keep it in, but it was out there before she could get a hold of it. ‘Jesus, you don’t quit do you?’
‘Admit it, this one’s got you curious. So, what do you say?’ When she didn’t reply he grinned at her again. ‘You’re tempted, I can tell.’ He held his hand up, thumb and forefinger a quarter of an inch apart. ‘A teeny-tiny-weeny bit tempted.’
‘You’re wrong. Way off the mark.’
Winter leant back in his seat, saying nothing. Mendoza was keeping her mouth shut too. For almost a whole minute they sat staring across the table at each other. It was Winter who eventually broke the silence.
‘Look, if we do nothing then this woman is going to kill again. You know that, and I know that.’
‘Assuming she exists.’
‘Do you really think I had anything to do with Omar’s death?’
‘Honestly?’ Mendoza shrugged and shook her head. ‘Right now, Winter, I don’t know what to think.’
6
Mendoza walked out of the interview room, leaving Winter alone. The door closed quietly behind her and for the second time that night he was forced into a situation where all he could do was watch. It was like being back in the diner again, watching through the window as the blonde walked away.
He glanced down at the handcuffs, glanced up at his reflection in the one-way glass. Things were not going how he had imagined, and that concerned him. The way he’d seen this playing out, Mendoza had come charging to his rescue. In his fantasy she’d been pissed and cranky like always, but at least she’d got him out of these damn handcuffs and they’d got straight down to the business of looking into the Reed murders.
Except that hadn’t happened.
Mendoza hadn’t told him where she was going, or why. She hadn’t said anything. She’d just got up from the table and left the room. And why shouldn’t she? Winter had been on the other side of the table enough times to know how this game was played. Right now, she was watching from behind the mirror, planning her next move. And while she did that all he could do was sit here getting more pissed off and frustrated with every passing second.
It wasn’t a complete surprise that she was acting like this. One of the first things he’d learned about Mendoza was that she didn’t take things at face value. For the most part this was a good thing, but not always. What was happening here proved that.
Mendoza was still pretty much a mystery to him. He’d done some digging, but hadn’t come up with much. Everything he’d discovered so far was connected to her work. He hadn’t found out anything personal. Again, this highlighted how good she was at compartmentalising. She’d been careful to keep her work and personal lives separate.
One thing that everyone seemed to agree on was that she was a good cop. Winter had first-hand experience of how thorough she was. The work she’d done on the McCarthy case had been exemplary. She’d joined the NYPD after she left college and Winter expected that she’d stay until she retired. He’d met a lot of cops over the years. Some did the job for the money and some did it because it was what they were born to do. Mendoza was born to do this. No question about it.
He replayed Omar’s murder in his head. He was looking for something he might have missed, something that might help him to get out of here, but whichever way he approached it he came up empty-handed.
The interview room was feeling much smaller than when he first got here, the walls beginning to close in. He wanted to stand up and pace. He wanted to go and study the mirror. He wanted to bang on it with his fist again. He wanted to do all the things that he’d observed time and again from the other side of the glass. Even though he was innocent, he was beginning to wonder. That was the effect this room was having on him, which was as it should be. This was a place designed to encourage guilt. It might say ‘interview room’ on the door, but make no mistake this was