Backfire

“And would you look, you’ve got a little holster where you carry your gun. Isn’t that delicious? I always liked macho girls. I mean, men can be so difficult, don’t you think? Tell me, Eve, what do you do with a difficult man?” And Cindy Cahill slanted Savich a sloe-eyed look.

Eve smiled at Cindy, recognizing pure sex on the hoof when she saw it. She was sure men vibrated to full alert when Cindy waltzed into their vicinity. She was also beautiful, despite so many months spent in jail. Her dark eyes were exotic, slightly slanted, full of sparkle and high-voltage tease. She looked at you with incredible focus, and that focus was now turned on Eve. Eve sensed a formidable intelligence behind those hot, dark eyes—and something else when Cindy looked at her—calculation, and hatred. Hatred? Was Savich right? Was this incredible woman jealous of her? She said nothing.

Savich smiled. “Maybe what we should be talking about, Cindy, is how you thought you could get away with threatening a federal prosecutor.”

Direct attack, Eve thought, and took due note.

Cindy Cahill answered Savich, her voice dripping Southern Savannah honey, “Threaten the federal prosecutor? You mean Mr. O’Rourke? I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about, Agent Savich. Do you, Clive?”

Clive said through a yawn, “Not a clue.”

“What you both must have figured out by now,” Savich continued smoothly, “is that your whole plan to get the murder charges dismissed has blown up in your face. Judge Hunt saw through it, and now there will be a mistrial. You will be tried again, with even greater security, and you’ll be convicted. If you had anything to do with Judge Hunt’s shooting or with O’Rourke’s disappearance, we’ll find that out, too. I would think two people facing the death penalty might be asking about a deal right about now.”

Clive and Cindy exchanged glances. Clive said, “We already told you we had nothing to do with any of that. Mr. Siles has already told us to sit back and wait awhile, see what happens now. Right, darling?”

Cindy said, “Right. We wouldn’t want to disappoint Mr. Siles.”

Savich said, “You’ve got to know your lawyer doesn’t want to end up in prison with you, if he was involved. If you could help us find Mr. O’Rourke, or to find Judge Hunt’s shooter before he can do any more harm, I’m sure the U.S. attorney would be very interested in possibly removing the death penalty from the table, maybe even reducing your sentences. And I’m sure the government would very much like to know who you sold that information to from Mark Lindy’s computer.”

Clive said, “We don’t know what happened to Mr. O’Rourke. I’ll tell you, though, I think maybe he went off somewhere and had a heart attack. He was real intense, always impatient, always demanding. I saw him start shaking once in the courtroom, looked to me like the poor boy was about to fall apart. Do you know he threatened me? I laughed at him, because what could he do? I was already in jail.”

Cindy said, “O’Rourke’s a schmuck, no sense of humor. Clive’s right, he’s probably dead in a ditch somewhere of a heart attack. If he is, I sure won’t miss him.”

Eve said, “I guess you don’t know Mickey O’Rourke’s a great volleyball player with a serve like a bowling ball, and he can spike the ball down your tonsils. His wife tells him he’s a killer, then she punches him, and he laughs. He’s a nice guy, loves his daughters. Did you know he has two daughters, teenagers?”

Clive shrugged and began whistling.

Cindy continued to study Savich, but Eve knew she was well aware of her. She’d come out swinging at her, Eve thought, something she had to admire. Well, then, time to go for it.

Eve said, “I’ve wondered exactly what you did, Cindy. I mean, you had sex with Mark Lindy—it’s your tried-and-true method, isn’t it? And then Mark did most anything you wanted because he was so pleased with himself that this beautiful woman was sleeping with him, telling him he was a stud. Did he let you look over his shoulder while he worked on a classified government project, never suspecting you were writing all his user IDs and passwords on your sleeve while you were cooing in his ear?

“And then you put him to sleep with a nice cocktail you made with your own little hands, a bit of Rohypnol with a knockout drug, didn’t you? Poor Mark, he didn’t have a clue that his sex goddess was knocking him out so she could get to his key fob to tunnel into his computer, and access all his data. I’ll bet you called in Clive to help you with that part, didn’t you? This is all really Clive’s deal, isn’t it, Cindy? He’s the brain in your duo, right? He does the planning, makes the decisions, deals with the buyers, handles all the money, doles out spending money to you, his sex kitten?