Abigail arched an eyebrow. “Wayne was just telling me he had a break in your sniper investigation.”
Laurel’s spine stiffened. “What was it?”
“He didn’t say. We didn’t have time. But he was . . . confident. He said he was closing in.”
Perhaps he’d left notes in his Seattle office. Laurel would call them and find out. “Is there anything you can point to that would help me identify this attacker?”
“No.” Abigail scratched dried blood off her hand. “Do you think Wayne tipped off the sniper somehow? Accidentally?”
“Maybe,” Laurel said. “Like I said, we’ll start a broad investigation and narrow in, but since there’s a sniper out there, it’s likely the same perpetrator. We’ll pull every case Agent Norrs ever worked, but I don’t believe in coincidences.”
Abigail tilted her head. “Nietzsche didn’t either. ‘There are no facts, only interpretations.’ And patterns.”
Laurel shot her a look. “And in those patterns, ‘coincidences are just crimes in costume.’ Foucault.”
Abigail smirked. “Touché.” Then her head went back against the sterile hospital wall, and her eyelids shut. She was trembling.
Laurel frowned. “I should’ve brought you something warm to wear. I didn’t even think of it.”
“Why would you?” Abigail murmured. “We’re rarely on the same page. All I’ve ever wanted is to be your sister.”
Laurel doubted that. Abigail’s desires were layered, twisted, and often tactical. But maybe, beneath the machinery, there was something that approximated need. “I’m sorry that Wayne was shot. You do care for him. Don’t you?”
Abigail didn’t move. “Of course I do. We’re engaged.”
That wasn’t an answer. “Is he your reason?”
Abigail cracked open one pale blue eye. “My reason for what?”
Exactly. She wouldn’t understand. “Are you really planning to go through with it? Marry him?”
“I don’t know.” A beat. “We’re engaged.”
Laurel let that hang. “What about after your trial if you don’t go to prison?”
“I’m not going to prison, Laurel. We both know it.” Abigail’s voice had a cool certainty, like she’d already read the verdict.
“You can try for self-defense, sure. But it’s not a slam dunk. The prosecuting attorney is sharp, and you didn’t exactly have a sanctioned reason for going to that motel alone.”
“Sure I did.” Abigail folded her arms, the dried blood on her sleeves cracking slightly. “What about Joley, that poor girl Zeke said he had stashed somewhere?”
Laurel had to refrain from rolling her eyes. “The only evidence that Zeke had anything to do with that missing teenager is your word. That’s it.”
Abigail hummed softly. “Interesting.” That tone. It told Laurel that somewhere, in the folds of Abigail’s mind, wheels were turning. Not in panic. Abigail never panicked. She strategized. She designed. If corroboration didn’t exist, she’d manufacture it, bend the narrative, and make truth pliable.
“Why did you really kill your father?” Laurel asked.
“Ourfather.” A small smile played on Abigail’s mouth. Just a quick flash before it disappeared. “Are you asking as my sister or as an FBI agent?”
“I’m always both.”
“That’s what I figured.” Abigail turned those dual-colored eyes on Laurel. “I killed him because he came at me. It was self-defense.”
That was highly doubtful. Zeke wanted money to get out of town, and Abigail had plenty. She could’ve been his bank for decades. “What else?”
“Talk to me after the trial,” Abigail said dryly. “Double jeopardy and all that.”
So the bastard did have something on her. Laurel knew it. Whatever it was, if there had ever been real evidence, it was almost certainly dust and ash by now. “When I testify, I’ll tell the truth.”
