Dead Even - Mariah Stewart [94]
“That’s better.” Miranda flashed a million-dollar smile and paced the reception area until the guard arrived to take them through the building.
Their escort arrived within minutes, and they followed him down a short hall to a small room.
“In here.” The guard unlocked the door. “The prisoner will be down in a minute.”
“Thanks,” Will said as they entered the room.
“I’ll bet I’ve been in a hundred nasty little rooms, just like this, over the past six years, but I never get used to the way they look or feel.”
“Or smell,” Will noted.
“That, too.” She wrinkled her nose.
The door on the back wall opened, and Vince Giordano shuffled in, his ankles in chains.
His eyes lit up when he saw Miranda.
“Hey! When they said there was a babe here, wanted to see me, I thought they were kidding. Agent Cahill,” he said as he sat down clumsily in the yellow chair. “Last time I saw you, you were holding a gun on me.”
“Hey, don’t thank me. It was my pleasure,” she told him.
“No hard feelings. If it hadn’t been you, it woulda been someone else. At least I got to feast my eyes on the finest the Feds got to offer.”
“That’s a disgusting thought, Vinnie. The thought of you feasting on any part of me in any way makes me want to throw up.”
“So, I see you still care for me as much as I care for you.”
“Vinnie, my feelings for you have never changed.”
He laughed again.
“So, what sends you and . . . who is this guy?” Giordano pointed to Will.
“Oh, pardon my manners. You haven’t met Agent Fletcher before. Agent Fletcher, this is the infamous Vincent Giordano. I get to call him Vinnie ’cause we go way back.”
“Not back far enough,” Giordano said, still appearing to size up Will.
“Heard a lot about you, Vince.” Will sat on the edge of the table.
“Yeah, like what did you hear?”
“I heard you were the mastermind behind that whole ‘Let’s do some good deeds for each other when we get out’ thing.”
Giordano looked up at Miranda, his face blank.
“What’s this guy talking about, Cahill?”
“Vinnie, we already know about the game,” she replied.
“Game, what game? Someone betting on a game? Hey, gambling’s illegal here,” he deadpanned.
“Stop it.” She slammed her fist down on the table unexpectedly, and he jumped. “Just . . . stop it, okay? We know. We know how you and Channing and Lowell were shoved into a room together last February and passed the time away with a little game of hit list. You do mine, I’ll do yours.”
She rested her arms on the table and looked him straight in the eye. “Did you know that Channing was going to do it when he got out, or did that come as a big surprise to you? When did you know for sure that the game had really begun, Vince? Was it when they found your mother-in-law with a bullet between her eyes? Or when they found Judge Styler raped and murdered, just like the Mary Douglases were?”
“I remember reading something about that judge. Shame, wasn’t it?” He shrugged, but did not blink. “And Diane’s mother, well, hey, guess that was one of them wrong-place, wrong-time things, huh?”
“Eight o’clock at night, in her own house sound like the wrong place, wrong time?” Miranda met his stare.
“Hey, just goes to show—”
“Enough, okay?” She looked up at Will and said, “He’s not going to tell us a damned thing.”
“I got nothing to say.” Giordano shook his head.
“So I guess if we were to ask you to tell us who Lowell’s third victim was going to be, you’d just tell us to go to hell.”
“I prefer kiss my ass.”
“Well, I guess since you’re not talking,” Miranda pretended to study her nails, “you’re not going to want to talk about how it is that the bullets from the gun that killed your family match the bullet that killed Albert Unger.”
“Who?” Vince’s expression never changed, but there had been a definite spark in his eyes.
“The man who murdered Curt Channing’s mother.”
“Never heard of him.” Vince began to chuckle. “But I