Page 98 of Deja New
FORTY-SIX
“Nope.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Uh-uh.”
“Right now.”
“We’re not doing this.”
“It’s important.”
“Don’t care.”
“In private.”
“It’s never going to happen.”
“Three minutes.”
“No minutes.”
“Two minutes.”
“God, you’re bad at this. No minutes!”
“Jeez, Angela.” Her brothers were staring at her in amazement, and Paul added, “Give him a hundred twenty seconds. It’s two minutes out of your life.”
“Two minutes out of my life, then one day, then one year, and then you turn around and it’s been a decade. No.” And was she just supposed to pretend Jason didn’t make himself extra-hot on purpose before coming over? Was she supposed to act like she didn’t see how great he looked in dark jeans and an aqua polo shirt? And ignore the fact that he didn’t shaveon purposejust to fuck with her and flaunt his stubble?
Bastard.
“One minute,” Archer said, “and that’s our final offer.”
“Done.”
“Wait!”Argh! What a stupid time for a lapse in concentration. It’s the stubble’s fault!“This isn’t an auction, it’s not their decisi—”
“You’ve got sixty seconds, Detective.” Mitchell looked at his watch. “Go.”
Jason sucked in a deep breath and got started. “Our first visit to ICC. Dennis would only talk to us for five minutes, claimed he didn’t want to go over his allotted visits for the month.”
Angela frowned. “Yeah, but we knew that was a lie. You checked and he had plenty of hours left.”
“But that’s all I could do... see what he had left. I made a small assumption—he had plenty of hours because no one had been to see him. That assumption led to a mistake: I didn’t bother asking for the log. If I had, I would have found out someone came to see him last month. Someone who hasn’t seen him in quite some time.”
“His lawyer?”
“Which one?
“He’s fired two of ’em by my count—”
“Your count sucks. He’s fired three.”
“He’s his own lawyer, remember? How can he visit himself?”
“Your mother,” Jason said, raising his voice. “Emma Drake.”
