One Night

Chapter 6, One Night

Chapter 6

"She says she'll only talk to you," MacDonald said. He stood about four inches shorter than Walker's five foot eleven, but he was young and pumped, always wearing short sleeves—maybe to show off those bulging biceps he had to be proud of.

Walker had just left the interview room where Cindy Schmidt was being held. He glanced back through the one-way glass to where another detective, Kruso—a short redhead, married, with a brood of kids—continued to talk to the distraught woman.

"Great, where is she?" he asked sarcastically.

"I moved her to interview one. She demanded a tea, herbal with no caffeine, and she's hungry. Asked if we had a salad or something light she could eat since the car that drove through the restaurant arrived before she'd actually had dinner."

He laughed. "Seriously, who does she think we are?"

MacDonald shrugged. "Just telling you what she said. I told her no, tried to get the statement, and that was when she demanded to see you. What do you want me to do?"

Kate was beginning to sound like a pain in the ass. Walker let out a sigh he knew sounded annoyed. Hell, he was annoyed. Couldn't she just give her damn statement and then get out of his hair? "I'll talk to her," he said.

"What about her demands for food and tea?"

Walker turned to the cop and stared at him. "You planning on whipping up a salad?" He gestured toward the station's break room.

"No, was going to grab someone's leftover sandwich from the fridge."

Walker was speechless. "And do we really have that herbal crap here?"

MacDonald just looked at him. "I don't know, was just going to grab whatever I saw and give it to her."

Walker just shook his head. "No, don't. I'll deal with her."

He opened the door to the interview room. Kate was sitting in the hard-back chair in which criminals usually sat. He wondered why she had been brought in here. Maybe he needed to have a word with MacDonald. After all, he'd left Kate sitting at his desk—but then, he was pretty sure being a pain in the ass was what had landed her in here.

"Well, it's about time." She crossed her arms. "Is this how you treat everyone you need a statement from, or just those who've almost been run down? I'm the victim here, am I not?"

Walker shut the door and took in the pad of paper and pen sitting in front of Kate. He strode over to the chair across from her and pulled it out. Her eyes were deep brown and seemed to dance with gold around them. He'd never seen eyes the color of hers before, and that hair...even after crawling out of that debris, she had gold highlights he loved. The color seemed to match her eyes.

"We were full up, trying to give you some privacy," he said, though he knew that was bullshit. Evidently, Kate had pushed the wrong buttons with MacDonald, so he'd moved her to less comfortable surroundings.

She slid the yellow lined pad of paper toward him. He took in the full page of neat penmanship with that day's date filled in at the top. "Here's your statement," she said. "Do you want to go over anything else with me, or can I go now?" She leaned forward, tightly wound.

When was the last time she got laid? he couldn't help wondering. "Well, just let me have a look here and make sure you've left nothing out."

He should have been hurrying to get her out of there, out of his hair. What the hell was the matter with him, keeping her there? At times, he wondered why he seemed to get himself embroiled in such grief. This woman, he had no doubt, could be the end of a man.

She took a slightly exaggerated breath, and he glanced her way. She widened her eyes at him. "What?" she snapped.

He just shook his head as he glanced back to her very detailed description of her conversation with Ryder Connelly while sitting at the table. How this was their first date, how they'd met online, how many emails they'd exchanged, how she'd met Ryder for the first time at the restaurant, and a word-for-word transcription of their conversation, including the moment when she saw the car right before it crashed through the restaurant window. He flipped over the paper, realizing she had written four pages. "You're very detailed," he said as he read.

"It's my job. I have to be. It helps to pay attention, which is what I do. I notice things about people so as to avoid potential problems."

"So what job has you paying this much attention?"

"I'm the assistant front desk manager at the Hotel Monaco. Now can I go home?" She was direct.

"I can have one of the uniformed officers drive you." He pushed back his chair, and for the first time she appeared very much alone as she glanced down and seemed to soften from the tough-girl attitude she'd been carrying since walking into the station.

"I'm sorry if I've been a little sharp with everyone," she said. "Did she really drive into the restaurant heading right for me?" There was a slight hitch in her voice.

Walker rested his hand on the back of the chair. "From what I saw."

"That was just a coincidence, right? I mean, are you sure it wasn't Ryder she was trying to take out? I just happened to be sitting at the same table with him, and it was a big car."

Why hadn't he seen it before? This woman wasn't so black and white. At times, when people were scared, they said and did things that made them seem prickly—which he had no doubt she was to begin with, but there was something else about Kate Sikes that bothered Walker in a way no other woman had. For a minute, he found himself wanting to protect her.

She glanced away and then stiffened. "You know what? I would really like to go home now." Her tone had suddenly become frosty again, as if she had recovered from momentarily forgetting she was supposed to be a bitch. What the hell was it with women? First warm, then cold.

"Fine, I'll have an officer have you out of here shortly. Oh, and in case you're wondering, your boyfriend gave his statement and was out of here an hour ago."

She didn't say a word as she looked over at him, the hardness fully back in her expression. "Let's get this straight: he's not my boyfriend. Do I really want to know why you kept me here and had him out before me when he's responsible for this?" She gestured to the door. Oh, was she pissed.

"Well, I'm pretty sure it had more to do with the fact that he was more cooperative than you, and he wasn't a pain in the ass," Walker said, and he heard her gasp as he pulled open the door. He listened to it click closed behind him, leaving Kate locked in the interrogation room.

***