Micah   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

"When you thought it was just sex, just a woman sleeping her way through her career, you were sort of okay with it, but now, now you just don't get it."

"No," he said, "I don't. Fox is the most by-the-book agent I've ever worked with, and he's letting you cart around a civilian. That's not like him."

"I know the civilian," Fox said. "That makes a difference."

"He was a victim of a violent crime. So what? You knew him how long ago?"

"Nine years," Fox said in a soft voice, his dark eyes on the traffic, hands careful on the wheel.

"You don't know what kind of person he is now. Nine years is a long time. He must have been a teenager then."

"He was eighteen," Fox's careful voice said.

"You don't know him now. He could be a bad guy for all you know."

Fox glanced in the rearview mirror. "You a bad guy, Micah?"

"No, sir," Micah said.

"That's it?" Franklin said, and he looked like he was going to work himself into hysterics or a stroke. "You ask if he's a bad guy, and he says no, and that's good enough?"

"I saw what he survived; you didn't. He answered my questions when his voice was only a hoarse rasp because the killer had clawed out his throat. I worked for Investigative Support for five years and what was done to him is still one of the worst things I've ever seen." He had to slam on the brakes to keep from hitting the sudden line of traffic in front of us. We all got very well acquainted with our seat belts, and then he continued. "He doesn't have to prove anything to you, Franklin, and he's already proven anything he ever needed to prove to me. You are going to lay off him and Marshal Blake."

"But don't you even want to know why he's here? What she brought him for? It's an ongoing case. He could be a reporter for all you know."

Fox let out a long, loud breath. "I'll let them answer this question once, just once, and then you let it go, Franklin. Let it go before I start having more sympathy with why Bradford had you reassigned."

That stopped Franklin for a second or two. The traffic started creeping forward. We seemed to be caught in rush-hour traffic. I thought at first that the threat would make him give it up but Franklin was made of sterner stuff than that.

"If he's not an animator or a vampire executioner, then what does he assist you with, Marshal Blake?" He almost managed to keep the sarcasm out of the "Marshal Blake."

I was tired of Franklin, and I'm not that good at lying. I'd had less than two hours of sleep and had to fly on a plane. So I told the truth, the absolute truth.