CHAPTER FIFTEEN
They drove to what proved to be a community performance space, apparently used by an art collective for their works. It looked like it was covered in graffiti, but Paige had the feeling that might be deliberate, forming an interlocking web of art.
The Las Vegas PD were already there, the front of the performance space cordoned off with police tape. There were plenty of reporters, too, hanging around the entrance so that Paige and Christopher had to push their way through.
“Agent King! Can you tell us what’s going on here?”
It caught Paige a little by surprise that they were asking her that. The last couple of times that she and Christopher had worked cases together, it had been him the press had hounded for answers.
Now that Paige was an agent, it seemed that she was fair game for them to try to get what they could out of her. She tried to remember how Christopher had dealt with it in the past, and kept pushing through them.
“Agent King!”
“We’re not releasing any information about the case at this time,” Paige said.
“Which magic trick has the killer used this time?” one of the reporters called out.
“Are you any closer to finding the killer?” another shouted.
Paige tried to push through them.
“Is it right that a federal agent should be someone who lost her own father to a serial killer?” one of them called out.
It was old news, but it still hurt, the way it had the first time a reporter had tried to use her past against her. Paige found herself freezing up, anger rising in her, ready to lash out.
Christopher was there then, making a route through the crowd of reporters. “My colleague has just told you that we have no comment! Now step out of the way!”
Paige kept moving, following in Christopher’s wake and making her way to the front of the building. To Paige’s surprise, Detective Sanchez was there outside, standing with a man in his thirties wearing a cheap suit who looked like he was in charge.
Christopher looked as if he found it just as unusual as Paige felt to see the detective there. Paige assumed that if the detective spent her time chasing down cheats at the card tables, she probably didn’t find many murders landing on her desk.
“Detective Sanchez,” Christopher said, as the two of them walked up. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
“If the two of you are going to walk into the middle of one of my investigations, I figure the least I can do is return the favor,” Detective Sanchez said. She obviously still wasn’t happy that they’d gone after Lucas Francisco, but maybe there was more to it too. Maybe she’d seen her chance to attach herself to a murder investigation and taken it. “This is Detective Renard.”
This was the Las Vegas detective who had been in charge of the last crime scene, but who hadn’t been there when Paige and Christopher got there, so they hadn’t had a chance to meet him. In a way, that had probably been good, because it meant that the two of them could just get on with their investigation without having to deal with questions of jurisdiction, or the need to coordinate with the local cops.
“So, you’re the FBI agents who have taken over my case,” Detective Renard said. He didn’t sound happy about that fact. “How’s that investigation going, given that there’s been another murder?”
“We’re making progress,” Christopher said.
“Are you?” Detective Renard countered. “Another young woman in my city is dead.”
It was obvious that he was planning to turn this into some kind of pissing contest, which seemed in poor taste, given that someone else was dead. What was worse, Christopher seemed to rise to it.
“We’ve been working on this case for exactly one day,” Christopher said. “Whereas you had the murder of Mylene Jacques to work on for more than a week. What did you find in that time?”
Detective Renard started to square up to Christopher. “Maybe without the FBI interfering, we’d have managed more.”
Paige stepped in between the two of them. “We’re here to do a job. Detective Renard, if you aren’t going to let us do that job, maybe you shouldn’t be here.”
“You’re going to try to throw me off my own crime scene?” Detective Renard snarled.
“Technically, since we’re the ones who have been called in to deal with this serial killer, this is our crime scene,” Christopher retorted. “If you want to stay, stay, but stop trying to get in the way of us doing our jobs.”
Renard looked angry. In fact, he looked so furious that for a moment or two, Paige thought that he might lash out. Instead, he turned to Detective Sanchez.
“This case doesn’t need me wasting my time when the FBI thinks it has everything under control,” he growled. “You liaise with them. Tell me if they come up with anything, not that I’m expecting it.”