Free Sacred Sins by Nora Roberts Page B

beyond Tess's right shoulder. “Bye, Dr. Court.”
    “Good-bye, Joey, I'll see you next week.”
    They were feeding him, she thought as she shut her office door. And he was starving. They were clothing him, but he was still cold. She had the key, but she had yet to be able to turn it so that it opened the lock.
    With a sigh, she walked back to her desk. “Dr. Court?” Tess answered her intercom as she slipped the Joey Higgins file into the briefcase beside her desk.
    “Yes, Kate.”

    “You had three calls while you were in session. One from the Post , one from the Sun , and one from WTTG.”
    “Three reporters?” Tess slipped her earring off to gently rub her lobe.
    “All three wanted confirmation of your assignment to the Priest homicides.”
    “Damn.” She dropped the earring on her blotter. “Not available for comment, Kate.”
    “Yes, ma'am.”
    Slowly, she fastened the earring again. She'd been promised anonymity. That had been part of her deal with the mayor's office. No media, no hype, no comment. The mayor had given her his personal guarantee that she would be able to work without pressure from the press. No use blaming the mayor, Tess reminded herself as she rose to pace to the window. It had leaked, and she would have to deal with it.
    She didn't care for notoriety. That was her problem. She liked her life simple and private. That, too, was her problem. Common sense had told her the whole business would come out before it was over, but she'd still taken the job. If she'd been advising one of her patients, she would have told him to face the reality and deal with it one step at a time.

    Outside, rush hour traffic was starting to heat up. A few horns blasted, but the sound was muffled by the window and distance. Joey Higgins was out there, riding for Chinese takeout with the stepfather he refused to allow himself to trust or love. Bars were ready to serve the let's-have-a-quick-one-before-dinner crowd. Day care centers were emptying, and throngs of working mothers, single parents, and frazzled daddies were packing up preschoolers and threading their Volvos and BMW's through packs of other Volvos and BMW's with one thought in mind: to get home, to be safe and warm behind the doors and windows and walls of the familiar. It was unlikely that any one of them gave any real thought to someone else who was out there. Someone with a small, deadly bomb ticking away inside his head.
    For a moment she wished she could join them in that easy nightly routine, thinking only about a warm supper or the dentist bill. But the Priest file was already in her briefcase.
    Tess went back and picked up her briefcase. The first step was to go home and make sure all her calls were screened by her answering service.

    “W HO leaked it?” Ben demanded, and blew out a stream of smoke.
    “We're still working on it.” Harris stood behind his desk, studying the officers assigned to the task force. Ed slouched in a chair, passing a bag of sunflower seeds from hand to hand. Bigsby, with his large red face and burly hands, tapped his foot. Lowenstein stood beside Ben with her hands in her pockets. Roderick sat straight in his chair with his hands folded in his lap. Ben looked as though he would bare his teeth and snarl at the first wrong word.
    “What we have to do now is work with the situation. The press knows Dr. Court is involved. Instead of blocking them, we use them.”
    “We've been getting hammered in the press for weeks, Captain,” Lowenstein put in. “Things were just starting to ease off.”
    “I read the papers, Detective.” He said it mildly. Bigsby shifted, Roderick cleared his throat, and Lowenstein shut her mouth tight.

    “We'll set up a press conference for tomorrow morning. The mayor's office is getting in touch with Dr. Court. Paris, Jackson—as heads of the team, I want you there. You know what information we've cleared for the press.”
    “We don't have anything new for them, Captain,” Ed pointed