“Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Hue,” Glenn was saying behind me. “I know this is hard, but the families of those women will be grateful to know what has happened.”

“Don’t tell them I turned their daughters,” David whispered. “I’ll do it. Give me that.”

I glanced behind me as I pushed open the swinging doors. Glenn was hunched in sympathy as he walked beside the smaller man. I searched my feelings and decided it wasn’t an act. “I’ll do the best I can,” Glenn said, his gaze rising to mine for a moment.

Yeah, I’d heard that before. What it meant was he’d do his best as long as it didn’t mean bending his ruler-up-his-ass rules.

Stupid-ass, upright, uptight FIB detective, I thought. What hurt would it do to bury this from the public? Then I blew out my frustration. I was starting to think like Trent. This was a potential Inderland power struggle, though, not an illegal genetic lab. But women had died, and I wanted him to lie to their families about how and why.

We slowed when Glenn went to talk to Iceman, and David halted beside me. His few wrinkles were deepened by stress, and he looked terrible. “I’m so sorry, David,” I whispered.

“It’s not your fault,” he said, but I felt like it was.

Glenn joined us and gestured David to walk out before us. The FIB officer took hold of my upper arm, keeping my steps slow until David was several paces ahead of us.

“Who did you get the statue from?” he asked as we started up the stairway.

I looked at his dark fingers encircling my arm, remembering that thick folder he had given me listing Nick’s crimes. Shaky, I reached for the filthy banister and gripped it as I rose. “Tell me you’ll do your damnedest to keep this locked in a drawer,” I asked. “All of it.”

“Tell me, Rachel,” he threatened, not giving an inch.

Exhaling, I watched David’s slumped back. “Nick,” I said, seeing no point in not telling him. The thief was playing dead, so there was no reason for Glenn to go looking for him.

His entire posture easing, Glenn nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Now I believe you.”

TEN

It was hot at the bus stop, and I stood breathing in air flavored by pavement, gas fumes, and the nearby Skyline Chili. It was probably the only chain restaurant serving a tomato-based food that had survived the Turn and the tomato boycott that half the world’s surviving population had adopted. I was hungry and tempted to get myself a cardboard bowl to go, but I knew that the moment I left the stop, the bus would show and I’d be waiting another half hour.