The Hollow Ones(47)

They hugged. Laurena studied her face, and Odessa knew she was scrutinizing her complexion as an indicator of health. “You look good.”

“Thanks,” said Odessa. There was water—a fancy mason jar and two glasses. She poured herself one. Hand trembling.

“I’d be a blotchy, dried-out mess. I miss you. What do your lawyers say?”

Odessa shrugged. “What can they say? What can anyone say?” She sipped the water.

“I can say, it’s all bullshit. You’re a good agent, Dessa. I don’t know what happened that night, but I know you didn’t lose your shit.”

“Thanks.”

“There’s rumors…I don’t believe them, but I’m telling you because I’d want to know…rumors about you and Leppo.”

Odessa felt a wave of sickness and anger. “Fuck.”

“I said that. I said, ‘Fuck that.’ People looking for explanations, for reasons. How one agent shoots another. They can’t get their male heads around the fact that maybe their buddy Leppo lost his shit. Maybe it was the man who went off the reservation. Wouldn’t that be a novel idea.”

“He was going to kill the girl. It sounds terrible because it is terrible. I can’t explain it—maybe nobody can. But he had the knife and he was going to cut her throat. And people think we were sleeping together?”

“It’s tribal, male versus female. That’s how they think. Forget it.”

“His poor wife,” said Odessa, thinking about Leppo’s widow, and not for the first time.

“She’s in rough shape. But of course.”

But she couldn’t help thinking of Walt Leppo’s wife hearing rumors about her husband, who was a straight arrow, getting shot over some sordid romantic fling. It didn’t even make sense, really…but she hoped Leppo’s wife was spared that.

Odessa remembered the paper bag in her hand. “Will you do me another huge favor?”

“Anything,” said Laurena. But then, remembering what she’d done for her before, getting Odessa the crime scene photos from the Peters house, she pulled back. “Wait. What favor is it now?”

Odessa handed her the lunch bag. Laurena held it, not opening the top fold.

“Oh shit,” she said. “What is this?”

“A teacup. I want you to run a full biometric analysis, including DNA casework and latent prints.”

Laurena stared at Odessa, her face slowly breaking into a smile. “You realize what you’re asking me?”

“I do.”

“This breaks, like, every protocol we have.”

“I know.”

“People have gotten fired for using the FBI lab for personal grievances.”

“I’m the only one getting fired here,” said Odessa. “I’ll take full blame.”

“You’re sure this isn’t about you and Linus? Some domestic incident? Maybe he had a girl over to the house or something? Is there lipstick on the rim?”

Odessa shook her head. “No lipstick. This is not about Linus.”

“Okay…then what is it about, exactly?”

“It’s about my case. But not exactly.”

“Explain.”

“I wish I could.”

“Oh shit.” Laurena turned in a full circle, a pirouette of protest. “Dessa.”

“Would I ask if it weren’t really that important?”

“This is crazy, girl. This is getting out of hand. All of it. I’m worried about you.”

“Yeah,” said Odessa. “Tell me about it.”

Laurena waited for more. “That’s all you’re gonna say?”

“One more thing. The cup needs to be processed here. Not Quantico. I need the results to stay in-house.”

Laurena let out an exasperated sigh. “Anything else?”

“And the results need to come to me exclusively. Any database hits, I want to know. But just for me. Understand?”

“Dessa. Girl. Are you sure you’re okay? You don’t seem okay.”

Odessa touched her temples. “I will be,” she said, willing it to happen. “I will be.”





Odessa returned to NewYork-Presbyterian Queens Hospital in Flushing, riding the elevator up to the patient care unit. She found Earl Solomon’s room, and Earl Solomon in it. He sat against a stack of four pillows in his hospital bed, covered by a blanket over the sheet, though she found the room warm.

The sight of his bedsheet took her back to questioning Mauro Esquivel in the basement of the Lexington Regal Hotel with Hugo Blackwood. That focused her mind.

There was another man in the room, though again, not a family member. He was heavy, with thick, friendly jowls, wearing a generously tailored suit, his scalp bald to a fold of flesh at the back of his neck.

“Hello,” Odessa said, “am I interrupting?”

“Come in, Agent Hardwicke,” said Solomon, his voice a bit raspier than the last time she’d spoken with him. He welcomed her in with a pale-palmed hand. “It’s almost happy hour.”

She smiled, relieved to see him in good humor, if physically more weakened. A thin tube across his face fed oxygen through his nose.

“Hello,” she said, shaking the other man’s hand.