Page 47 of So Twisted

“I couldn’t risk losing my dogs,” Reed replied. “I couldn’t leave them alone or have them placed in a shelter. People don’t like adopting Rottweilers because everyone thinks they’re vicious. I can’t lose them. They need me.”

“I understand that,” Faith sympathized.

“That being said,” Michael interjected, “wewillbe talking to you again. There’s a lot of hard evidence not based on emotion or conjecture that suggests you had the opportunity and motive to kill all three of our victims. We’re going to have the police keep an eye on you. Don’t leave town.”

Reed scoffed. “I’ll stay in town, agent. But that killer, whoever he is? He’s a hero.”

This time, it was Michael’s turn to scoff. He spun on his heel and stormed from the house. Faith sighed and called Turk to follow her. He nuzzled Reed once more, then followed Faith outside.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Michael was on the phone when Faith reached him. He frowned at her and continued to talk to whoever was on the other end. “If he leaves his house, I want him tailed.” A brief pause. “No, for some reason, Faith thinks he’s innocent.” He sighed. “I don’t know for sure, but I like him more than the others so far. His face got ugly when he talked about people who abuse animals, and he made it very clear that he thinks the victims deserve to die and the killer’s a hero.” A final pause, then, “All right. Thank you, detective.”

He hung up and walked to the car. Faith kept quiet until they were on the road, then said, “I know you’re upset with me, Michael, but I really don’t think Reed is our man.”

“Why?”

“Because Turk doesn’t behave that way around killers.”

“Turk almost bit Ellie because he thought she was a killer. You’re telling me the reverse is impossible?”

Faith's shoulders tensed. "That was over a year ago. And yes, I'm telling you, the reverse doesn't happen."

“You mean it hasn’t happened. Not it won’t happen.”

“So you don’t trust Turk?”

Michael’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “That’s not the question you should be asking.”

“I’m more concerned with why you’re not answering.”

“Yeah, and that’s a problem,” Michael snapped. “You’re sensitive about Turk’s age when you should be focused on solving the damned case.”

“Turk’s age? We dealt with that question. The FBI cleared him to continue working.”

“And then he failed the sensory test.”

“That test isn’t over. He’s going to retake it in a couple weeks.”

“Because he failed the first time.”

“No, he didn’t! There has to be some other reason why he didn’t score well.”

“No, Faith, there doesn’t. Youwantthere to be another reason. Youbelievethere’s another reason. But there doesn’thaveto be another reason. It’s perfectly possible that Turk failed his sensory test because his senses aren’t effective anymore.”

Faith’s blood boiled, but she knew Michael was right.

But hewasn’tright. Damn it, she didn’t have an objective reason, but she didn’t need one. She just knew. Why couldn’t Michael just support her on this?

Deep down, though, she knew it was fear that motivated her reaction. She didn’t want to confront the possibility that Turk might finally be getting too old to do his job.

That didn’t matter in this case, though. It wasn’t Turk’s smell that affected his behavior around Reed.

“Turk’s sense of smell has nothing to do with his behavior around Reed today. He was like that with him because he trusts him. His intuition is that Nathan Reed is a good person.”

“And the evidence is that Nathan Reed likes dogs and is willing to beat a mentally ill woman for mistreating them.”

“We don’t know that Alison Chen was mentally ill.”

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