Ashes to Ashes Read Online Free Page B

who believes a man can rise from the dead three days after the fact is a less than credible witness.”
    Kovac’s mustache twitched. “Scum lawyers.”
    Rob looked bemused. “Mother Teresa’s dead.”
    Kate and Kovac rolled their eyes in unison.
    Sabin cleared his throat and looked pointedly at his watch. “We need to get going with this. I want to hear what she has to say.”
    Kate arched a brow. “And you think she’ll just tell you? You don’t get out of the office enough, Ted.”
    “She’d damn well better tell us,” he said ominously, and started for the door.
    Kate stared through the glass for one last moment, her eyes meeting those of her witness, even though she knew the girl couldn’t see her. A teenager. Christ, they could just as well have assigned her a Martian. She was nobody’s mother. And there was a reminder she didn’t need or want.
    She looked into the girl’s pale face and saw anger and defiance and experience no kid that age should have. And she saw fear. Buried beneath everything else, held as tight inside her as a secret, there was fear. Kate didn’t let herself acknowledge what it was inside her own soul that let her recognize that fear.
    In the interview room, Angie DiMarco flicked a glance at Liska, who was looking at her watch. She turned her eyes back to the one-way glass and slipped the pilfered pen inside the neckline of her sweater.
    “A kid,” Kate muttered as Sabin and Rob Marshall stepped out into the hall ahead of her. “I wasn’t even good at being one.”
    “That’s perfect,” Kovac said, holding the door open for her. “Neither is she.”
     
     
    LISKA, SHORT, BLOND, and athletic with a boy’s haircut, rolled away from the wall and gave them all a weary smile as they entered the interview room. She looked like Tinker Bell on steroids—or so Kovac had declared when he christened her with the nickname Tinks.
    “Welcome to the fun house,” she said. “Coffee, anybody?”
    “Decaf for me and one for our friend at the table, please, Nikki,” Kate said softly, never taking her eyes off the girl, trying to formulate a strategy.
    Kovac spilled himself into a chair and leaned against the table with one arm, his blunt-tipped fingers scratching at chocolate sprinkles that lay scattered like mouse turds on the tabletop.
    “Kate, this is Angie DiMarco,” he said casually. “Angie, this is Kate Conlan from the victim/witness program. She’s being assigned to your case.”
    “I’m not a case,” the girl snapped. “Who are they?”
    “County Attorney Ted Sabin and Rob Marshall from victim/witness.” Kovac pointed to one and then the other as the men took seats across the table from their prized witness.
    Sabin gave her his best Ward Cleaver expression. “We’re very interested in what you have to say, Angie. This killer we’re after is a dangerous man.”
    “No shit.” The girl turned back to Kovac. Her glare homed in on his mouth. “Can I have a smoke?”
    He pulled the cigarette from his lips and looked at it. “Hell,
I
can’t even have one,” he confessed. “It’s a smoke-free building. I was going outside with this.”
    “That sucks. I’m stuck in this fucking room half the fucking night and I can’t even have a fucking cigarette!”
    She sat back and crossed her arms over her chest. Her brown hair was oily and parted down the middle, falling loose around her shoulders. She wore too much mascara, which had smudged beneath her eyes, and a faded Calvin Klein denim jacket that had once belonged to someone named Rick. The name was printed in indelible ink above the left breast pocket. She kept the jacket on despite the fact that the room was warm. Security or hiding needle tracks, Kate figured.
    “Oh, for godsake, Sam, give her a cigarette,” Kate said, shoving up the sleeves of her sweater. She took the vacant chair on the girl’s side of the table. “And give me one too, while you’re at it. If the PC Nazis catch us, we’ll all go down