Save Me from Dangerous Men (Nikki Griffin #1)(53)

I stared at them. “What are you talking about?”

Mr. Ruby was walking toward me. Hand reaching under his leather jacket. I tensed. He took an object out of his pocket and put it on the desk in front of me.

The GPS tracker.

“We know this is yours,” he said.

“And we know you were following her,” added Mr. Jade. “We saw you in San Francisco.”

“So you went back that night,” I said, understanding. “To the cabin. You killed her and then you went back there—looking for me? Because of what I had seen?”

They exchanged another look. “Not exactly,” Mr. Ruby said. He took something else from inside his jacket and placed it next to the tracker.

Suddenly, everything was very different.

I was looking at a gold badge topped with a gold eagle. Three letters across the front.

FBI.

“Bullshit,” I said.

Mr. Ruby gave a humorless smile. “Who did you think we were?”

I tried to think what this changed, if I actually had two federal agents in front of me. I couldn’t decide whether it made things better or worse than if they had been a couple of run-of-the-mill hit men. “Am I under arrest?”

“You should be,” Mr. Jade said, rubbing his swollen lip. “Assaulting a federal agent.”

I laughed. “You call that assault?”

“Easy, tiger,” said Mr. Ruby. I thought again of the moment by the ocean in Mendocino. His hands on her shoulders as I sprinted toward them, trying to save her life.

“I saw what you were about to do to Karen,” I said.

He was confused. “Do to her?”

“You were about to push her off a cliff.”

Their reaction wasn’t what I was expecting. They both broke into loud laughter. Even the driver started chuckling. Like some private joke everyone except me was sharing. “What?” I asked, annoyed. I didn’t like feeling dumb.

“Push her into the ocean?” Mr. Ruby was still smiling. “You read too much pulp fiction, Nikki. I was comforting her. The woman was on the verge of a breakdown. She almost fainted.”

“Bullshit,” I said. “And don’t talk to me about pulp fiction when the woman had her head knocked in that same day. What was she to you, anyway?”

The smiles left their faces. Mr. Jade sat on a desk in front of me, his long legs crossed. “Karen Li was going to be our star witness.”

“What?”

“Forget that,” said Mr. Ruby. “We brought you here to ask you questions.” He waved the GPS tracker at me. “We have you in the same town as the deceased, on the same day. We know you were following her. We know you talked to her that afternoon. And we can put you at the scene of her death that night. Tell us, Nikki—why did you kill her?”

I thought about everything they’d said so far. Smart money said to pronounce one word, “lawyer,” and then shut up. But they didn’t seem like they were going after me with a full-court press. They were probing, not attacking. Wanting to see what I’d give away. Saying they could put me at the scene was different from telling me directly that I had been seen. Which probably meant I hadn’t been.

I made up my mind. “I didn’t kill Karen Li. But you know that already.”

“Don’t tell me what I know,” Mr. Jade said, fingers twisting his goatee.

“I found her. We were supposed to meet at her cabin. I showed up at the time we agreed on. She was already dead. I took off.”

Mr. Jade squinted skeptically. “You left her there? Didn’t call an ambulance?”

I shook my head disdainfully. “Don’t try to guilt-trip me. The woman was dead. As far as I knew, the people who did it were still in town.”

“I don’t buy it,” Mr. Ruby said. “Why were you even there in the first place?”

I shifted my legs again under the desk. Cops were cops. Half clever, and half not. They’d set a nice hidden trap and then get so proud of it they’d build a monument a mile high to mark the spot. “You already know that. I was hired to follow her by the company she worked for, Care4.”

Mr. Jade looked at me. “Why should we believe that?”

“Because you know it’s true.”

“Prove it.”

“The last time I sat at a desk like this, I was in elementary school. I didn’t like it then and I don’t like it now. If you want to show some cards, I’ll match. If not, book me or call me a cab.”

They exchanged a look. “You want to play show-and-tell? Fine, you first,” Mr. Ruby said.

I stood. “I’m getting a cramp. How’d you end up here, anyway, they slash your budget? Can’t afford San Francisco?”

Mr. Ruby grunted. “Believe it or not, even the government tries to save money every now and then.”

It was a relief to leave the cramped room and walk outside onto the street. We strolled along the potholed pavement, past rows of dilapidated buildings clad in the same faded blue paint. Across the water to the west was the San Francisco skyline. From the east spread the Oakland Port, high cranes silhouetted, shipping containers stacked into high walls.

“You got your walk,” said Mr. Ruby. “So talk.”

I told them most of it. Omitting only the parts involving Charles, Oliver, and Buster. When I finished I said, “Your turn. What was she taking, and what was she scared of?”