Labyrinth (Book 5) Read Online Free PDF

of electronic equipment on my dining table. Then he shifted his gaze over the rest of the room. “How long were you there?”
    “About five days. A week with the flight time. Why the cross-examination?”
    “Only curious.”
    “No, you aren’t.”
    He shook his head and shrugged. “You are, again, in the center of a most curious circumstance.”
    “My neighbor got shot by some thugs. That’s nothing to do with me.”
    “They were knocking on your door.”
    My turn to shrug. “I wasn’t here. I came in with the first responders.”
    “Your . . . roommate—”
    “House sitter,” I corrected.
    Solis shrugged. “Your house sitter was here. Could this have been connected to him?”
    “No.”
    “You’re very confident.” I didn’t think he meant that as a compliment. “And where is Mr. Lassiter?”
    “At work.”
    “Mr. Lassiter is unemployed.”
    So Solis was still suspicous about the whole incident and everyone connected to it. He could worry that bone all he wanted; it wouldn’t get him anywhere on this case and the other was no longer his to pry into. There might be hell to pay for it another day, but not today.
    I just smiled back at him and went into the kitchen to start some coffee. “You are a nosy bastard, Solis.”
    “I am concerned.”
    “Why? Probably just some wannabe gangbangers raising Cain. It’s the sort of thing that used to happen all the time around here. And how is a nonfatal shooting in Southwest district the concern of Homicide?” The coffee machine made burbling noises as I turned back around to look at Solis. I leaned on the counter and waited for his reply.
    “There is a pattern of crimes recently that have drawn our attention. This incident, though not fatal, fits into that pattern. And there is you.”
    “Me? How? I know you seem to think everything weird in Seattle—”
    He cut me off. “No. I do not think it. It is a fact. When cases go strange, you are in the thick of it.”
    I poured myself a cup of coffee. “That’s a bit much.”
    “Do you think so?” He started ticking things off on his fingers. “In the matter of Mark Lupoldi, at the end I find you and his killer—a young man gone completely mad—in a place neither of you should have been. In the matter of the homeless deaths last year, wherever I turn, there you are, and again, it is you who brings the killer to us—just as the case is classified by the government.” The energy around his head and body began to jump and form spikes of frustrated orange and burning yellow as he continued. “There is the matter of the museum that burned down; and the man who assaulted you two years ago; and the business with the sunken ship, and of the poisoned child, and the lost brooch. . . . Oh yes, there is also the disappearance of Edward Kammerling, whom you had gone to see just before this incident last night. Shall I continue?”
    “That’s quite a catalog.” I thought about what he’d said and a few of the items took me by surprise: I didn’t know he’d made any connection between me and the museum fire, and what had happened to the guy who’d killed me? He seemed to think I knew, but I’d never followed up on that—I’d been a little busy. But funny that it should come up again since Alice had mentioned him to me in London. I would have to find out. . . .
    “Hardly complete.”
    I made a face and offered him a cup of coffee. This might take longer than I’d thought; might as well keep him happy—or at least confined to the kitchen.
    Solis accepted the mug I held out. He stared at me over the rim as he sipped, waiting for my reaction to his recitation.
    I heaved a long breath. “Look, Solis, you know my cases get strange sometimes. It’s not as if you haven’t benefited from that. I turn over cases that go hot—like the poisoning case. I play fair with you and the department.” Well, as much as I could. “If you think I’ve done something criminal, find evidence and arrest me. I don’t know