Page 65 of Deja Who
But then! Before the desk sergeant could return! There she was, walking toward him—except she didn’t see him. She was walking next to (yikes!) Detective Preston, whose head was bent attentively toward her, clearly soaking in every word.
“...for God’s sake, he was your beloved big brother. He saved you from countless beatings, he protected you in the face of your mother’s helplessness and whowouldn’tworship someone like that? He never showed you the side his victims saw and he never would. Do you think I would be this fucked up if I’d had a protective older sibling? You can’t blame the man you were for the dead; that was on Albert. All of it: on Albert. The man doing the actual murdering. If, in your other life, you had gone to the police and said, ‘Hey, I’m pretty sure my brother is the Boston Strangler,’ youknowwhat would have happened. They would have had the cuffs onyouin about five seconds... and that’s if they believed you at all.”
Detective Preston nodded, but Leah barely noticed.
“You have been carrying all that around, and for what? You’re one of the good guys this time. And what if you were a farmer, and not a detective? There still would be nothing to make up for. You could, I don’t know, milk your cows in peace. Or whatever you would do if you were a farmer. That old life is done. I insist you stop having nightmares about it immediately.”
Not bothering to listen to his response, Leah looked up and her eyes widened when she saw Archer waiting for her. Then they narrowed, and for a heart-stopping moment Archer thought she didn’t want him there.
But that wasn’t it. Instead, when they walked right up to him,Leah again turned to Detective Preston and said, “It was unprofessional and cruel to bring this up outside of a session, in your workplace, in front of other people. I have no excuse. It was unacceptable. I...” Archer could almost hear her teeth grinding together. “...apologize.”
Preston barely seemed to notice; his thoughts were miles away, possibly imagining his life as a farmer. He nodded almost absently. “That’s fine; it was just as inappropriate for me to arrest you. I didn’t really think you killed your mother; I was upset by what you said. My boss and your boss are insisting we play nice, so let’s just do that.”
“All right.”
“Are you okay?” Archer asked in a low voice. Leah seemed unbeaten. Unstabbed. Un-bleeding. And alive! Even better. In fact, if you didn’t know, you wouldn’t be able to tell she’d been cooling her heels in the hoosegow for the last few hours. He wondered if it was inappropriate to ask her if anyChained Heat–type stuff had gone on. He also thought it was adorable that she still had only the one shoe. He thought the cops might have at least offered her a flip-flop. “Leah?”
“Oh, sure.” She waved it all away: the arrest, booking, brief imprisonment. “It was interesting. I’ve never been on that side of the bars before. And some of the other women were interesting. I’ll have stories to tell my colleagues. Too bad I loathe my colleagues.”
“Mr. Drake.” Detective Preston seemed to notice him for the first time. “Ah.”
What is it with cops and “Ah”? Do they mean to make it sound terrifying?“Hey. Glad you two worked it out.”
“Yeah.” Preston was staring at him, and given the man wasinvestigating a horrific murder, Archer found his regard more than a little unnerving. “That’s interesting. About your family history.”
“Oh, here we go,” he sighed. He glanced at Leah. “There’s really no way to make this not sound awful. And I promise I was going to tell you. You have to admit it’s been a crazy week.”
“What?” Leah was looking from him to Preston and back again. “Oh, God. What is it now? What horrific dreadful thing is going to happen now?”
“If this is the Archer Drake, the only son of one William T. Drake—”
“The detective is coyly leading up to the fact that my dad’s in federal prison for murder.” After a beat, he added helpfully, “He didn’t do it. If that helps.”
