“Do you own a stun gun?”
Oh crap. Here we go. Of course he’d noticed the burn marks too. “I do. But I haven’t used it.”
“Why bring it to the Gauntlet? They don’t allow weapons in the arena.”
“I always carry it. I’m an ex-cop and a working freelance paramedic. Wouldn’t you carry a weapon if you were me?”
Harper didn’t answer. He looked at her for a long moment, and Lara thought she detected a little sadness.
“I have to take you in for questioning. I don’t want to cuff you, but I will if you make any unexpected moves.”
“I intend to cooperate fully.” Lara breathed from her stomach to stay calm. She’d known it was coming. “This competition is very important to me and I want to stay in it.”
Harper stood. “I can’t guarantee anything. Stay here while I talk to my partner and search the room.” He walked away and used his iCom. She only heard bits of the conversation, but she gleaned that he wanted the other detective to access the camera footage from the room and send it to the department.
While Detective Harper rummaged through Lara’s luggage and clothing, a medical examiner arrived and spent twenty minutes with Kirsten’s body. Lara watched him take her temperature and visually search for trace evidence that might be clinging to her skin or clothes and could be lost when they moved her. A private transport team finally showed up and hauled Kirsten away on a gurney. Lara was curious about what the pathologist would determine had caused Kirsten’s death.
Her own body twitched with the need to move. She’d been sitting for nearly two hours, something she’d hadn’t done since leaving the department.
Lara pushed off the couch and the cop in the hall took a step in her direction. “I’m just stretching,” she called out. “But I need to burn off some energy. Can I do some pushups?”
Detective Harper came out of the bedroom, carrying her Taser in a plastic bag. “Push-ups?”
“I don’t like to sit still. It makes me anxious.”
“Stay near the couch. We’re going downtown soon.”
“Okay.”
Lara dropped to the floor and did fifty pushups, followed by a hundred crunches. She was aware of the officer in the hall watching her, but she didn’t care. Knowing she would be locked in a tiny interrogation room for hours added to her anxiety.
Detective Harper made a trip out to his car with her Taser and a suitcase full of Kirsten’s things. When he came back, he grabbed her by the elbow to walk her out, and Lara’s skin warmed to his touch. The other detective, an overweight man in a blue suit, was in the hallway when they exited.
“What did you find out?” Harper asked.
“None of the occupants nearby saw anyone come or go. The desk clerk saw a midsized blond man in front of the elevators, but says he was a contestant.”
“Get a detailed description anyway,” Harper said.
Lara thought it sounded like Bremmer, or whoever the hell the shooter was, but she held her tongue.
Chapter 15
The interrogation room at the D.C. headquarters was twice the size of the closet Lara had used to question suspects back in Eugene, but it was still windowless and claustrophobic. Detective Harper sat across the beat-up metal table. He’d taken off his jacket and underneath wore a black snug-fitting sweater. His wide-spaced eyes and prominent cheekbones made him look Native American, but his hazel eyes and strong jaw made her think his heritage was Dutch or German as well. She was glad for the excuse to stare at him.
For the first half hour, she’d been left alone in the room and she’d sat on the floor and meditated. When Harper came back, he spent twenty minutes taking her back over the events that afternoon and evening, trying to catch her in an inconsistency. Lara had been on the other side of the table enough times to know that less was better. She repeated her earlier statements, but not verbatim, because that would sound rehearsed, and said little else.
Now it was nearly midnight and he abruptly switched it up. “What kind of martial arts training do you have?”
“Aikido, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, a lot of kickboxing.”
“Have you ever seriously hurt anyone?”
For a split second, she hated him for asking. She also admired him for being good at his job. “As a private citizen? Or are you asking about my law-enforcement career?”
“As a citizen.”
“I was sexually assaulted once as a college student. I fought back and he ended up with a groin injury.”
“That’s it?”
“It’s all I’m prepared to tell you.”
“What about as a police officer, Lara? Did you hurt anyone?”
“I got into a few skirmishes with suspects.”
“What else?”
“None of it is relevant.” Her answer sounded evasive because it was.
“Have you ever killed anyone, Lara?”
“I assume you contacted the Eugene Police Department and asked for my service record. So you know everything.”
He leaned forward, his voice an intense whisper. “Here’s what I know. You have a history of violence, and you punched the victim an hour before she died. You own a Taser, and Kirsten had a stun-gun wound on her chest. You were the last person to see her alive, and the person to report her body. You’re probably going down for this unless you give me someone else.”
Lara’s pulse escalated as she heard the case against her. If she were in Harper’s position, she wouldn’t spend much time looking for anyone else. “I didn’t kill Kirsten, no matter how it looks. You have to at least dig around in her past and look at ex-boyfriends. I have no motive.”
“You’re a hothead and I think it was probably an accident. Tell me how it happened, Lara, so I can get the DA to offer a deal for aggravated manslaughter.”
She wished he would stop saying her name in that caressing tone. The bastard was wrong, but he was good at what he did. “Earlier, before I went out for a run, she assaulted me and I defended myself, then I walked away.” Lara paused to steady her voice. “You have the wrong idea about me. I’m not a violent person.”
“It’s unfortunate for you that the camera shut off at 7:59, right after you knocked Kirsten to the ground. We don’t have any proof that you walked away instead of assaulting her further.”
Lara decided to argue like a detective in a taskforce meeting. “But the minor altercation took place near the NetCom desk, and Kirsten’s body was near the entrance to the room, almost blocking it. Someone stunned her from the doorway.”
His eyes registered the truth of what she was saying, but he pressed on. “You simply dragged her there to confuse the scene. I’m surprised you didn’t hide the Taser.”
“I had no reason to.”
Abruptly he stood and asked, “Can I get you some water? Or a sandwich?”
“Water would be great. Thanks.”
He left, locking the door behind him. Lara knew another officer was watching her on a monitor in a nearby room. How long would they keep her? Should she ask to call a lawyer? She didn’t know any defense attorneys, but she could ask Jackson to find someone in D.C. The thought of telling him about her situation made her ill. She would try to handle this on her own.
Lara paced the room, growing more anxious about her fate. Would she end up convicted of murder instead of winning the Gauntlet? Now that criminal justice budgets were minimal, judges cut the prosecution a lot more slack. Evidence rules had been overturned and reasonable doubt was defined more narrowly. Unless she could prove she was somewhere else or that someone else had done it, she could get convicted.
Lara dropped to the floor and did another thirty pushups, biceps aching for the last twenty. Rolling over, she started a rhythm of stomach crunches, not bothering to count. Desperately, she tried to construct a way to tell Detective Harper about the blond man she’d seen in the back of the auditorium during orientation-but without mentioning she’d first seen the guy after he shot the employment commissioner in his home in Eugene.