Muller called out, “Joseph. Joseph, don’t leave me with her. She shot at me.” She almost sounded panicky. “She’ll kill me. Is that what you want?”
Joe reached into the car and threw the door locks. He said, “Lindsay, don’t shoot her unless you have to. But if you have to, do it. Do not let her leave.”
“Copy that.”
Did he want me to shoot her?
Would that solve a lot of problems for Joe?
Well, I had my own agenda.
Out on the rosy airfield, Knightly was speaking with the helicopter pilots from the RCMP. Joe said a few words, then headed over to the hangar, joining the agents who were loading the survivors of the shootout into vehicles.
I was alone with Alison Muller, the modern-day Mata Hari who had just sucker-punched my heart, then jumped on it and set it on fire. Oh, yeah, I was throbbing from the pain of that, but I had to push it all aside.
If the City of San Francisco was ever to have the chance to prosecute Muller for the Four Seasons murders, I had to get her to talk to me. I couldn’t let my injured feelings compromise a case against her.
This meeting with Muller was why I was here.
I sat with my legs across the length of the front seat, my feet under the steering wheel, my face turned toward the honey-trap beauty. I showed her my gun.
“I’m Lindsay,” I said. “Joe is my husband.”
CHAPTER 95
MULLER SLID DOWN in the backseat catercorner from me. She stuck the soles of her boots up against the back of the driver’s seat and got as comfortable as I imagine she could with her wrists bound behind her back.
I reached up to where Joe’s phone was still clamped in its holder, below Ali’s line of sight. I pressed the On button. And I pressed Record.
Then I turned around to face her.
I took a good long look at Muller’s strong, almost mesmerizing features: her gorgeous skin, the shimmering blond hair with the signature bangs, her large eyes, which were almost all pupils at the moment. No matter the bravado she was exuding with her feet cocked up on the backseat, she’d been through a shit-storm and she was feeling the effects of it.
She spoke. “So you’re his wife, huh?”
“That’s right. I’m also a cop. SFPD. Just so you know, you don’t have to say anything, but anything you do say can be used against you in court. Do you understand?”
Her merry laughter filled the car.
Then she said, “You can’t touch me, babe. I’m in federal custody and that trumps the SFPD any day, every day. Do you have any idea who I am? Do you have any idea who your husband is? Don’t bother to answer. You don’t know jack. You don’t know Joe.”
“You may be right,” I said, channeling the benign manner and patience of Rich Conklin. “So fill me in, why don’t you?”
“What do you want to know?” she said. “You’ve got questions about Joe, I suppose. Like, how close are we, exactly? How often do we see each other? How tight are we after knowing each other for twenty-five years? How good we are together in bed? Yeah, I’ll bet you’d like to know all that, but why don’t you ask your husband? And good luck getting the truth out of him, Lindsay. Lying is one of the top two traits required of a CIA operative. Number two is not giving a shit.”
I, too, was still pumping adrenaline. My fight-or-flight instinct had powered my blood into overdrive and my left hand had balled up into a fist. I wanted to lean over the seat back and punch Alison Muller in the mouth. I also wanted to get out of the car and run screaming into the foothills.
I kept it all down. It was the performance of my life.
“Actually, I want to know how you pulled off the killings at the hotel. It seems almost impossible that you got away.”
“Hmmm. I had nothing to do with that.”
“Well, humor me. Let’s just play hypotheticals, OK?”
“Sure, Lindsay. Hypothetically and actually, I had nothing to do with whatever you’re referring to. I was getting laid. Next thing I know, a masked man shot up the room and killed my boyfriend. I locked myself in the bathroom, and when the shooting stopped, I put on my clothes and got out. Once I was outside, I decided to leave the country and carry on my work for the Agency by pretending to flip to the Chinese side. That way, I could continue to serve my country from China. At great personal sacrifice, I might add. I was going to leave my family, and oh, yeah, stop seeing your husband, my lover, who is also the greatest guy in the world. Is that what you wanted to know?”
“Geez, you’re good.”