outside her school. Obviously taken by someone who’d been observing them over a period of time. The husband, H. P. Gerard, wasn’t in them.”
“Hold on,” Ben said. “H. P. Gerard’s wife is who you were looking for at the Prayer House? So this reporter guy is viciously murdered at the Highlands Inn, presumably by the wife and/or child of one of the biggest movers and shakers in this country, and all of a sudden a lightbulb goes on and you say, ‘Oh, that’s where the killers are! At a convent out in Carmel Valley.’” He laughed shortly. “Yeah, that makes a whole hell of a lot of sense.”
Agent Kelley answered him in a scathing tone. “It does if your girlfriend is one of Alicia Gerard’s oldest friends—and if your girlfriend takes in women and children on the run.”
“Which you wouldn’t even have known if I hadn’t—”
“Confirmed it for us,” she said firmly. “We knew about Abby Northrup’s work long before you decided to enlighten us, Chief Schaeffer. We hardly had to rely on you to inform us—”
“Like hell,” Ben said, interrupting angrily.
“Easy,” Lessing said quietly. “Let’s keep personalities out of this.”
“This is not about personalities,” Kris said sharply. “It’s about not having an outsider at our meetings.”
“Chief Schaeffer is hardly an outsider,” Lessing reminded her, “any more than you are. And so far he’s been cooperating fully.”
“Fully? You may think so, but—”
“I cooperated because you told me that Abby and the Prayer House were in danger,” Ben said, interrupting again. “There wasn’t even time to find out who you were after.”
It was the fear that Abby might be hurt that had made him screw up, dammit. What a fool he was, confirming their suspicions about Abby’s work with Paseo when he’d made a promise a year ago never to tell a soul. And now, because he’d thought it was his duty to do so—and that the suspect might be a danger to Abby and the Prayer House—he’d blabbed to the damned FBI.
Abby would never forgive him.
“I’ve had enough,” he said, standing. “You’re welcome to stay here until you’re done, but I’ve got work to do.”
“Chief—” Lessing raised a delaying hand.
“No. From everything you’ve said so far, this is nothing but a plain and simple homicide. If that’s the case, I sure don’t need you to help solve it. In fact, it looks to me like you’re wasting taxpayers’ money with all this hoopla, but hey, don’t let me stop you.”
He stormed out, slamming the door. Papers on the table scattered from the breeze it created.
Lessing looked at Kris Kelley. “We’ve got to tell him,” he said heavily. “Everything.”
“Oh, hell,” she sighed. “I’ll go get him.”
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