She offered no resistance—strong, independent Kate. Her head found his shoulder and she fitted against him like his missing half. Familiar, comfortable, perfect. The noise and commotion of the crime scene seemed to recede into the distant background. He stroked a hand over her hair and kissed her temple, and felt complete for the first time in five years.
“I'm here for you, sweetheart,” he whispered. “I've got you.”
“Is it her?” Rob Marshall scuttled toward them on his too-short legs. He was bundled into a fat down parka that appeared to be creeping up around his ears; a stocking cap sat tight on his round head.
At the sound of his voice, Kate stiffened, straightened, moved a step away from Quinn. He could almost see her reining in the emotions and hastily reconstructing the wall around them.
“We don't know,” she said, her voice husky. She cleared her throat and swiped a gloved finger beneath one eye. “The body is unrecognizable. No one's found an ID yet that we know of.”
Rob looked past her to the paramedics. “I can't believe this is happening. You think this is her, don't you? You think this is your witness.”
Your witness, Kate noted. He was already distancing himself from the disaster, the same way he'd distanced himself from the decision to take Angie to the Phoenix in the first place. The miserable toad.
“How did this happen?” he demanded. “I thought you were watching out for her, Kate.”
“I'm sorry. I told you on the phone I was sorry. I should have stayed with her.” The admission grated now because it was a concession to her boss, and she automatically wanted to disagree with him.
“We chose you for this case for a reason.”
“I'm well aware of that.”
“Your background, the strength of your personality. For once I thought your stubbornness would actually work to my benefit—”
“You know, I'm blaming myself enough for both of us, Rob,” she said. “So you can just get off my back, thank you very much.”
“Sabin is furious. I don't know how I'll placate him.”
The witness was hers to lose, the peace was his to make. Kate could already hear him whining and wheedling to Sabin, taking her name in vain every chance he got.
“I'm sure you'll be fine,” she snapped, too angry for prudence. “Just get down on your knees and pucker up like you always do.”
Rob's whole being quaked in a spasm from his feet up, the fury erupting from his mouth. “How dare you speak that way to me! How dare you! You've lost the witness. Maybe gotten her killed—”
“We don't know that,” Quinn intervened.
“—and still you have the gall to talk to me that way! You've never shown me an ounce of respect. Even now. Even after this. I can't believe you! You fucking bitch!”
“Back off,” Quinn ordered. He stepped between them and knocked Rob in the sternum hard with the heel of his hand. Rob stumbled backward, lost his footing in the snow, and landed on his butt.
“Why don't you go take a look at what Kate's just seen,” Quinn said, not bothering to offer a hand up. “Get a fresh perspective as to what's important here right now.”
Rob scrambled to his feet, muttering, jerked around and stomped toward the ambulance, dusting the snow off his jacket with quick, angry movements.
“Dammit, John, I wanted to knock him on his ass,” Kate said.
“Then I probably just saved your job for you.”
The sudden possibility that her career might indeed be in danger struck Kate belatedly. God, why wouldn't Rob fire her? He was right: She'd never given him more than the barest requirement of respect. Never mind that he hadn't earned it. He was her boss.
She watched him as he stood near the ambulance with a mittened hand over his mouth. The crew was preparing to put the body in a bag. When he came back, his face looked both waxy and flushed.
“That's—that's—horrific,” he said, breathing heavily through his mouth. He pulled off his glasses and wiped his face with a mitten. “Incredible.” He swallowed a couple of times and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “That smell . . .”
“Maybe you should sit down,” Kate suggested.
Rob partially unzipped his coat and tugged down on the bottom. His gaze was still on the ambulance. “Incredible . . . horrible . . .”
The search helicopter swept near, blades pounding the air like the wings of a giant hummingbird.
“He's challenging us, isn't he? The Cremator,” he said, looking to Quinn. “Taking the girl. Doing this here, where the meeting was held.”
“Yes. He wants to make us look like fools while he makes himself look invincible.”
“I'd say he's doing a damn good job of it,” Rob said, staring across the way as the paramedics loaded the corpse into the ambulance.
“Anybody can look like a genius if they have all the answers ahead of time,” Quinn said. “He'll screw up eventually. They all do. The trick is to get it to happen sooner rather than later. And to get him by the balls the instant he stumbles.”
“I'd like to be around to see that happen.” Rob wiped his face again and adjusted the parka. “I'll go call Sabin,” he said to Kate. “While we still work for him.”
Kate said nothing. Her silence had nothing to do with the county attorney or the suddenly precarious disposition of her job.
“Let's go find Kovac,” she said to Quinn. “See if they've found the driver's license yet.”
KOVAC STOOD ARGUING jurisdiction with an African American woman in a dark parka with ARSON printed across the back. The car, smallish and red, was the centerpiece in a ring of portable lights. The fire had gutted it and blown out the windshield. The driver's door hung open, twisted by the tools the rescue squad had used to wrench it free. The interior was a mess of ash, melted plastic, and dripping foam fire retardant. The driver's seat had been eaten away, the flames leaving nothing but a carcass of distorted springs.
“It's an arson, Sergeant,” the woman insisted. “It's up to my office to determine the cause.”
“It's a homicide, and I could give a shit about the cause of the fire,” Kovac returned. “I want B of I in that car to get whatever evidence your people haven't already fucked up.”
“On behalf of the Minneapolis Fire Department, I apologize for trying to put out a fire and save a life. Maybe we'll get that straight before someone sets your car on fire.”
“Marcell, I should be so lucky someone sets that piece of crap on fire.”
As crime scenes went, this one was a disaster, Kate knew. Called to a fire, the firefighters didn't worry about trampling the scene. Their job was saving lives, not finding out who might have taken one. And so they ruined car doors and sprayed foam over any trace evidence that might have survived inside.
“The thing's already burned to a crisp,” Kovac said to the arson investigator. “What's your hurry? Me, I got a flame-throwing fruitloop running around killing women.”
“Maybe this was an accident,” Marcell shot back. “Maybe this has nothing to do with your killer and you're standing here arguing with me and wasting our time for nothing.”
“Sam, we got the plates back.” Elwood waded toward him through the snow. He waited until he was near enough for confidentiality, even though there was no hope of keeping this news under wraps for long. “It's a
'ninety-eight Saab registered to Jillian Bondurant.”
The arson investigator saluted Kovac and stepped out of his way. “As pissing contests go, Sergeant, you just wrote your name in the snow.”