Dead Even - Mariah Stewart [46]
She stopped at a stop sign, tried to get her bearings and remember which way they had come.
“Take a right here,” Will said.
“You sure?” she asked, then, rather than wait for an answer, said, “Oh, of course, you’re sure. You’re always sure of yourself, aren’t you, William James Fletcher, special agent for the FBI?” She slanted him a look from the corner of her eye and hit the gas.
“Right now the only thing I’m sure of is that I’m likely to die in this car with you behind the wheel,” he muttered, and she laughed.
Minutes later the Spyder was pulling into a parking spot in front of a busy diner, and Miranda was digging into her purse for her cell phone. Will got out of the car while she made the call to Fleming, and wondered if there was any real possibility that Miranda’s could be the third name on the list. He didn’t have a good feeling about it. The thought of it caused his insides to twist.
“I had to leave a message for Carson to call me back,” she said as she stepped out of the car and locked it. “Ready?”
Will nodded and they walked up the steps of the diner.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Miranda said after they’d been seated.
Before he could reply, a waitress in a black dress appeared with menus in one hand and flatware in the other.
“Specials are inside,” she told them as she set their places for them. “I’ll be back with your water in a sec.”
“Efficient, isn’t she?” Will noted as he opened the menu.
Miranda looked at him over the top of hers. She knew the look on his face, the set of his jaw. Something was working below the surface, and she was going to find out what it was.
“I think I’ll have the turkey sandwich,” Miranda told him. “How about you?”
“I’m going to have the pork chops,” he said.
The waitress returned with their water, and they placed their orders.
“So,” Miranda said when the waitress disappeared. “Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you?”
“You have to ask?”
“You’re wondering how we let Lowell get to Unger and how we can make sure Landry is protected.”
“Bring it a little closer to home.”
“You’re thinking about Landry’s suggestion that I’m the third?” She frowned.
“I think we need to discuss it with John. I don’t think we can take this lightly.”
“I’m not taking it lightly,” she said softly. She hadn’t. But she’d pushed it aside to think about later.
“Tell me about the interview you had with Channing six years ago. Tell me everything you remember. What he said, how he said it. How he looked when he said it. Let’s go over it, bit by bit.”
“I don’t recall all the details.” She played with her spoon, spinning it around slowly on the table. “But if we could find the file, there is a tape.”
“A tape of the interview?” he asked. “He let you tape the interview?”
“Yes. Actually, he seemed amused by the prospect.”
“It has to be in the file, though I don’t remember seeing a tape when I looked for your reports a few months back. I’ll check again as soon as we get back to the office. I think we need to listen to the tape and see exactly what he had to say to you back then.”
“I remember his tone—he was pretty cocky with me, I remember that. As if he knew exactly what I wanted to know, but he wasn’t going to give me a thing.”
“Was he aggressive? Combative?”
“No, no. More like he was toying with me. The impression that I had was that he seemed more amused than angry. At least in the beginning, he did.” She continued to play with the spoon. “I think if he was angry at all, it might have been toward the end of the interview. I seem to recall there’d been a shift in his demeanor, somehow.”
“What kind of a shift?”
“Oh, it was subtle. Might have been nothing at all. And I might have been imagining it.”
“Try to remember. Was there anything in particular he might have said?”
“Will, I just don’t remember.” She shook her head. “It was six years ago. And even though he’d made me uneasy at the time, I doubt I could have told you even then what it had been that made me more suspicious of him than I was of any of the others I’d interviewed that day. Maybe