She narrowed her eyes. "I'm going. You can't stop me."
That damned stubborn look on her face made him lose control. "You're just pissed because of what your ex did to you," he shouted.
She gripped the mug so hard he thought she'd break it. "You bastard," she whispered. "You don't even know what he did or didn't do."
"Then why don't you tell me, Olivia?" Sarcasm was heavy in his voice. "In fact, why didn't you even tell me Gant was still in your life?"
"Why don't you tell me about what's really going on with you, Jack?" she countered, standing and leaning against the sink, challenging him with her set jaw and beautiful, angry mouth.
A mouth he suddenly wanted to ravish.
"Dammit, Olivia, now's not the time. Slater's holding the interview with Burrows. I need to be in on it."
"You enlisted my help, remember? You came to me, persuaded me to assist in the case."
He felt the fight go out of him. Reaching for her, he ran a finger down her cheek. She'd always had skin as soft and smooth as silk. God, how he'd loved touching her.
"Did he hurt you?" he asked softly. "Did he -?" He couldn't bear the thought.
He trailed his fingertips down her neck and across the smooth, fine collarbone at the vee of her shirt. Her heart seemed to pulse beneath his touch like the wings of a trapped butterfly.
"He – no, he just wanted to terrify me." She swallowed and his eyes followed the movement of her throat. "He did. He scared the hell out of me." She offered a small smile. "He decided he wasn't as ready as I was to end the marriage."
"Then he's not as stupid as he sounds." He grasped her shoulders and pulled her toward him, inhaling the faint scent of lemon and soap and the familiar smell of her skin. She sank into him and shuddered long and hard, so he held her tight for a moment, the soft wisps of her hair tickling his chin.
"Please let me go with you," she whispered against his chest. "I need to hear what he says."
He felt his head bob in assent as he gave in.
Olivia observed the interrogation of Ted Burrows through the two-way glass in the largest of Bigler County Jail's interview rooms. She couldn't believe the graduate student in her mentoring class, the one she'd thought she knew, was this creepy man who acted so unrepentant for what he'd done to that poor girl.
He lounged indolently, his right arm slung over the back of a metal folding chair, and stared at a spot on the wall just beyond Jack's head. "Hey, don't I get an attorney or something?" He tilted his Adonis frame back in the chair. "You've got to provide one for me, right?" He smiled slyly as though he were in on a secret the rest of them weren't privy to.
"Shut up, Burrows," Jack remarked in a mild voice. He batted languidly at a fly that buzzed around his head, his eyes fixed on the file that lay on the table between them. Slater lounged against the entry door, letting Jack take charge.
Olivia wanted to sit in on the actual questioning, but Slater had adamantly refused and finally relented enough to let her watch from the observation room. If Jack had his way, he'd shuttle her home, tuck her in bed, and force her to drink chicken soup. Or better yet, stick her in a hospital bed under heavy guard, with orderlies and nurses in attendance.
Her bitter laugh resounded eerily in the small area. After the police told her the details of what Ted had done, she wanted to confront the slimy weasel with the full force of her wrath.
How could she have been so wrong about him?
Olivia sighed, wrapped her arms tightly around her body, and turned her attention back to the interview. As soon as they began interrogating Ted about the crime he was likely to be charged with, they had to Mirandize him. But Olivia knew Jack had broad federal powers that could skirt around the issue of Ted's right to counsel.
Jack glanced up from his papers and smiled negligently at Burrows, a smile that said gotcha. "Teddy, you've been quite a naughty boy. And a busy one."
"What about that lawyer?" Ted spouted in defiance.
Slater slammed away from the wall, placed his knuckles on the table, and forced Burrows to look up at him. The chair clattered to the floor. Olivia was surprised Ben's casual demeanor hid such ferocity. She saw the rapid jerking of Ted's left eye.
"Look, you bring a lawyer in here now, and your ass will be fast-tracked to Folsom Prison," Slater spat. "Trust me, you want to cooperate with the feds." He tilted his head towards Jack. "Because," he continued, "if the state brings charges against you instead of the federal government, I get my hands on you, and it'll be a cold day in hell before you ever see the light of day again."
"That's right, Theodore." Jack smiled maliciously. "You know why they call it Club Fed? That's because federal time's a helluva lot easier to do than state time."
"In state prison, you get to mix it up with all the rapists and murderers." Slater stared hard at the suspect. "Not to mention the gang bangers. They're going to enjoy exchanging dialogue with an educated white boy like you."
The door swung open before Ted could respond and Deputy Harris, a happy grin on his handsome black face, walked in with a cardboard box.
"That's all of them?" Jack asked.
"Every last one, sir."
Jack pointed to the far end of the table. "Put them there."
Burrows eyed the box and wet his lips. "What's that?"
Jack scraped back his chair and walked to the edge of the table. He split open the tape that secured the top edges, removed the chain of custody envelope, and peered inside. "Why don't you tell me, Teddy?"
The pleasant smile never left Jack's face. He removed several video tapes from the box. "Should we take a look at some of these, Sheriff Slater?"
Slater leaned closer and whispered in Burrows' ear. "What do you think, Ted? Interested in watching some homemade videos?"
Jack began to pull tapes out of the box one by one. "This one says Connie. Oh, and here's Missy… and Stephanie."
Ted's face blanched and his eyes blinked furiously. "I don't know anything about those. They're not mine."
Jack shrugged. "Didn't say they were. But, as a matter of fact, we recovered them from your house. This is only one box. You have quite a stash of videography projects, Ted."
Ted's eyes widened, but he quickly recovered. "You've just violated about a dozen search and seizure laws," he blustered.
"Oh, we stayed well within the law," Jack said. "No knock warrant signed by a judge, exigent circumstances, probable cause with the girl obviously in danger of great bodily harm. Not hard to get a full warrant to search the house."
"You tore my house apart!" Ted exclaimed.
"That's the cool thing about search warrants. We're not limited to a plain view search," Jack sneered. "You weren't as clever as you thought with that hidden peephole."
Through the two-way glass, Olivia felt sick as she watched the furious working of Ted's jaw. "So? Nothing in either room is illegal."
"Oh, not the candles or the secret room," Jack agreed. "Not even the pictures plastered all over the walls. But the camera and these tapes – having nonconsensual sex with unconscious women? These tapes are going to connect you to the murders of Dani Rydell and Keisha Johnson."
Olivia covered her mouth and breathed deeply through her nostrils. She'd seen Ted nearly every day and had never imagined him capable of this level of depravity.
He began babbling. "Who? What do you mean? What the hell are you talking about?"
Jack watched him dispassionately for a moment and then jerked his head towards the door, a silent signal to Slater.
"Think about the tapes a while," Jack advised Burrows as they left the room. "You've got a lot of explaining to do."
Olivia met Jack and Slater in the hallway outside the observation room. "What's going on? What happened?"