“I’ll step in when the time’s right,” he said.
So, quashing the nerves that were making her stomach jump, she had begun.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Reicher snapped now. “I’ve taken all the insults I’m going to take. I demand to see my lawyer.”
“Your request has been noted. You’ll get your call as soon as a line is free.”
She saw him glance at the phone on the interview room desk. All the buttons were indeed lit or flashing. They’d made sure of that.
“In the meantime,” she said, “you might want to figure out how you’re going to explain this.”
She tossed the printout of the list on the table in front of him. He glanced at it, and she had the extreme satisfaction of seeing him pale visibly beneath his carefully maintained tan. His gaze flicked up to her face, and she saw a trace of apprehension in those cold, crocodile eyes.
“Where did you get that?”
Not what is it, she noted, satisfaction flowing through her again.
“Right off your hard drive, unedited and uncut.”
“How dare you?” he sputtered.
“Oh, with a warrant, Desmond.” She used his first time intentionally, almost insultingly. “Rest assured, the legal system is already fully engaged.”
“You can’t prove a thing. My attorneys will make a hash out of your warrant. And then I’ll slap this department with the biggest lawsuit it’s ever seen. Anybody could have put that on my computer.”
“Interesting. Your staff told us you were paranoid about it, that no one was allowed to touch that computer, or even clean the room it was in unless you were physically present.”
Reicher muttered something under his breath, and Darien doubted any of that staff would be employed by Reicher much longer. But she also guessed none of them would be particularly upset about that fact.
“Was it really worth it? You can’t need the money, so was it for kicks? The thrill? Or just the pure joy of putting a few more women in their place?”
“Someone should put you in yours,” he snapped.
She lifted a brow at him, and he flushed, as if realizing he’d betrayed something he should have kept hidden.
“My place,” she said softly, leaning over the table to invade his space, “is to make sure you go to jail, where no one will care how rich you are, for a very, very long time.”
“That will never happen,” Reicher said. “You’ll never prove I had anything to do with those women disappearing.”
“Who cares?” Colin asked, speaking for the first time.
“What?” Reicher said, clearly startled.
“That’s just our reason to hold you until we gather up the last bit of evidence for the big one.”
Reicher frowned. “The big one…what?”
“We know when and how you did it, but what we don’t know is why. Did he want out, maybe, cutting off the flow of easy cash? Did he develop a conscience, threaten to go clean, maybe confess?”
Reicher looked puzzled, and Darien thought it seemed real. “What are you talking about?” the man asked, in an entirely different tone than he’d used when he’d said similar words before.
“Nice try, Desmond,” Colin said, using his name familiarly just as Darien had; the man was used to more respect than this, and with his ego, not getting it could only add to his anger, which might make him make a fatal mistake. “If I didn’t have all this evidence, I might even believe you didn’t do it.”
“Whatever evidence you think you have, my lawyers will tear to pieces. I had nothing to do with those women.”
“And it won’t matter, when you go on trial for murder,” Colin said flatly.
“Murder?” Reicher’s eyes widened. “Wait a minute…you think I killed Franklin?”
He looked so astonished Darien found herself thinking, I almost believe him.
“Are you crazy? Why would I do that?”
“I think I gave you some possible reasons,” Darien said.
He gave her an irritated glance, but then looked back at Colin. “I’d be crazy to kill Franklin. He was the goose that laid the golden egg.”
“That goose, if you recall, wound up as dead as your partner. So did he want out? Did he want to put an end to your little scheme? Is that why you killed him?”
“I didn’t kill him. This is insane.”
“Insanity is overrated as a defense,” Darien said, letting her disdain show in her voice, knowing it would needle him, coming from her. “And by the way, your alibi didn’t hold up. Your assistant could only swear you were at your office until ten. Not late enough to save you, Desmond.”
Reicher looked at her as if he wished he could send her the way of the women he’d already sold into hell.
“Look, we know you and he were in on this slavery ring,” Colin said. “You’re going to go down for that. Which makes you the most likely suspect for the murder, too, unless you can give us a very good reason to go looking elsewhere.”
“The very good reason is I’m not a fool, Detective,” Reicher snapped at Colin. “I did not kill Franklin Gardner. And whatever else you think you’ve got, you will never be able to prove I did because it’s not true.”
“What’s bugging you?” Colin asked, judging by the crease between her brows that Darien wasn’t happy about something. “You did great with him.”
“Thank you,” she said, with that smile that he’d finally had to admit knocked him for a loop every time. It was so warm, so gentle, so…personal, that it was hard not to read too much into it.
“You earned it,” he said. “So what’s putting that furrow in your forehead?”
She shook her head. “It’s nothing.”
“Well, something’s bugging me,” he said, and she looked at him quizzically. His mouth quirked wryly at one corner. “After all this, my gut isn’t cooperating.”
“What do you mean?”
He let out a compressed breath. “I believe him.”
Her forehead immediately cleared. “You do?”
“I know, I know, it’s crazy, but slime that he is, I don’t think he killed Gardner.”
“Neither do I.”
He blinked. “You don’t?”
“I believe him, too.”
“He had to have known killing Gardner would cause more trouble than it was worth.”
She nodded. “The only way I could reconcile it was if he killed him in an out-of-control rage, and…”
When she hesitated, he finished it for her. “And Desmond Reicher has never been that far out of control in his entire lifetime.”
“Exactly. He’s too cold, calculating. He would never act without figuring what it might cost him first.”
“Same conclusion I came to.” Colin sighed audibly. “I just don’t know where that leaves us.”
“At square one?” she suggested wearily.
“Well, not quite,” Colin reminded her gently. “We did just put a forced prostitution ring out of business.”
“Yes, we did. No way now Reicher could pick a new partner and start again, or try to carry on alone.”
“And when they trace the other end of the chain, we might just save some of those girls.”
She brightened at that. “I hadn’t thought of that. Now that would be worth it all and then some.”
“I thought you’d like that.”
“I do. But now what? And what if we’re wrong about him not killing Gardner?”
He shrugged. “He’ll still get turned over to the feds for the forced prostitution charges. That will hold him for a long time. More than long enough for us to keep turning over rocks and looking for anybody else that might crawl out.”
She yawned suddenly, then embarrassedly apologized. “Sorry. Guess it’s catching up with me.”
“We’ve been pushing pretty hard for days now, and it’s-” he glanced at his watch and was surprised himself “-it’s nearly eight. Let’s knock off, get some dinner and some sleep.”
“Food? Real food?”
“Honest. Then we’ll start fresh in the morning.”
“Early,” she said.