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 fiancee?" 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.
"No, it wasn't."
He waited a few moments but when she wasn't forthcoming, he leaned toward her. "You ran away when you were fourteen years old. A woman by the name of April Harp helped you. She was murdered along with her entire family, and you were safe back in Cordeau's house."
It was an accusation. She knew her face had gone white. Her stomach lurched and beneath the table she twisted her fingers together. There were some memories that would never go away and some deeds there was no redemption for.
"Yes, that's true," she whispered.
"Why did you run away?"
"I wanted to see my mother."
"She was already dead."
"I didn't know that," Catarina said. "He didn't tell me."
"He had her killed. Two days after she delivered you to him, she died of an overdose that the coroner said she didn't give to herself."
"That isn't news, Detective Tuttle. I was given that information after I was taken back to Cordeau, although how y
ou can attribute my mother's death to Rafe, I don't know. Again, you seem to have information I don't."
"Taken back? You didn't go voluntarily?" He pounced on that.
Now they were treading on dangerous ground. She said nothing, just watched him. He would want to bring kidnapping charges against Cordeau.
"Did Cordeau kill April Harp?" he demanded. "Did he order his men to kill her and her family?"
She remained silent.
"Did you help Cordeau kill her?"
Her stomach lurched again. "If you're asking am I responsible for her death, I believe I am, yes. I didn't kill her, but I left. I knew there would be consequences but I stupidly thought they would be for me, not someone else."
"Were you there when she was killed?"
There was no statute of limitations on murder. She saw where this was going and shook her head. "There is no way, under any circumstances, that I could, or would testify against Rafe Cordeau. None. If that's what your desired end result is, then we're finished here."
Tuttle sat back in his chair. "You know what he is. You know he's killed people. Many people. He runs drugs. Prostitutes. Guns. Still, you aren't willing to help us put him away."
"You've had how many people willing to help you put him away? They're all dead, Detective Tuttle. You can't protect them from him. You certainly won't be able to protect me from him. He owns men like you. He has connections everywhere. You aren't going to bring him down and certainly not with my testimony."
"You saw him kill April Harp. You were there."
"I was held there," she spat back. "Fourteen years old. All I wanted to do was see my mother. That was all. I saw a knife go into my friend's belly and she was slit all the way to her breastbone. Then my hands were pushed into the gaping wound so that I would always remember her blood was on my hands. I heard the shots that killed her family, but I didn't see anything else. I couldn't see anything else. I was on my knees screaming and I couldn't even cover my face because my hands were covered in her blood."
She would never forget the horror of that moment. Rafe holding her in front of him. His man, Marcel, holding April. Catarina had been unable to look away, not even when Rafe plunged the knife into April and sliced her open. Blood sprayed all over her, but that wasn't enough for Rafe. He wanted her to learn a lesson.