Free Dead Sleep by Greg Iles

soap.”
    â€œHomemade napalm.” I know it well from the “little wars” that don’t make the evening news.
    â€œYes. The sprinkler system was disabled prior to the device being detonated, the fire alarm as well. We’ve since determined that the fire escape ladders were also wired in the up position. All inoperative.”
    â€œYou think you’re telling me something? I had to jump to save myself. Your guy couldn’t do anything to help?”
    â€œOur guy did do something. He died there.”
    A wave of heat tells me my face is red.
    Baxter’s eyes are merciless. “Special Agent Fred Coates, twenty-eight years old, married with three kids. When the bomb went off, he called the fire department. He got out of his car and shot pictures of the building and the first people on the scene, in case the perp stuck around. Then he got back into his car and called the New York field office on his cell phone. He was talking to his Special Agent in Charge when somebody reached through the window and slit his throat. The SAC heard him coughing up blood for twenty seconds. Then nothing. The killer stole his credentials and camera. He missed one flash memory card that had fallen between the console and Agent Coates’s seat. That’s where we got the shot of you. We lost his pictures of the crowd.”
    â€œJesus. I’m sorry.”
    Baxter spears me with an accusing look. “You think that helps anything? I told you to come straight here.”
    â€œDon’t try to put this on me! I didn’t put that guy there, okay? You did. Whoever killed him would have set that fire whether I was there or not. And I do have pictures of the crowd.”
    Both men lean forward, their mouths open.
    â€œWhere?” asks Dr. Lenz.
    â€œWe’ll talk about that in a minute. I want to clarify something right up front. This isn’t going to be a one-way conversation.”
    â€œDo you realize how important every minute is?” Baxter asks. “By withholding that film—”
    â€œMy sister’s been missing for over a year, okay? I think she can wait another twenty minutes.”
    â€œYou don’t have all the facts.”
    â€œAnd that’s exactly what I want.”
    Baxter shows Lenz his exasperation.
    â€œCould someone have killed Coates for his wallet and camera?” I ask. “Could his murder be unrelated to the fire?”
    â€œWhy leave the cell phone behind?” Baxter counters. “And the car? His keys were found in the ignition.”
    â€œWhat are the odds that a garden-variety arsonist would murder someone watching a fire?”
    â€œMillion to one against. Ms. Glass, that firebomb was planted to do exactly what it did. Kill Wingate and destroy his records. You’re lucky you didn’t go up with the rest.”
    â€œIt was Wingate who almost killed me. He could have saved himself, but he tried to save the stupid painting, and like a fool I tried to save him.”
    â€œWhat painting?” asks Lenz.
    â€œ Sleeping Woman Number Twenty. It was the only one of the series he had in the place, and he killed himself trying to save it.”
    â€œI wonder why,” Lenz says softly. “Surely it would have been insured.”
    â€œThe insurance wouldn’t have been enough.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œWhen I told Wingate I was going to the FBI, that the women in the pictures were almost certainly the victims from New Orleans, he was ecstatic. He said the new canvas would probably sell for double the standing bid on it, and that was one point five million pounds sterling.”
    â€œDid he mention the bidder’s name?”
    â€œTakagi.”
    â€œWhat did the painting look like?” Lenz asks. “Like the ones you saw in Hong Kong?”
    â€œYes and no. I don’t know anything about art, but this one was more realistic than the ones I saw. Almost photographically realistic.”
    â€œThe