“I am so sorry you were hurt, Anne,” her mother said. “I am so sorry. It has killed me to know . . . you were hurt.”

“It’s amazing what you can live through,” Anne murmured. “And come out stronger on the other side.”

Putting her mother’s hand on her prosthesis, Anne took the wedding band between her fingertips and slowly pulled it off. She wanted to toss the fucking thing across the room. Instead, she placed it on her table and then reached up and dried her mother’s tears.

“Time to let old lives go, Mom.” As her mother stared at the ring, her eyes were exhausted, and Anne knew how that felt. “Old dreams that were really nightmares. Strength only exists if it is tested, and I promise you, you are stronger than you know.”

“I have never been strong.” Those eyes closed so hard, her lips peeled off her teeth. “And that’s why you hate me. Because you know I’m not like you—”

“Yes, you are.” Anne smiled though she had begun to tear up. “I’m your daughter so half of me is you. If I can resurrect myself, so can you.”

Her mom’s eyes opened once more. “I wanted so desperately to have something in common with you, but I was always so glad you were not like me. You’re the strongest person I know.”

“Let’s shoot for two in this family, ’kay?” Anne squeezed her mom’s hand. “We can do it. Together.”

Chapter 43

The following day, Anne went down to the municipal court and county jail complex a good twenty minutes before she was supposed to see Ollie Popper, real name Douglas Contare. After going through the metal detector and getting wanded by a deputy, she was given very precise directions to the northwest corner, where she could check in for the interview. There were hundreds of people milling around the mall-sized building. Some were in professional dress. Others were harried and scrambling. And there were cops and sheriff’s deputies all around.

When she got to the jail entrance, she had to be wait to get buzzed in, and then she was checking in at a bulletproof window. Things moved fast, and she was shown into a long thin room cut in half by more of that thick Plexiglas. Cubbies were created by partitions on both sides, and there were chairs and two handsets for conversation between prisoners and people who were visitors.

The door was closed behind her and she debated taking a seat but decided to wait until Ollie was brought in.

Five minutes later, the door opened behind her. Another deputy, different than the one who’d brought her in, stepped inside.

“Are you here for Contare?” the woman asked.

“Yes?”

“Sorry, wrong place. His lawyer is waiting in an interrogation room for you guys.”

Anne frowned. “You mean his public defender?”

“No, his attorney showed up just now. Said Ollie could talk to you only if he’s in the room.”

The rerouting was good news as it gave her a little time to adjust her approach. Preparation for interviewing witnesses or interrogating suspects was critical: Before you sat down with anyone as part of an investigation, you needed to know what you were going after, what the goal was. You also had to have your facts straight and be prepared to retain your composure no matter what direction things went in.

A lawyer was a surprise. Especially when they showed up at the last minute.

The room she was taken into was as she expected. No windows, a table and four chairs that were bolted into the floor, and a video monitoring camera mounted up in the far corner. There was also soundproofing on the walls and fluorescent lights on the low ceiling. Standard-issue.

The silver-haired lawyer in a silk suit that stood up was not. “Ms. Ashburn? How are you. Sterling Broward.”

No reason to correct him on the “Ms.” even though her title was inspector. “Mr. Boward, nice to meet you.”

“Broward,” he corrected.

“Of course,” she said with a smooth smile. “Shall we bring your client in?”

“Just so you and I are clear, none of this is under oath and it is my intention to keep the focus tight.”

“Your client is a person of interest, not a suspect.”

“Exactly.”

After Broward gave the deputy the go-ahead to get Ollie, Anne sat down and the attorney joined her in taking a chair.

“Don’t you want to get your notepad out?” he said.

“No. Do you?”

The lawyer sat forward, linking hands that had buffed nails together. His expression was one of great kindness and benevolence. “I’m just trying to help you do your job.”

The “little girl” was implied in the tone. And as Anne regarded the man, she couldn’t wait until the inevitable passage of time ushered this older generation of males off the planet and to their royal reward—rather like cleaning the pantry of things that were past their “best by” dates: Their condescending attitude’s shelf life was up, and it was time for their act to go into the trash.

When she just stared him straight in the eye, he raised his brows, and she dubbed in his internal monologue on the hairy-arm-pitted feminist who was too much of a man-hater to accept some kind advice from someone who knew better and was looking out for them.

But that wasn’t what was really going on here, was it.

“You know,” he said, “I’ve heard you were difficult to deal with.”

“My job is not to make people feel comfortable. I’m not here to get your coffee and your bagel.”

“I think you’ll find you attract more bees with honey than vinegar.”

Anne sat forward and mimicked his pose. “How long have you been working for Charles Ripkin?”

The change was subtle but instantaneous, those brows lowering by a millimeter. “My client is Donald Contare.”

“Douglas. His name is Douglas.” She leaned forward. “And right now, I’m wondering how a two-bit addict dealer like Ollie Popper can afford a lawyer with your kind of wardrobe. Mystery, isn’t it. Guess Ollie’s been saving his pennies from all that office equipment he’s been burning up in Ripkin’s warehouses.”

“Those isolated fires have nothing to do with Ripkin Development.”

“Man, that denial seems to roll off your tongue. I’ll bet you find yourself saying stuff like that a lot, huh.”

The door to the interrogation room unlatched and opened, and Ollie was smaller in person than he’d seemed in those mug shots. He was only about five feet six, and he couldn’t have weighed more than a buck forty, buck fifty tops. His eyes were not manic anymore, whatever he’d been on during his arrests having been metabolized.

The shackles were a surprise. He didn’t seem dangerous.

When he saw Broward, he froze, the sheriff behind him bumping into him. He recovered quickly. “Hey. Wassup.”

His voice was fried, the rasp a result of inhaling hot contaminants.

His attorney made nice, shaking hands and doing that double-clasp thing with his palms, the equivalent of a politician’s I-really-care-about-you.

“I told you I was coming,” Broward said. “You know what this is about.”

“Yeah. Sure. I get it.”

Ollie focused on her, not that that involved much more than his eyes passing over her. He seemed more concerned with Broward as he sat down, but he didn’t want to get too close. He tried to move the bolted chair away from the other man.

Anne cleared her throat and took her ID out of her suit jacket pocket. “I’m Inspector Ashburn. I’d like to ask you a few questions about some fires down on the wharf.”

“I don’t know anything about no fires.”

“Okay. Well, maybe you’ll indulge me as I describe a couple of the incidents anyway. There are six of them in the last two years, and the reason I wanted to talk to you is because of excess office equipment found at the sites.”

“I don’t know nothing about office equipment.”

“That’s funny, because I’ve seen pictures of the three apartments you’re leasing right now. And there were rooms full of old laptops, desktops and phones.”

“No, they ain’t.”

“I’ve seen the photographs.”