Frome coughed—a crackle of nervous sound in the back of his throat—and reached for a glass of water. “That’s supposition. You don’t know what goes on in the head of someone like—”
The sound of knuckles on glass interrupted. He fired the door an irritated look, but in the middle of a missing-child investigation, he couldn’t ignore it to finish dressing Cloister down. Frome tossed his pen onto the table with a huff of impatience.
“What?” he barked.
The door opened, and Tancredi stuck her head in.
“Sir?” she said. “I was talking to Deputy Witte about his theory earlier, and… I thought it was wrong.”
“Well, that’s helpful,” Javi said dryly.
Tancredi glanced at him and flushed awkwardly. “I mean, I thought that earlier, sir.Iwas wrong.”
She held out the sheet of paper she was holding and aimed it diplomatically between Javi and Frome. Javi was the one who stepped forward and took it, and he flicked his eyes down the page. “While Witte was going to pick up Leo, I went to check the evidence room for the bags you found at the body-dump site. According to his missing-person report, Leo went missing wearing jeans, a high school sweater, and a dog tag necklace with his birthdate on it.” Tancredi craned her neck and reached over to point at something and tapped her nail against the paper. “Package three. Witte was right.”
“Well done,” Javi said.
Tancredi gave him a quick, relieved smile and exhaled quickly. “Thank you, sir.” When she glanced at Cloister, the expression faltered and her smile pleated apologetically in the middle. She cleared her throat and looked around the room. “I don’t understand, though. Why was Szerdo down as just a missing person? Even after he got away?”
Cloister shrugged. “We’ll need to ask him that.”
He waited. In the end Frome sighed and gave up. He took another drink of water and wiped his hand over his mouth when he swallowed. “Fine, we talk to Leo. However, Agent Merlo will lead the interview. Witte, stay out of the way. You’ve already alienated him enough.”
That was fine with Cloister. He shrugged, got up, and drawled out asiras he let himself out. The door slammed shut behind him on its own, which didn’t give the same satisfaction as banging it yourself. He was halfway down the hall when he heard it creak open again.
“Witte, wait,” Tancredi said. She half jogged the short distance he’d covered and hesitated and grimaced unhappily. “Look, Agent Merlo asked me to sit in on the interview. I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
“Well, it was your instincts, your hunch,” Tancredi said. She shrugged uncomfortably and hooked her fingers in her pockets. “I didn’t mean to… steal the credit.”
That was a lie. It was in the nervous movement of her fingers and the faint pink that stained the skin under her freckles. It didn’t matter. It left a bad taste in Cloister’s mouth, but it didn’t matter. Tancredi was ambitious, and he wasn’t. She needed this, and he didn’t.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Good work.”
She nodded and bounced absently on the balls of her feet. “Thanks. A recommendation from Agent Merlo couldn’t hurt, right?”
Cloister shrugged. “Hell if I know,” he said. “He’s a bit of a prick. Maybe people at the FBI don’t like him more than people here do.”
That made her snigger and check over her shoulder guiltily to be sure Javi hadn’t heard. Cloister wished her luck and went back to his desk. He quickly typed up his report and filed it, shoved some papers into the locked drawer, and killed time to see if anyone came out of the interview room. When they didn’t after half an hour—just low voices mumbling through the heavy door—he gave up and headed to the locker room.
There was dust in the creases of his elbows and knees, and sweat rubbed his ass raw. Cloister stripped down to bare skin, cracked his neck, blinked away the tears that brought to his eyes, and weighed the benefits of having a shower against just dragging on his jeans and going home.
In the end the promise of cold water won. He grabbed one of the hard, bleached towels from the rack and padded into the wet room. One benefit of taking over from a corrupt local police force—they had good amenities. He slung the towel over a hook, turned the water on without turning the heat up, and let it beat down on his shoulders.
Chilly needles hammered his tense shoulders and made him jerk despite the fact that he expected it. He felt his body temperature drop. It felt cold, and the pressure jolted the sullen resentment out of his brain, or at least battered it down away from the surface of his skull.
Cloister dropped his head and soaked his hair and the back of his neck. He braced both arms against the wet tile, and his muscles tensed from his wrists to his shoulders. He sighed and blew drops of water off his lips. It felt good.
He closed his eyes and waited for the clatter in his head to go numb.
It worked well enough that the warm hand pressed against his back jolted him out of a shallow, unsatisfying daze. He spat out a curse. The welcome chill suddenly was freezing, and he slapped the shower off. The water managed to get a few degrees colder before it finally drizzled off. He wiped his arm over his face and turned around.
He hadn’t expected to see Javi standing there, but on some level, he wasn’t surprised either. Cloister combed his fingers through his wet hair and plastered it flat to his head.
“What?”
“I was going to ask you to step into the interview,” Javi said. “But if you’re napping in the shower, maybe it’s time for you to go home.”
