“It was stupid thing to run by yourself,” he snapped.
And once again her voice stiffened. “It’s not stupid,” she snapped back. “I wanted to go for a run.”
“Well, so the hell did I,” he snapped. “It feels like you snuck out on purpose. Like you were trying to get up there, deliberately going to that location, knowing full well that you shouldn’t be there alone. You had to know I would be pissed about it, but you did it anyway because my anger apparently didn’t matter to you.”
“I honestly didn’t think about coming here,” she explained. “I was surprised to find myself driving in this direction because I wasn’t initially planning on it. I looked around in your area, but I didn’t really know where to run or how long the paths were, and I didn’t want to go on just another cement-city run. My shins really don’t like that.”
“And I get all that,” he said, softening his voice. “It just would have been nice if you hadn’t cut me out.”
“And I didn’t think I was cutting you out,” she replied, trying for a balanced tone of voice.
He appreciated that because he wasveryoff balance himself. “The fact that you’re even talking to me about it is good because I woke up with another one of those horrible nightmares.”
“Oh, that explains it.”
“Explains what?” he asked, as his temper snapped and rattled again.
“Why you’re so pissed off. Obviously you’re getting more of these vibes about the murders, and that just makes you think I’m in danger.”
“Youarein fucking danger, Kate. Have you forgotten that somebody followed you home last night?”
“Well, that won’t do them much good, will it?” she asked. “Considering they followed me to your house, not mine.”
“And what if they followed you to the running path?”
“Well, I didn’t see anybody, and they would have had to sit there all night, and that’s quite a stakeout.”
“But not impossible, is it?”
“No,” she replied slowly, “it’s not impossible, but they’d have to be very dedicated.”
“Dedicated is one thing,” he noted. “You have killers out here who would do anything to avoid spending the rest of their lives in jail.”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean that’s the way it’ll work out for them.”
“You’re the one trying to stop them, so you are the prime target here,” he stated.
“No,” she disagreed, “that’s not true. That would diminish the value of the whole team.”
“Who is the one driving this case?”
“All of us,” she snapped, “and you won’t make me think that people are directing this at me and only me.”
“And yet they are. Do you think anybody else on your team got followed last night?”
Silence came from the other end.
He checked his watch and realized that he shouldn’t be more than a few minutes away from the parking lot he was heading to. He could have been pulled over anytime in the last twenty minutes for speeding, but he didn’t give a damn. He would have told them a cop was in danger. The fact that she didn’t seem to think she was in danger was the part that he and she would really have to talk about.
“I don’t know,” she finally replied, “but that would just be people getting the wrong end of the stick.”
It took him a moment to realize what she was talking about. He groaned. “It doesn’t really matter, does it? You can’t just keep taking these chances.”
“I’m not taking chances,” she argued. “Look. I’m almost done with my run. I should be back there soonish.”
He pulled into the parking lot and asked, “Where are you?”
“About a mile and a half to go, I think,” she said, in-between her breaths.