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wasn’t anything at all. If I let go too soon I wouldn’t recover in time to be of any use to anyone. I could wait twenty more minutes, for Henry.
     Which was foolish. Seeing Adrian Knight wouldn’t tell me anything. But John had agreed when he saw the look on my face. George Wilkins was his friend, a mentor back when they served on the force together. Wilkins retired and came here; John became Detective Harris. I forced myself to go numb at the thought of John investigating the death of a friend.
     John led us down the hall toward the main lobby away from the flashing cameras of the forensic analysts in Henry’s office.
     “How you doing, Claire?” he asked, stopping in the empty lobby.
     He reached out for my hand to pull me in close but I channeled the cold nothingness that filled me into a stare, in answer to both his idiotic question and his embrace. I might have wanted that from him six months ago, but now it felt like adding insult to injury. “You don’t get to comfort me. You lost that, remember?”
     He let go and turned away, sighing. “You don’t have to do this, you know. You don’t need to be here.” He added, “I don’t know why you think you need to see him.”
     “For the same reason you agreed to have him brought here instead of an interrogation room. You want to see his reaction. The look on his face.”
     He flashed a wicked grin. “Yeah. I want to see him. Talk of that man ruined several nice evenings. Remember? Never could believe the museum would work with a man like that.”
     “I remember,” I said, thinking of the past. I’d been in Central America the past three months, but before that, John Harris and I had been… something. I never really could say what. It ended before I left. He’d crossed a line with me, but for him nothing really seemed resolved.
     “And if it turns out he’s a murdering bastard instead of a regular bastard, well, I’m going to lock him in a hole so deep he’ll spend the next two lifetimes with nothing but his memories,” he said, in his familiar angry tone.
     None of this was his fault. I could tell by looking at him how much he was hiding. And that was one of his faults. So much hate. I wondered if he was the best person to lead the investigation. Sometimes passion led to over-reactions; violent, destructive over-reactions. He’d done it before. Under the calm exterior, John seethed inside, and my presence made it worse. He needed to calm down and think straight. I stepped forward and hugged him tightly, only for a moment, but pulled away before he could return it.
     John closed his eyes. “All right. Let’s go over this again. I need everything you can remember when I talk to this bastard, Knight.”
     I nodded and began pacing around the lobby. He hadn’t calmed down but at least the wild look in his eyes had faded. I needed to keep him focused. If he lost control, he’d jeopardize the investigation and indulge his rage. This was about Henry. And George. I needed to remember that. Adrian Knight could be innocent. Don’t interject personal feelings into researching the facts. Henry taught me that.
     From the beginning then. “I left the museum around eleven o’clock last night. George brought me to the security office and called me a cab. Right before that I’d seen Henry and Knight arguing and it looked like Knight had a wad of cash in his hands, but I don’t know. That was when I was still on the dais greeting everyone at the end of the reception.”
     John lifted his hand. “And who else was in the room that could have seen the two of them arguing, or might have overheard?” he asked.
     “I don’t know who could have seen them. Guests were leaving by the far hallway, but no one was in the banquet area below. Security kept watch over the pieces we were showing and then locked them up. I caught George a couple of minutes later outside Henry’s office and he said Henry wasn’t to be disturbed. There didn’t seem to be