Deja Who (Insighter #1)(53)

She had started on Preston in the car on the way to the, as Archer put it, hoosegow.

“All right. Here is my confession.” When she caught Preston’s startled gaze in the rearview mirror, she continued. “That was inappropriate. I should have prepared you before confronting you with past-life stressors.”

He made a strange noise from the driver’s seat, an amalgam of a sigh and an annoyed grunt. “That’s not even close to the confession I was hoping for.”

“Yes, well.” She watched the perfectly manicured lawns roll by, somewhat startled to observe that they looked exactly the same to her even though she was under arrest for murdering her mother. Was this her dearest dream or most awful nightmare? She had imagined Nellie dead so many times. She had imagined killing her so many times. Never by Emmy-induced head trauma, though. She had to give the killer points for symbolic originality. “I can’t oblige you on that one, sorry to say. But as to the other matter—”

“You’re going,” he muttered, occasionally glancing at her in the mirror, “to keep talking at me about this. Aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am. Because it’s important, Detective.”

“How is not convincing me you didn’t kill the mother you admitted wishing dead important? How is anything else we could be discussing more important than you getting clear?”

“Sorry, I misspoke. It’s not important to me.”

“Aw, hell. Look, there’s nothing wrong with me.”

Excellent. He was ignoring Cop 101, to wit, don’t engage with the psycho in the backseat. She had worried he would blithely ignore her, or feign interest while toting up an imaginary scoreboard in the middle of his brain (Reasons I Can Justify Arresting That Pain in My Ass Leah Nazir).

“Nothing,” he said again, as if saying a word meant anything, or changed anything.

“Of course there is.”

He sighed. “The polite thing to do—”

“Don’t waste my time with Etiquette 101. You’re arresting people for homicide because they scared you and pissed you off—”

“You’re half right,” he retorted, managing to drive steadily out of pure force of will.

“—which will not be at all good for your career. And honestly, Detective, aren’t you tired of being afraid of not knowing? You’ve been worrying for years that you feel guilty because you were a killer of some kind. Well, you weren’t. Don’t you want to know who was? There’s a reason you’re a homicide detective instead of a cable repairman.”

“That’s not relevant to your mother’s murder.”

“Of course it isn’t.” He sighed, possibly in relief. “Except for the whole false arrest debacle.” He groaned, probably not in relief.

“I don’t want to discuss this.”

“But it’s a long dull drive.” She guessed. She had no idea which precinct/ideal body dump site he was taking her to. “And I do want to discuss it.”

“Change of subject.”

“But it’s so foolish, especially when you consider how close you are to putting the nightmares of your childhood behind you.”

“Change of subject right now.”

“You’re right. There is one more option.” You realize you’re antagonizing a grown man with a gun, yes? Have you considered the fact that he might be your killer? Leah ignored her inner voice, which often made cowardly suppositions. Here was a man who had a problem she could assist him with. If he was her killer, so be it. At least she wouldn’t wonder anymore.

Oh but Archer . . .

She shoved that thought away. “You could go the other way, I guess.”

“Miss Nazir, I do not fucking want to talk about this!”

Hearing a sworn officer of the law shriek in a closed vehicle as she sulked in the backseat with her hands cuffed behind her was a definite first. Oh, the colleagues she loathed would adore this. Perhaps she would embellish the story for them: “And then he perpetrated police brutality all over my head and shoulders which stung horribly.” Mmmm . . . better not. In addition to being illegal, false allegations of police brutality were impolite, and sometimes led to murderous misunderstandings.

“All right,” she said after a long moment in which a) she was intrigued and b) Detective Preston was grateful. “I only have one thing to add—stop that,” she scolded as Preston banged his head on the steering wheel. It was fortunate they were at a red light. And that the horn was located elsewhere in the vehicle. “You’ll kill us both, or give yourself a nasty headache, or both, or you’ll only kill you, or you’ll only kill me. All those results are unacceptable.”

“I. Am. Begging. You.”

“My last comment on the subject under discussion—”

“It’s not! Under discussion, I mean.”

“—is that none of it was your fault. I implied as much because I’m a bitch, for which I have apologized.”

“You didn’t, actually. Oh my Christ, we’re still talking about this.”

“Hmm.” That brought Leah up short. “Well, I meant to apologize. It was on my list of things I meant to discuss. But as I was saying, none of it was your fault; it was all on Albert DeSalvo.”

True to her word, she dropped the subject and contented herself with looking out the window and humming “No Light, No Light” under her breath. Florence and the Machine was one of the more vastly underrated musical acts in the history of music. She wondered if Detective Preston took requests.