Free Ashes to Ashes by Tami Hoag Page B

If anyone stops me on the way, do us both a favor and pretend we’re not together. I don’t want the media putting two and two together, and you don’t want them knowing who you are. Trust me on that one.”
    Angie gave her a sly look. “Could I get on
Hard Copy?
I hear they pay.”
    “You fuck this up for Sabin and he’ll get you on
America’s Most Wanted
. That is if our friendly neighborhood serial killer doesn’t put you on
Unsolved Mysteries
first. If you don’t hear anything else I tell you, kiddo, hear this. You do
not
want to be on television, you do
not
want your picture in a newspaper.”
    “Are you trying to scare me?”
    “I’m just telling you how it is,” she said as they entered the concourse to the government center.
    Kate put on her don’t-fuck-with-me face and walked as quickly as she could, considering the aches and stiffness from her morning wrestling match were beginning to sink in deep. Time was a-wasting. If the politicians took John’s advice and somehow managed to contain themselves, the press conference would break up fast. Some of the reporters would dog Chief Greer, but most would split between the mayor and Ted Sabin, liking their odds better with elected officials than with a cop. Any minute now the concourse could be swarming with them.
    If they followed Sabin into the concourse and caught sight of her, if someone called her name or pointed her out within earshot of the ravenous pack, she was bound to get cornered about the government center gunman. Eventually someone might make the mental leap and connect her to rumors of a witness in the latest homicide, and then the last few hours would truly deserve listing in the annals of all-time shitty days. Somewhere on the lower third of the list, she figured, leaving plenty of room above for the string of rotten days to come.
    But luck was with her for once today. Only three people tried to intercept her on their way to the twenty-second floor. All making clever comments on Kate’s morning heroics. She brushed them off with a wry look and a smart remark, and never broke stride.
    “What’s that about?” Angie asked as they got off the elevator, her curiosity overcoming her show of indifference.
    “Nothing.”
    “He called you the Terminator. What’d you do? Kill somebody?” The question came with a look that mixed disbelief with wariness with a small, grudging flicker of admiration.
    “Nothing that dramatic. Not that I haven’t been tempted today.” Kate keyed the access code into the security panel beside the door to the legal services department. She unlocked the door to her own office and motioned Angie inside.
    “You know, you don’t
have
to take me anywhere,” the girl said, flopping into the spare chair. “I can take care of myself. It’s a free country and I’m not a criminal … or a kid,” she added belatedly.
    “Let’s not even touch on that subject for the moment,” Kate suggested, glancing through her unopened mail. “You know what the situation is here, Angie. You need a safe place to stay.”
    “I can stay with my friend Michele—”
    “I thought her name was Molly.”
    Angie pressed her mouth into a line and narrowed her eyes.
    “Don’t even try to bullshit me,” Kate advised—for all the good it would do. “There is no friend, and you don’t have a place to crash in the Phillips neighborhood. That was a nice touch, though, picking a rotten neighborhood. Who would claim they lived there if they didn’t?”
    “Are you calling me a liar?”
    “I think you’ve got your own agenda,” Kate said calmly, her attention on a memo that read:
Talked w/Sabin. Wit to Phoenix House
—
RM
. Permission. Odd Rob hadn’t mentioned this in the mayor’s office. The note was in a receptionist’s hand. No time notation. The decision had probably come just before the press conference. All that subterfuge on her part for nothing. Oh, well.
    “An agenda that probably centers on staying out of jail or a