Cat's Lair
Page 25

The door opened and he slipped into the room. She didn’t look up. What was the point? She had nothing to tell him, so as long as this was going to last, and she figured it would be a very long time, she would endure.
They hadn’t allowed her to grab a sweater and she was cold, and feeling a little exposed, which she figured was also part of the plan.
“Ms. Benoit? I’m Detective Frank Tuttle. We’re investigating a man named Rafe Cordeau. I believe you know him.”
Tuttle was dressed in slacks and a jacket and he looked far too slick to be anything but DEA. Not that it surprised her. He carried a folder and set it on the table, making a show of it. The thing was, no matter what he said, he had nothing on her and he would have to make something up, or he would have to let her go.
She remained silent. There wasn’t a question in his statement.
“Ms. Benoit?” Frank’s voice had gone sharp.
“I’m sorry.” She sent him a brief look from under her lashes. “I didn’t know that your statement required any response on my part.”
“Are you acquainted with Rafe Cordeau?”
“You obviously think that I am. Enough that you turned the place where I live upside down. I have no idea what you were looking for because no one had the courtesy to tell me.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
She shrugged. “As I don’t know what you’re looking for in the way of answers, I can’t help you.”
“Do you in fact know Rafe Cordeau?” he thundered.
“Is this where I’m supposed to wince and burst into tears?” Sarcasm dripped from her voice. Rafe could make her wince without even raising his voice, but even he couldn’t make her burst into tears. Certainly no cop could.
She pushed the heavy fall of hair over her shoulder and for the first time looked Tuttle in the eye. She even leaned toward him. “Everyone who grew up in Algiers knows Rafe Cordeau or at least of him. If they say they don’t, they are lying. Yes. To answer your question, I know Rafe Cordeau.”
“And you lived with him for a number of years.”
She stared him directly in the eye and she was very focused. Intense. She waited. She was good at waiting. Good at the silence game. She’d been taught by a master and she’d followed up those lessons with experiences. She could tell Tuttle was buying into her age. She was young. Barely twenty-one. She’d had her birthday just last month. She didn’t look hard, she looked vulnerable. He had no idea the experiences she’d been through had aged her fast.
He sighed. “Ms. Benoit, I’m trying to ascertain how you know Cordeau.”
“I’m sorry. You’re not very good at this, are you? Again, there was no question for me to answer, and I can’t guess at what you want from me.”
Tuttle winced. She kept her gaze from the camera, where she was certain other cops were watching on a screen in a control room. Tuttle was going to take some ribbing over that remark.
“I was given to him when I was eleven years old.”
“Given to him?”
She nodded. “I’m his ward. I was raised in his house.”
“And you’re engaged to be married to him.”
For the first time her heart went crazy, hammering in her chest so hard she feared it would actually break through – or he could hear it. She forced herself to keep her eyes steady on his.
“Why would you think that?”
“There was a write-up in the New Orleans newspaper in the society section that states you are engaged to Rafe Cordeau. Are you saying that information isn’t correct?”
No one would dare write an article about Cordeau without his consent. No one. Not even a reporter who wanted a name for themselves. Rafe had planted that article and he was making a statement directly to her.
She shook her head but didn’t speak, her mind racing.
“Are you his fiancée?” Tucker asked, his voice a whip.
She shrugged. “If that’s what someone wrote in a newspaper, I suppose it must be true.”
Irritation crossed his face. He scowled at her. “You aren’t helping yourself by being a smart-ass.”
She raised an eyebrow. Her wrists throbbed. Her pulse raced, and she had a hell of a headache from falling on the floor. She didn’t want to sit for hours in the interrogation room. Every minute that passed was a minute she should be on the road.
“I’m not trying to be a smart-ass, Mr. Tuttle…”
“Detective,” he corrected.
She took a breath and heaved a sigh. “Detective Tuttle,” she said. “I just want you to get to whatever this is about so I can go.”
“This is about your relationship with Rafe Cordeau,” he snapped.
“I’ve told you what my relationship is. You seem to have the information already anyway. If that’s all you wanted to know, I’d like to go.”
His fist banged on the table. She could have told him silence was far more effective. Silence. Staring. And ice-cold eyes. Banging on the table got you nothing. She held still and watched him.
“When was your last contact with Cordeau?”
“I left when I turned twenty.”
“So a year ago.”
That didn’t deserve an answer. He could do math. She just stared at him. Waiting for him to get to it.
“It wasn’t the first time you left.”
Tuttle knew more than she thought anyone else was aware of. Someone was feeding the DEA information about Cordeau – a very dangerous game to play. She had to go carefully because that meant they had someone in his organization.