Annie Belinsky turned a hateful glare on Magozzi. ‘Cheap shot, Detective.’
He didn’t even bother to pretend ignorance. ‘You didn’t notice them when you were in here earlier?’
‘Sure we noticed them.’ She pursed her pumpkin orange lips angrily. ‘But they weren’t staring right at us.’
‘Would you like me to turn the board around so you don’t have to look at them?’
Harley Davidson shifted his bulk with a squeak of leather. ‘What I want is for you to say whatever the hell you’re going to say so we can get out of here and get back to work trying to trace this guy.’
Magozzi raised his brows. ‘Good. We’re all on the same page.’ He looked at each of them in turn, and he did it slowly, letting the silence hang there, letting them read into it whatever they liked. The room was deathly still. ‘I’m going to lay this out to you the way we see it, and then you’re going to have to decide whether or not to answer our questions. And then you’re going to have to live with that decision.’
‘What, no thumbscrews?’ Mitch Cross asked bitterly.
‘We don’t use thumbscrews anymore, asshole,’ Gino snarled from the door, confirming that he and Mitch Cross would probably never be bowling partners. ‘Too slow.’
Magozzi shot him a warning look, then turned back to the others. ‘The thing is, you people are too tangled up in this case, and the longer it goes on, the more alarm bells go off. At first we thought it might be simple. That maybe there is some nut out there who just played your game and thought it would be fun to act it out for real. Then we found out that none of you is who you pretend to be, that there’s something back there you’re all hiding. We don’t know if you’re criminals on the lam, victims on the run, or both at the same time. Maybe there are warrants out all over the country for who you really are. Maybe you ticked off the mob, we don’t know.
‘And today you tell us you’re supposedly getting messages from the killer. Now you people might not think there’s a connection between what’s happening now and whatever the hell happened to send you underground over ten years ago, but to objective observers, all of you, and especially Grace MacBride, are in this so deep you’d have to be blind not to see it.’
Roadrunner looked nervously at his friends. Annie Belinsky, sitting next to him, squeezed his arm with a plump hand in either reassurance or warning. He took a breath that sounded too big for such a stick of a man.
‘What we do know,’ Magozzi continued, ‘is that Grace MacBride lives in a fortress with more firepower than a small army, and now I find out she’s a sealed file in an open FBI investigation.’
The whole group caught their breath at once, like a single organism. ‘How the hell did you find that out?’ Harley demanded.
Grace was staring at him, her blue eyes flat and cold, hiding the mental acrobatics that were probably going on inside her head. After a moment her lips tightened. ‘Damnit. The cell phone. You ran my prints.’
Magozzi nodded. ‘The Feds had them flagged, and so far they refuse to tell us why. Now whether you were a suspect or a victim in their case, I have no clue, but the whole thing is starting to smell. You just moved sky-high on the suspect list, and the longer you hold back information that might help, the higher you go.’
Mitch shot up from his chair with a suddenness that surprised even his friends. Gino was three steps toward him from the door so fast no one had seen him move, his reaction time honed by years with volatile perps whose sudden movements never meant anything good. ‘We can’t tell you anything!’ he shouted, and Magozzi took note of his word choice. Can’t, not won’t.
Gino stopped where he was, still watchful. ‘Why not?’
Mitch had delicate nostrils for a man, and they flared visibly when he breathed too hard. ‘Because Grace’s life might depend on it, that’s why!’ He blinked in sudden confusion, perhaps startled by the sound of his own raised voice.
‘Sit down, Mitch,’ Grace MacBride said quietly. ‘Please.’
They all turned to look at her, surprised she had spoken at all. Mitch hesitated, then eased back down into his chair. He looked like a whipped dog.
‘Grace, don’t,’ Annie said gently. ‘It isn’t necessary. This is a totally different thing. What happened then has nothing to do with what’s happening now.’
‘And maybe you’re just hoping it doesn’t,’ Magozzi suggested quietly.
‘No, damnit.’ Harley Davidson was looking straight at him, shaking his head so hard his ponytail swung from side to side. ‘It’s not worth the chance.’
‘I agree,’ Roadrunner mumbled at the floor, and Magozzi guessed that was about as defiant as this obviously timid man ever got.
Grace MacBride took a deep breath, then opened her mouth to speak.
‘Grace!’ Annie hissed before she had a chance. ‘They’re cops, for Christ’s sake! You’re going to trust cops?’
‘So much for the Friendly Policeman myth,’ Gino said sarcastically, and Annie turned on him.
‘Cops – cops just like you – nearly got her killed!’
Magozzi and Gino exchanged a quick glance, but said nothing. There was a little crack in the wall now, and they both knew all they could do was wait.
‘They’ve got my prints,’ Grace MacBride said. ‘It’s just a matter of time now anyway.’ She was sitting straight in her chair, her hands resting quietly in her lap, one elbow held slightly to the side to accommodate the empty shoulder holster. ‘Ten years ago we were all seniors at Georgia State in Atlanta.’
‘Goddamnit.’ Harley closed his eyes and shook his head sadly. The rest of the Monkeewrench crew seemed to sag in their chairs as something slipped away from them they couldn’t get back.
‘Five people were murdered on campus that fall,’ Grace continued, her voice a brutal monotone, her eyes fixed on Magozzi’s face.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Gino murmured involuntarily. ‘I remember that. You were there?’
‘Oh, yes.’
Magozzi nodded carefully, reminding himself to breathe. He hadn’t known for certain what had sent these people underground, but this kind of nightmare was the last thing he had expected. He remembered the murders, and the firestorm of publicity. ‘This is the case that’s in the sealed FBI file?’
‘That’s right.’
‘That doesn’t make sense. Why would they seal that file? It was all over the news for weeks . . .’
‘Not all of it,’ Annie said dryly. ‘There were certain things that never became public information. The Atlanta police didn’t even have all of it, and the FBI wants to keep it that way.’
Magozzi let that one ride. Sure, it was possible the FBI would seal a file to cover some perceived wrongdoing, but it was also possible they’d do it to protect evidence or witnesses. ‘Okay.’ He glanced at Grace. She was pale, obviously tense, looking straight ahead. ‘I take it you were suspects, or at least acquainted with the victims.’
Grace spoke with all the emotion of someone reading a grocery list. ‘Kathy Martin, Daniella Farcell, my roommates. Professor Marian Amburson, my counselor and art instructor. Johnny Bricker. I dated Johnny for a while, we stayed close even after we broke it off.’ She kept looking at him, but she didn’t say anymore.
‘That’s four,’ Magozzi nudged her gently, and she moved her head in the tiniest nod.
‘After the fourth murder, because I was so close to all the victims, the Atlanta police and the FBI decided I was what they called an oblique target. That whoever was doing it was trying to punish me by eliminating the people I cared about, the people I depended on. So they gave me a new friend and set a trap. Libbie Herold, FBI, second year out of the academy. She was very good. Very professional. On her fourth day as my new roommate, he killed her, too.’