She nodded almost imperceptibly, but at least another minute elapsed before she replied. “After my thesis adviser submitted my proposal and initial interviews to Getz, things started moving very fast. I never thought he’d actually buy it, and when he did, I sort of panicked. This huge thing was being offered to me, and I didn’t want it to be taken away. I thought, suppose the RAM people suddenly wake up and say to themselves, ‘This is just a twenty-three-year-old kid. What does she know about murder cases? What does she know about anything?’ Connie and I thought that if someone with real experience was involved, a real-life expert, it would make everything more solid. We both thought of you. Connie said that nobody knew more than you did about murder, and that the article she’d written about you had made you sort of famous. So you’d be perfect.”

“Did you show the article to Getz?”

“When I called him yesterday to tell him about your agreeing to help me, I think I did mention it.”

“And what about Robby Meese?”

“What about him?”

“Were you hoping I might help you deal with him, too?”

“Maybe. Maybe I’m more scared of him than I said.”

Gurney’s long experience as a cop had taught him that deception comes in various packages, some wrapped elaborately, some hastily; but there is a bareness and spareness about the truth. Regardless of the complexities of life, the truth is usually simple. He sensed that simplicity now in Kim’s voice. It made him smile.

“So I’m supposed to be your expert murder consultant, a celebrity detective, a provider of credibility, a reality-show cohost, an anti-stalker bodyguard. Anything else?”

She hesitated. “As long as I’m being exposed as a manipulative idiot, I should confess to another crazy hope. I was thinking that your presence at the meeting we’re on our way to now—with Larry Sterne—might convince him to participate after all.”

“Why?”

“This is going to sound really underhanded. I was thinking, since you were a famous homicide detective, he might think the hunt for the killer was being revived—and having new hope of the killer’s being caught might persuade him to take part.”

“So in addition to everything else, I’m supposed to be your cold-case specialist on the trail of the Good Shepherd?”

She sighed. “Stupid, right?”

He didn’t volunteer an answer, and she didn’t press for one.

Somewhere high above them in the dense overcast, the heavy, thumping heartbeat of a helicopter grew stronger, then weaker, then dwindled away to nothing.