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She expects to be treated badly. It gives her an excuse to be uncooperative.”
    His expression was a cross between wry and wrenched. “I thought you didn’t want this case.”
    “I don’t,” Kate said flatly. “I have no personal desire to be ass-deep in alligators, but if I’m in this thing, then I’m in it all the way. Let me do my job with her or assign me elsewhere. I won’t be a puppet and I won’t have my hands tied. Not even by his high and mightiness.”
    It was a bluff of sorts. She may not have wanted the job, but she was the best advocate for the job—or so Ted Sabin thought. Sabin with his hard-on for the idea of her as an FBI agent. As much as the obsession disgusted her, Kate knew it gave her a certain amount of leverage with him and therefore with Rob.
    The real question was: What would it cost her? And why should she care enough to pay the price? She could smell the stench of this case a block away, could feel the potential entanglements touching her like the tentacles of an octopus. She should have cut and run. If she’d had any sense. If she hadn’t looked past Angie DiMarco’s defenses and glimpsed the fear.
    “What’s Sabin gonna do, Rob?” she questioned. “Cut off our heads and set us on fire?”
    “That’s not even remotely funny.”
    “I didn’t mean for it to be. Have some backbone and stand up to him, for Christ’s sake.”
    Rob sighed and discreetly pried a thumb inside the waistband of his slacks. “I’ll talk to him and see what I can do. Maybe the girl will come up with an ID from the mug books by five,” he said without hope.
    “You must still have connections in Wisconsin,” Kate said. “Maybe you can get a line on her, find out who she really is.”
    “I’ll make some calls. Is that all?” he asked pointedly.
    Kate pretended innocence. She was well aware of her tendency to lead the dance, and perfectly unapologetic about it where her boss was concerned. He never inspired her to follow.
    Rob walked away looking defeated.
    “Ever the man of action, your boss,” Kovac said dryly.
    “I think Sabin keeps his
cojones
in a jar in his medicine cabinet.”
    “Yeah, well, I don’t want mine added to the collection. See if you can get something out of this kid besides lies and sarcasm before five.” He clamped a hand on Kate’s shoulder in congratulations and consolation. “Way to go, Red. The job’s all yours.”
    Kate frowned as she watched him retreat to the men’s room. “And I ask yet again: Why do I always have to be the one in the wrong place at the wrong time?”
     
     
     

Chapter

4
     
     
    SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT John Quinn walked out of the jetway and into the Minneapolis–St. Paul airport. It looked like nearly every other airport he’d ever seen: gray and cheerless, the only sign of emotion rising above the grim and travel-weary being the celebration of a family welcoming home a boy with a buzz cut and a blue air force uniform.
    He felt a flicker of envy, a feeling that seemed as old as he was—forty-four. His own family had been geared for contention, not celebration. He hadn’t seen them in years. Too busy, too distant, too detached. Too ashamed of them, his old man would have said … and he would have been right.
    He spotted the field agent standing at the edge of the gate area. Vince Walsh. According to the file, he was fifty-two with a solid record. He would retire in June. He looked an unhealthy sixty-two. His complexion was the color of modeling clay, and gravity had pulled the flesh of his face down, leaving deep crevices in his cheeks and across his forehead. He had the look of a man with too much stress in his life and no way out but a heart attack. He had the look of a man who would rather have been doing something other than picking up some hotshot mind hunter from Quantico.
    Quinn forced his energy level up along with the corners of his mouth. React accordingly: look apologetic, nonaggressive, nonthreatening; just a touch of