Keeley blinked.
“Say it with me,” Jason deadpanned: “Oh, snap.”
* * *
She wanted to cheer.
Before that moment, she wanted to crawl under a rock and die. She sat beside her silent boss in a mostly empty office, watching the interrogation unfold on a computer screen as the camera on Lanier’s laptop relayed it. Aside from a curt query regarding her well-being, Hauser said nothing to her. They sat forward in their chairs, listened and watched with growing trepidation.
They had a solid case against the crew. They had physical evidence, they had surveillance and an airtight timeline. Hauser planned to offer the guys immunity in exchange for depositions and testimony. The guys were all smart enough to know it was their only way out.
Amber also knew how far Alex had already gone to protect Lorelei, more than once, and how far Jason had gone to protect them both. Her heart sank ever further as she watched Jason endure the conversation, knowing he understood just how ugly this would get. Every time Amber felt like she couldn’t feel more guilt, she found herself proven wrong.
And then, in that brief flurry of words, Jason tore the whole thing apart.
Hauser sat beside her. He leaned further forward. She leaned back, hoping he wouldn’t turn his eyes to look at her as she bit down on her fist to prevent herself from laughing or crying out.
Does Hauser even understand? Amber wondered. She looked at the back of Hauser’s head as he watched. Her eyes turned to the screen again. She caught sight of Keeley’s face. He gets it, she realized. Keeley gets it. He won’t tell them, but… Oh my god. Jason.
Minutes later, the ill-conceived group interrogation broke up. Hauser rose and stalked out of the room without a word. That suited Amber just fine.
She turned off the video, stared at the blank screen, and wished she could high-five the guy who would probably never speak to her again.
* * *
Hauser found his agents standing at the end of the hallway. Nguyen looked out the window, arms folded across her chest. Lanier had his back to a wall, his head tilted up to the ceiling. Keeley had his hands up on the back of his head as he looked at the floor, walking in something between a circle and a strange pacing motion.
“They’re all locked up in their holding rooms?” asked Hauser. “Are they secured? Carlisle?”
“Yeah,” nodded Lanier. He didn’t look at his boss. “Yeah, they’re all good.”
“The whole program’s screwed, Joe,” said Keeley. He put his hands down and looked at Hauser. “We’ve fucked it all up.”
“No. We continue the investigation. I knew it was a mistake to put them together, and I take full responsibility for it. But one bad interrogation doesn’t mean we’re sunk. We keep them all on ice for a while, we try again-“
“Joe, do you not understand?” Keeley pressed. “We gotta cut ‘em loose.”
“What are you talking about? We’re not cutting anyone loose.”
“Oh, for Chrissake, Joe!” snapped Nguyen. “Jones and Reinhardt! We have to let them go. That Cohen kid is right. We can’t convict them for killing someone who we can’t prove ever even existed.”
“Chemical analysis,” muttered Lanier, his eyes still on the ceiling. “My God, how did nobody ever think to do that?”
“We never investigated a murdered vampire before,” Nguyen answered, “and if we did, we never even knew. We didn’t have time to analyze the sample we got from their arrest. Amber could’ve done that for us, but Hauser had her with Cohen every waking second,” she added, waving her hand at him absently.
Hauser ignored the critique. “He could be bluffing.”
“He’s not bluffing,” frowned Keeley. “Go look that kid in the eye. He knew exactly what he was talking about. The second they talk to Lopez, he’ll demand a full chemical analysis of all the evidence and that’ll be the end of it.”
“There are still the other charges-“
“What, for getting in a fight with some two-time losers with gang ties in a parking lot? You think they’ll make credible witnesses? Jones and Reinhardt will demand a jury trial, and you know the jury will sympathize with them. Lopez will demolish us in court and then they’ll walk. And that one-hundred percent conviction rate will walk right out the door with ‘em.”
“To say nothing of how many times Jones has demanded to see a lawyer,” Nguyen put in. “And now that he’s heard his buddy Cohen go off, he’ll know exactly what to say when he finally gets one.”
“Fine. They walk. Who are they going to tell?” Hauser shrugged. “We’ve still got Cohen and Carlisle over a barrel if they don’t talk.”
“And what if they don’t?” asked Nguyen. “They’re both ready to take the fall for Lorelei. You know as well as I do that we can’t convict her unless she confesses, and she’d have to be an idiot to do that. Christ, all we’ve got is a babbling idiot convict as a witness and a year-old dead body. You think we’ll find a pathologist who can prove she screwed someone to death?”
“That’s enough, Agent Nguyen,” Hauser snapped. “That thing broke into a Federal operation and assaulted Federal agents with intent to free suspected felons. Between that and what she did to Maddox and those cops-”
“Without a single injury?” interrupted Keeley. “Come on, Joe! She’ll get a slap on the wrist and be out in a few years, and it’s not like deporting her for her sketchy citizenship is going to be more than an inconvenience for her.
“This whole program rested on nobody knowing about it. Now we have to cut two guys loose, we don’t even know where their witch friends are, and sooner or later we’ll have to let Lorelei out and God only knows what she’ll do then. And we still don’t know anything about that Rachel person!”
“We’re not spooks, Joe,” Nguyen pressed. “We don’t do any indefinite hold bullshit. We have to let them go.”
“Get ahold of yourselves,” Hauser ordered. “All of you. We’re not letting anyone go yet. We’re not throwing in the towel and going home. This was never about those four guys. We keep them under lock and key and we keep our eye on the ball while we come up with a new way to win this.”
“What are we trying to ‘win’ again?” murmured Lanier. His eyes came down to rest his gaze on Hauser. “Didn’t we come up here to find out what happened to the local vampires? I mean, we found that out, right? It looks like they’re all dead. What else was on the agenda?”
Hauser glared at him and then stormed off down the hallway.
Lanier glanced from Keeley to Nguyen. “Did that seem like an unreasonable question to either of you?”
* * *
It cannot end like this.
Hauser sat in his temporary office-just an old chair, an older desk, some cabinets and thankfully a working radiator-and stared out the window at Lake Washington while the sky grew dim. Since arriving a week ago, Hauser continually forgot how much earlier in the day sunset came this time of year, so far north of Los Angeles.
All those monsters out there, laughing at the law. At the people they prey upon. Laughing at this nation and everything it stands for.
Laughing at you.
The thoughts kept running through Hauser’s head, popping up continually no matter what he did to blot them out. Writing notes and starting up a report didn’t help. Staring out the window didn’t help. Seeing the release papers Keeley had drawn up for Jones and Reinhardt absolutely didn’t help.
They all hunt Carlisle, and you have him. They can’t be far. There will never be a better opportunity.
Hauser turned back to his laptop, moved the mouse to open up his email and check it for the tenth time-and without intending it, as if some invisible force had bumped his hand, opened up the file holding Maddox’s reports.