like that wasn't good for careers, especially the career of a young, newly hired prosecutor.