Odessa shook her head. She said nothing about the heat signature departing Leppo’s corpse.

“And you’ve already stated this, but for my benefit,” said Courtney, “you were not under the influence of drugs or alcohol that night. And you are not taking any prescribed psychotropic medicine, and are not currently under the care of a psychiatrist…?”

“Not yet,” said Odessa.

“And—forgive my directness—were you and Agent Leppo involved romantically in any way…?”

Odessa looked to the side, at nothing. Trying to control her anger. The stab wounds kept coming, this one dead center in her chest. Was this coming from the FBI? she wondered. Or just Courtney’s own suspicion?

“Not in any way whatsoever.”

“Got it.” Tap-tap-tap with her cat’s paws.

Odessa said, “He was the one with the psychotic snap, not me.”

Courtney nodded, perhaps a bit embarrassed herself at having had to ask that question. And she should be.

Courtney tapped her track pad, committing Odessa’s account to a file. “The FBI wants your badge and your gun, but we are fighting for you.”

Odessa felt like handing over her badge permanently. “They already have my gun.”

“Do they?” Courtney looked through paper notes in a binder, nodding confidently as though she had found confirmation of this fact, but Odessa knew she was just covering for her own mistake. Courtney had probably received Odessa’s case the day before.

Odessa saw more of herself in the beleaguered young lawyer than she liked to admit.

Courtney said, “The FBI has flagged some things for our attention, but I want to ask you about one of them. It has to do with your father…?”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s something that I guess came up in the past—”

“That was all dealt with in my background investigation.”

Courtney appeared to bristle at Odessa’s firm tone. “Yes, that is the document I am referring to.”

Odessa’s head was buzzing. “They pulled my background check as part of this?”

“A summary letter, yes.”

Odessa went cold. “Is this normally done in these cases?”

“Well,” said Courtney, again looking to her notes for an answer Odessa knew was not there, “I don’t know. We handle mostly police officer shootings, like the one on Long Island yesterday. Not FBI shootings.”

Odessa looked away. The thought of her father made her morose, but she did not want to show her lawyer any strong negative reaction. Linus was right: She needed a real lawyer.

Then something came bubbling up through the darkness—something she could not ignore. Odessa asked softly:

“Wait…what happened on Long Island yesterday?”

Chapter

Odessa rode the subway in a mental fog. She emerged onto the street in Kew Gardens with a new attitude. She returned to the FBI Resident Agency, entering with a tight, confident smile for the office manager, returning to Earl Solomon’s empty office.