“You can’t know what you’re going to do. All you have is wishful thinking.”
“No more walking home alone. The Shrine will set you up with a car and driver.”
“I’m a security guard, not someone on the Board or an important researcher.”
“We both know you’re a whole lot more than that.”
“Do I know that?” She didn’t have an answer.
“You’re important to me,” he said.
“You mean, my mother is important to you.”
“I used to have her respect, and your father’s.” Tony paused. “I’d like to earn it back.”
“Do me a favor?” she said. “Shut off the light when you leave, okay?”
“I can do that.”
Eliana closed her eyes.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“This won’t take me long.” Carlos didn’t bother explaining more, he just hung up on Halstood.
He stepped into the Medical Examiner’s Office, a warm entrance that seemed to be full of people. He’d left Eliana at home resting, checked on Patience, and even got a workout in before his shift. Now he was going to run out of time on his lunch break if he didn’t get this done quickly.
Carlos signed in and got a visitor’s pass—thanks to his uniform. The guard noted his name and badge number, then waved him through the security scanner. Beyond that, in another lobby, FBI agents Fox and Glor waited for him.
Glor lifted his chin as he approached them.
Carlos held his hand out, and they shook. “Good to see you.”
“You as well.” Special Agent Glor nodded. He wore a blue tie today and seemed more…animated. Because of the prospect of these new leads?
Fox shook his hand. “Have you seen Detective Maloney today?”
“I haven’t.” Thankfully so, because Carlos wasn’t entirely sure he’d be able to contain the secret they knew—that Maloneymight be one of the Reverence Sisters. Or, at least that she might know more than she was saying about them.
The detective had joined the police department under false pretenses at the least. What else it might entail would be for the FBI to figure out.
Carlos looked around. “You chose here to have this conversation?”
“Walk with me.” Special Agent Fox motioned with a tip of her head, and they started down the wide hallway.
He noted the expensive-looking wainscoting and the occasional gilded-frame painting on the white walls above wood paneling that ran the length of the bottom half of the wall. In this massive office that tried to look like a centuries-old mansion or a university, it seemed whoever the chief was had old-world taste.
“This seemed like a good place to talk,” Fox continued, “given that the two bodies in the morgue are related to our case. I figured we could check in about our friend who might be one of the Reverence Sisters at the same time.”
Carlos had half an hour, then he needed to be back on shift on the streets with Halstood. Given everything that had happened the past week or so, it seemed odd to work a normal shift as if nothing was going on, but that was part of the job. You carried on, whether your head was in it or not.
Inside the elevator, Fox pushed the button for the lower floor, where the actual morgue facilities were located. The ground floor and above were reserved for offices and conference rooms, she explained.
Seemed fitting to put the dead people in a basement area, but natural light would always be Carlos’s preference. Like not living somewhere with so much cloud cover.
As they descended, Special Agent Glor leaned against the wall in the elevator car, eyeing Carlos. “Any thoughts aboutwearing a wire and talking to Maloney? You could get a sense of what she knows about the Sisters.”
Because it was on him to get them intel?
