Flawless

Did I have a choice? she wondered.

“Of course,” she said. “My employers understand my need to be here—they are frequently called in to work with law enforcement. They do psychological profiling, decide whether a defendant is fit to stand trial, that sort of thing.”

“Yes, I know,” he told her, but he didn’t elaborate on how he knew. She wondered if he’d worked with either of her bosses or if he’d run a background check on her.

“There are three pictures in front of you,” he told her, all business. “I’d like you to look at them.”

She nodded, sat down and glanced at the photos. They were of the thieves, and they were dressed completely in black—right down to their ski masks.

She looked over at him. “They’re in ski masks.”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I’m not sure why I’m doing this. You’ve already caught the thieves who took me hostage.”

He smiled. “Lift that top sheet. There are four mug shots underneath. Those are pictures of the men we caught last night, minus the ski masks. What I’d like you to do is take the shots from the jewelry store last night—from their security tapes—and line them up with the mug shots. Then I’d like you to compare them with some other pictures I have of a different robbery.” He hesitated and then said, “I don’t mean to lead the witness, but I don’t believe they’re the same men.”

Millie returned just then with a tray that held a coffeepot, two cups, cream and sugar. Agent Frasier thanked her and asked Kieran how she liked her coffee. She said, “Just cream.”

He poured her a cup, added cream and handed it to her. Then he sat opposite her and sipped his own coffee. The room grew very quiet.

At first Kieran felt unnerved. He sat there in silence, leaving her to study the photos, but there was no way for Agent Frasier to be in a room and not be noticeable.

She tried to give her attention to the pictures. The sooner she did what he’d asked of her, the sooner she could leave.

To her surprise, she quickly found herself deeply involved in what she was doing. According to their mug shots, the men who had been arrested the night before were Sam Banner, Robert Stella, Lenny Wiener and Mark O’Malley. She glanced at their faces and the stats on their mug shots, and then at the security stills, comparing carefully. Finally she went through them, pointing. “Mark O’Malley was driving the van, obviously. Looking at height and build, I think Sam Banner was the one who dragged me through the store and down the alley.”

Agent Frasier nodded. “All right. Now I want you to compare them to the men from the other robbery.”

He got up and moved to stand behind her, then pulled another sheet of photos from the bottom of the stack. “I realize it’s difficult, but do you recognize the men from yesterday in any of these other photos? The way they stood? Something else? I can show you some video, too.”

She was acutely aware of him behind her. The fabric of his suit, the heat of his body, the scent of his aftershave.

“Uh, video would be great.”

He reached over to tap the keyboard. His nails were neatly clipped. His fingers were long, and she was certain that his hands would be powerful.

She swallowed and tried to concentrate.

After a minute, she miraculously managed to do so. She took control of the keyboard herself, running the footage and stopping it when something struck her.

“There,” she said, pointing. “That’s Sam Banner. You can tell by the way he’s standing and by his height.”

“All right,” Frasier said, “what about this footage?”

He reached over again and cued up a new video.

“No, no, I don’t think that’s Sam Banner. They stand completely differently. Sam keeps his legs apart. He’s angled, almost as if he’s casual about what he’s doing. This man, he stands straighter, and he’s visibly tense. Watch his head move. He’s jerky. He looks—”

“As if he’s nervous and liable to pull the trigger any second?” Craig asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Just my opinion based on my observations, of course,” she said, swiveling her chair to look up at him.

He smiled. “Educated opinion, though, right?”

She shrugged. “Honestly, if you asked one of my bosses to—”

“Your bosses weren’t in the van with me,” he said, and walked back to take his seat.

She’d been about to stand; her work here was done.

But the way he sat, leaning forward expectantly, his eyes probing...

No, she wasn’t leaving yet.

“So what were you doing at the store yesterday?” he asked.

She immediately felt defensive, but she tried not to do any of the things that would betray her nervousness. Blinking, wetting her lips...

“A friend works there,” she said. “I went to see if he was there. Well, all right. He’s not really a friend. He was a friend. Not anymore.”

He looked down a moment, a slight smile curving his lips. “Care to explain?”

She shrugged uncomfortably and looked away, but she told herself that was okay. Explaining an awkward divorce would make anyone uneasy.

“Gary Benton was—is—married to a close friend of mine. They’re going through a very nasty divorce. I went to see him to remind him that they were adults and that...” She felt herself stiffen, but she was so angry at Gary that she couldn’t help it. “She went out of town to give him space, and he locked her dogs in a crate and didn’t feed them or let them out the whole time.”

“She should have called animal control,” he said.

“The logical answer, of course, but she was too upset to think straight, and—” She paused and looked away again. “She went to the store and said some pretty awful things. I went to ask him to stop being so nasty and trying to upset her. But he wasn’t there and, well, you know what happened next.”

He seemed to believe that. “Well, thank you again for your help,” he told her. “I’ll get you back to work.”

“Thanks,” she said.

He rose. She kept sitting.

He smiled at her. “I meant that literally. I’ll get you back to work.”

“Oh! Okay, thank you.”

She stood quickly, dismayed to feel herself blushing.

She felt his hand at the small of her back as he politely ushered her out.

She told Millie goodbye and passed another half dozen men and women in well-tailored suits as they left the building, walking past the line where people were still lined up, chatting as they waited to pass through security.

She noticed an interesting group waiting their turn. They weren’t in suits and didn’t look at all like members of the FBI.