Disturbance by Jan Burke Page B

recovered quickly, though. He smiled and said, “Maybe so.” His tone implied that he thought Donovan was bluffing.
    “After all,” Donovan said, “the so-called Moths seem to have an inexplicable devotion to him, don’t they?”
    That time he had scored a hit. Quinn stiffened a little. Even Kai noticed it. Kai subsided again, watching his older brothers warily. Donovan was beginning to revise his opinion of Kai. He still disliked him, but he thought he might be more intelligent than he had first believed. Capable, at least, of learning.
    Quinn hurriedly changed the subject back to their larger plans.
    At long last, it was time to go, and this presented a problem that Donovan would have found laughable under other circumstances. None of them trusted his brothers enough to walk away and turn his back on them, or to leave the other two behind to forge new alliances. Quinn and Kai would not address the problem, so there was simply a lot of shifting of weight on their parts. Donovan took control.
    “I’m the only one here without a weapon,” he lied but was pleased to see their surprise at being caught at their own rule breaking. He was more pleased to see the measure of respect. “I’ll sit here, and you two walk off in opposite directions.”
    They nodded and left. Donovan could have killed either one of them when they turned their backs. It was as he suspected. These two were hunters of the middling sort, the type that seldom thought of themselves as prey.
    A mistake on their part, one that might prove costly to them.

FOURTEEN
    H i, Irene,” Reed Collins said, looking up from the sandwich he was eating at his desk. “You here to see Frank?” “No,” Pete Baird answered from beside me. Since no one goes walking unescorted past the reception area of the police department, let alone into the homicide room, my husband’s partner had been the one who fetched me from the lobby. “Frank doesn’t know she’s here.” He didn’t spare me the tone of censorship, but I didn’t care—all that mattered to me at the moment was that he hadn’t left me sitting in the lobby. I didn’t even bother to correct what he said about Frank, at least not right away.
    The others in the room knew me as a reporter, and I could see them moving to turn papers over and slipping files into desk drawers.
    “Relax,” I said. “No newspaper anymore, remember?” Before their elation over that or their sympathy for me could make itself known, I quickly turned back to Reed and added, “Could I talk to you in one of the interview rooms?”
    “I’ll come with you,” Pete said, and since I knew that trying to shake him would be a waste of effort, I didn’t protest.
    When the door closed behind us, Reed said, “Are you working for a news agency of any kind, Irene?”
    “No. I’m unemployed. This isn’t going out to the media.” I took a seat, and they followed suit. Interrogation mode—I was alone on one side of a table; they positioned their chairs to block me in. I tried not to let my claustrophobia distract me. I wouldn’t get anywhere if I didn’t stay calm.
    “That leaves me with some questions, then,” Reed said. “I’ve been getting some phone calls.”
    “I figured you would. Probably from Marilyn Foster’s friends and family. I’ve been going over her case.”
    “Irene … ,” Reed said pityingly.
    “For what it’s worth, Frank felt the way you do. Wanted me to butt out, thought you and Vince would be pissed off at me for interfering with your case. Thought it was kind of sad that I wouldn’t just forget all about it. Pete’s wrong, though. Frank knows I’m here. I sat down with him and went over what I had found out, and he agreed with me that you should be made aware of what I’ve learned.”
    Reed frowned. “He’s at lunch with Vince …”
    “Yes. Neither of us thought Vince would hear me out.”
    “Jesus, Irene. It might be an even bigger assumption on your part—and Frank’s—that I’d go