Michael Connelly - Void Moon

"Tell me about the kid she and Max Freeling had," he said.

Kibble appraised him for a moment before answering.

"What kid and what's it got to do with a hot prowl in Las Vegas?"

Karch smiled and shook his head.

"She didn't come here because some guy offered her a job selling cars, Agent Kibble. She came because she and Max had a kid and that kid ended up out here."

He looked up at her.

"But I think you know that, don't you?"

"I don't know anything about where the child is but, yes, you're right. Cassie was pregnant when she got arrested. Kept it a secret till it showed. By then she had pleaded out and was at High Desert Correctional. The child was born there. She nursed the baby three days and then it was given away. She put it up for adoption."

Karch nodded. He hadn't known the details but had already figured out the main aspects of the story.

"You got kids, Agent Kibble?"

"Two of them."

"Three days. That long enough to make a bond? A bond that nobody can break?"

"Three minutes is enough."

"You know I'm tired – "

He leapt up off the bed and stuck the. 25 into the collar of fat that was Kibble's neck.

"-of your sarcastic way of answering me, Agent Kibble. It is – "

He slapped the Beretta out of one of her hands and then reached over and took the Sig Sauer from the other.

"-really starting to bug me."

Kibble froze and her eyes widened.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I'm sticking the short barrel of a twenty-five pop gun into your fat neck, Agent Kibble. I'm now going to ask you a few more questions and you're going to leave the bullshit out of your voice when you answer. Am I right about this?"

"Yes," she whispered. "Like I said, I got two kids. I'm all they got, so please don't – "

Karch sidestepped her and then pushed her down onto the bed. He put the. 25 back into its pocket and pointed the Sig at her. He reached up and made sure the silencer was still properly attached. He waited until her frightened eyes looked up at him before he spoke.

"Well, if you want to see them again, you answer a few questions and without any of that fat lip anymore."

"Okay, okay. What questions?"

"What else you know about the kid she had? The girl."

"Nothing. Just the one time she told me about the birth and stuff. That was all she ever mentioned about it."

"Why'd it come up?"

"I was showing her pictures of my boys and she just mentioned it. It was at the beginning and she had just come out from Nevada. I was trying to get to know her a bit and she seemed like a good girl."

"What else she say? She didn't say her kid ended up out here?"

"Never mentioned it. She said she told Max she was pregnant on that last night – the night he went out the window."

"That night?"

"That's what she said. She said it was going to be their last job. She told him she was going to have a baby beforehand and Max got all protective. He wouldn't let her do the hot prowl. So he did it."

"What are you saying, that she was supposed to be the one who went up into that room?"

"You didn't know that?"

"How could anybody know? Max ended up splattered across a craps table and she never talked. She took a plea instead. Now I fucking know why."

Karch winced. The pieces of that night were coming together. He thought he understood everything now – six years too late. He turned and stepped away from the bed as if turning from a bad memory. In the mirror over the bureau he saw Kibble's posture stiffen as though she were going to make a move. Then she saw him watching her in the mirror.

"Don't do anything stupid, Agent Kibble. Remember those two kids of yours. What did Cassie Black say about Max trying to fly that night?"

"She wouldn't talk about it, especially with me. There was just this one time that she talked a little bit about it. And she said Max had to have had some help going through that window. That's all."

"Yeah, well, she was right. But the help came from her, nobody else."

"What, you were there?"

Karch looked at her a long moment and he could see fear rise in her eyes.

"I'm asking the questions now, remember?"

He paused to allow her to answer but she didn't. Karch raised the aim of the Sig up her wide body, over her face and to the wall behind her until he was pointing at the woman walking on the beach in the poster.

"Tell me about Tahiti."

"Tahiti?" She looked backward at the poster on the wall. "Tahiti was a dream."

"Was?"

"She went there with Max once. Blew the take on one of the jobs and went there for a week."

Karch looked over at the wastebasket next to the bed table. The photo of Cassie Black and Max and the umbrella drink could be seen over the lip of the can. He knew without a doubt then that it had been taken in Tahiti.

"She thought that was where the baby got… you know, conceived," Kibble said. "And the plan was for them to go back. After the baby was born. You know, retire from the hot prowl and live on an island or something in Tahiti. Live happily ever after and raise the child."

"But all that went out the window with Max."

Kibble nodded.

"They never made it," she said. "So Tahiti isn't a place anymore. Not for Cassie. It's a dream. It's all her plans. It's everything she never got with Max."

Karch paused for a moment before responding. He looked down at the investigation report from Renaissance that was on the floor by Kibble's feet.

"It's almost everything," he finally said, his eyes still on the report. "But our Cassie Black has a plan, Agent Kibble. Something tells me she's the type who always has a plan."

He was totally into his own thoughts. He quickly scanned through his theories and suddenly looked up at Kibble.

"Last question," he said. "What do I do with you now?"

CASSIE pulled to the curb a block from the house on Selma and studied it for any indication that Karch might be there waiting for her. There was nothing obvious; no cars in the driveway, the front door wasn't kicked in. She watched for ten minutes but never picked up a warning vibe. Finally, she drove off to the street running parallel to Selma and one block over. She parked again, then got out and cut between two houses and climbed a fence into her backyard. She left the money locked in the front trunk of the Boxster. Her plan was to not leave the car for very long. She was only going in to get a single photograph, maybe some spare clothing if she wanted to push it. She dug the spare key out of the flowerpot on the back porch and quietly entered the house through the kitchen door.

Karch had been there. The place had not been searched and destroyed like Leo's house. But he had been there. The vibe was there. She could tell. There was something disturbed, something amiss. She stepped into the living room without making a sound and confirmed her instinct when she saw the hanger and seven locks lying on the coffee table. She hadn't worked the locks since before going to Las Vegas. She had not left them out in the open like that. He had.

She stood perfectly still and concentrated on the sounds of the house for almost two minutes. When she heard nothing else she retreated to the kitchen and took the largest knife she had out of a drawer. She carried it at her side as she entered the front hallway and slowly walked into her bedroom.

The first thing she saw was the poster. It hung askew on the wall and slashed across it was a large X that looked to her to have been painted with blood. It was a long moment before she could pull her eyes away from it to take in the rest of the bedroom. This room had been searched. Cassie did not have enough belongings to make the debris all over the floor seem to be much more than a minor mess. But she quickly dropped to the floor and grabbed her two photo albums. The idea that Karch might have handled them and looked in them repulsed her. She put the albums on the bed for taking even though she knew she didn't need them anymore. She then quickly began scanning the floor for the one photo that she did need, that was irreplaceable.