“You obviously think that I am. Enough that you turned the place where I live upside down. I have no idea what you were looking for because no one had the courtesy to tell me.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

She shrugged. “As I don’t know what you’re looking for in the way of answers, I can’t help you.”

“Do you in fact know Rafe Cordeau?” he thundered.

“Is this where I’m supposed to wince and burst into tears?” Sarcasm dripped from her voice. Rafe could make her wince without even raising his voice, but even he couldn’t make her burst into tears. Certainly no cop could.

She pushed the heavy fall of hair over her shoulder and for the first time looked Tuttle in the eye. She even leaned toward him. “Everyone who grew up in Algiers knows Rafe Cordeau or at least of him. If they say they don’t, they are lying. Yes. To answer your question, I know Rafe Cordeau.”

“And you lived with him for a number of years.”

She stared him directly in the eye and she was very focused. Intense. She waited. She was good at waiting. Good at the silence game. She’d been taught by a master and she’d followed up those lessons with experiences. She could tell Tuttle was buying into her age. She was young. Barely twenty-one. She’d had her birthday just last month. She didn’t look hard, she looked vulnerable. He had no idea the experiences she’d been through had aged her fast.

He sighed. “Ms. Benoit, I’m trying to ascertain how you know Cordeau.”

“I’m sorry. You’re not very good at this, are you? Again, there was no question for me to answer, and I can’t guess at what you want from me.”

Tuttle winced. She kept her gaze from the camera, where she was certain other cops were watching on a screen in a control room. Tuttle was going to take some ribbing over that remark.

“I was given to him when I was eleven years old.”

“Given to him?”

She nodded. “I’m his ward. I was raised in his house.”

“And you’re engaged to be married to him.”

For the first time her heart went crazy, hammering in her chest so hard she feared it would actually break through—or he could hear it. She forced herself to keep her eyes steady on his.

“Why would you think that?”

“There was a write-up in the New Orleans newspaper in the society section that states you are engaged to Rafe Cordeau. Are you saying that information isn’t correct?”

No one would dare write an article about Cordeau without his consent. No one. Not even a reporter who wanted a name for themselves. Rafe had planted that article and he was making a statement directly to her.

She shook her head but didn’t speak, her mind racing.