Page 130 of Cold, Cold Bones
“Doing field training.”
“Field training? What are you, special ops?”
“Suck my dick.”
Slidell slid the tablet to Kramden. “Write it all down. Names, addresses, dates. Where you been. Anything has to do with this prick Boldonado. Youcanwrite?”
Kramden scribbled with his good hand, then lay the pen on the table. “You want, I’ll take a lie detector.”
Slidell grabbed the tablet, rose, and headed for the door.
“What about me?” Kramden asked, now flustered. “Can I go?”
“Don’t plan no European invasion.”
We met Slidell in the hall.
“Impression?” I asked.
“Guy’s a sniveling weasel.” A pause, then: “You think he could be the mope who conked you when you made your Marvel hero move by the buses?”
“I don’t know,” I said curtly. “I never got a good look at him.”
“You’ll cut him loose?” Ryan asked.
“Got nothing to hold him on. For now.”
Ryan and I were pulling in at the annex when my mobile rang.
“It’s J.S.,” I said.
“Your profiler pal?”
“Yes.” I put the car in park, the call on speaker.
“Hi, Tempe. It’s J.S. I’ve been considering our conversation.”
“And?”
“The more I think about it, the more this guy sounds like a nasty piece of work. Extreme violence. Tremendous anger. I think he’d grown impatient that you weren’t recognizing, or discovering, his handiwork, so he taunted you with the eyeball. Hard to ignore a body part on your doorstep. Now that he has your attention, he’s growing more aggressive. I really don’t like this new twist, killing not some random stranger but your friend.”
I glanced at Ryan. His eyes were dark, his lips set in a grim line.
I told J.S. about the phone call and the incident at the SWI plant—how I’d seen a woman murdered. I added that her hit-and-run death also mimicked one of my old cases.
“If thatwashis doing, the violence is escalating,” he said. “And the intervals between killings are growing shorter.”
I’d thought of that.
“Here’s the thing that worries me most. When taking down your friends or luring you to witness his brutality is no longer enough, he may switch his focus to you.”
I’d thought of that, too. And a possibility that terrified me even more.
“What about Katy?” It came out trembly. I felt Ryan take my free hand.
“You still haven’t heard from her?”
“I received a text last Monday. But somehow it didn’t seem like her.”
