As they were standing to leave, just for the hell of it, Molly smiled. “What's your major, Petra?”
Petra dragged a hand halfway through her tangle of hair where it got caught. She just stood there, impaled on herself. “Psychology.”
Kathy kept her mouth shut until they were outside the building. “Too fuckin' cliché” was all she said.
Molly just laughed.
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“Frank, this is a police station,” Molly greeted him wearily when he breezed through the door of the interrogation room later that night.
“To which you're going to have to start paying room and board soon,” Frank assured her with a glance around the littered, fuggy little room. “Contrary to popular opinion, St. Molly, earthly penance does not have to resemble actual hell.”
Molly barely looked up from the notes she was making. “It didn't resemble anything more than a college cram room until you showed up, Frank. Now it's at least purgatory.”
“Not quite.”
She hadn't realized how hungry she was until he pulled out a bag from Steak n Shake and plopped it on the table. Molly actually felt dizzy from the temptation. “Oh, Frank ⦔
His laughter probably could have been heard down the block at the ME's office. “You know, I'd hoped you'd reserve that particular tone of voice for the first time you saw me naked.”
“I have seen you naked,” she scoffed, reaching for the bag with trembling hands.
“Splayed out on a hospital gurney with tubes in me and a hole the size
of Iowa in my chest isn't what I had in mind,” he mourned, and then reached over to pick up her tea. One good sniff had his eyes watering. “Still in the market for a good shrink, huh?”
Molly gave all her attention to the siren song wafting from the crinkled white bag on the table. “Good shrink is an oxymoron, Frank. I'm just trying to make the statistics taste better.”
“Yeah, I know, Mol. I've drowned my share of statistics in my time. Here. Obviously these cops don't know what really makes you feel better.”
And like a sleight-of-hand artist, he pulled out a tall, covered to-go cup.
“A shake?” she asked, nearly overwhelmed.
“Chocolate.”
Molly sighed with all the pent-up anxiety of the day and almost cried. “Too bad we'd kill each other in a week if we actually lived together, Frank. I could almost offer to marry you for this.”
Frank's grimace was artful. “Heaven help us both, Molly. Can you imagine my kids in your house or you putting up with my mother-in-law? I say we just visit in sin and share birthday parties.”
Her mouth full of steakburger, Molly looked up to see that behind all that insouciance, Frank was making a real offer. And Molly, who had held him at arm's length for so long, stopped chewing.
“Why?” she asked.
Frank grinned. “Because I'm too old to play all those stupid courting games. Because airheads make me dizzy, and having to cross the cultural barrier between generations makes me exhausted. Because, somewhere in that rigidly button-down temple to survival you call a personality, I have a feeling rages a core of frivolity just aching to get free, and I'd like to see it happen.” He shrugged, for the first time since Molly had known him, just a little self-conscious. “Because my kids like you.”
Molly damn near choked on her burger. “I'm not sure I was looking for anything quite so involved, Frank. I was just feeling a little frumpy.”
“You look a little frumpy,” he agreed heartily. “In factâ”
Molly waved him off. “This is not the time to get enthusiastic on me, Frank.”
“I don't keep coming back to your house because I like the neighborhood, Molly,” he said, sounding amazingly sweet. Reaching over, he wiped
a dribble of mustard that dotted the corner of Molly's mouth and proceeded to shatter the mood with a big, Frank grin. “Although I do admit I'd like visitation rights to that artwork ⦔
Molly chuckled, inordinately relieved that Frank had pulled back behind the lines. She was so tired, so frightened, so overwhelmed. And suddenly, sitting here in this scarred, cluttered little room that seeped futility and rage, she surprised herself with an urge to just curl up in Frank's lap and let him make her laugh. Let him â¦
Molly sucked in a breath and almost inhaled the second half of her burger. If there was one thing she was good at, it was compartmentalizing. And the illicit acts she'd just imagined had no place here. She had made use of interrogation rooms for fun before, but now just wasn't the time. So she settled for getting to her feet and leaning across the table to give Frank the kiss of his life, vodka, steakburger, mustard, relish, and all.
And briefly, before she clamped down everything but what she had to do, Molly admitted what she'd been denying herself all this time. Frank, the bastard, tasted damn good. He'd probably taste even better in bed. And one of these days she was going to find out.
“Thanks for the compliment, Frank,” she said, and, still startled by her own impulsive action, sat down with a thump.
Fortunately, Frank understood impulse as well as Molly, and settled for a smug smile before settling back on his chair.
“So, what's the status with your friend?” he asked, stealing a couple of fries.
Molly licked her lips to reinforce that tiny moment of freedom and forced herself back to work. “We think we know who he was. Well, we know his name and his parents' names. We know he left the state a while back as Peter K. Wilson and came back as the ubiquitous Kenny, although he hasn't applied for any kind of official document that would show up in a computer under either name.”
Frank sat, waiting for more. “You did take care of him, then?”
That quickly, the rest of the fun disappeared. For the first time in her life, even the hamburger lost its appeal. “I did,” she said, her focus on the residue of Kenny's childhood that lay across the table. “Evidently, I tried to intervene on his behalf, and, as so often happens, failed miserably.”
“Evidently.”
Her smile was sad. “All he wants is for somebody to know he really exists. For years he's been manufacturing his own permanent fan club, but even he knows the difference. When he saw me somewhere, he figured he found an actual person he didn't have to chop up and eat to recognize him. Only, once again, he didn't have any luck. I can't remember him at all.”
Frank stole a fry and chewed. “His instincts were still good, Molly. He picked a warrior saint to protect him.”
Molly damn near cried. “Knock it off, Frank. I'm nothing of the kind.”
Frank's answering smile was softer than she'd ever seen. “You're who I would have looked for at that age.”
Again, Molly was struck silent. If she weren't such a damn good nurse, she wouldn't have caught it. Frank, after all, let less out than she did. But there it was anyway, a whiff of old, old, pain. A long-familiar blip on an otherwise normal screen.
“You needed somebody?” she asked quietly.
Frank's smile was brighter than ever, which just put Molly in mind of novas. “None of us are the way we are because of accident, St. Molly. We're all making up for something, even if we don't grow up to be warrior saints. My guess would be that your friend Kenny was never given another chance to grab the life preserver. Maybe if he'd hung on long enough, he would have found that strong male role model who could have pulled him out.”
Molly absolutely gaped. “What are you talking about?”
She knew, of course. She just didn't think Frank would.
Frank did. She could see it way back in his eyes, no matter how brash his smile. “Don't tell me you haven't read Ressler, St. Molly of the Morgue. You told me yourself that you studied under him. He's the one who subscribes to the theory that a serial predator is made by the age of six, but if between the ages of eight and twelve the child can come into contact with a strong, positive male role model, he can be turned away from his antisocial behavior.”
Molly was nodding. “He won't be normal, necessarily. A sociopath's still a sociopath. But he won't be a predator. Of course I know that, Frank. Why should you?”
Frank kept looking more and more delighted, as if Molly had discovered his talent for moneymaking. “Who was it who said, âKnow thyself'?
Ressler's right. It's amazing what a difference it can make at that age if just one man thinks you're worth molding into another man.”
Molly was breathless. She'd known Frank, certainly, understood his limitations and his strengths. She'd still never guessed at the real rot that lay in the shadows beneath the bright flame of his personality. Seeing Frank now in his shiny facade of brass and conspicuous consumption, it was almost impossible to imagine the kind of pale, trembling little boy who would need a defender. Who would be so trapped that he'd never made it completely away.
She couldn't reach out to him. He'd bolt like a spooked horse. She couldn't share her understanding in any kind of concrete way. All she could offer him, in the end, was a concession.
“I wonder if this means there's still hope for Patrick.”
Frank's grin was brash. “Well, he'll never be as handsome as I am.”
“No one is, Frank. No one is.”
That made him even happier. “Speaking of incorrigible delinquents,” he said, literally and figuratively leaning back. “How is the demon spawn today? Write any good jail poetry?”
Molly sucked in an unsteady breath, hid behind a couple good hits on her shake, and let Frank lead the subject safely away. “He's at Sam's. I'm waiting to talk to his father, but I have a feeling the family housekeeper has tipped off the perpetrators and given them the chance to hide behind a wall of Chinese obscurity.”
Frank's frown was real. “I know a good Jesuit we can inflict him on.”
Molly shook her head. “He had the Jesuits. They gave him back.”
“Smart priests.” He grinned, but Molly saw little humor. “You know he's headed for big trouble, don't you, Mol?”
She sighed, forgot her milk shake. “I know. Am I too naïve to think that Sam and I can at least keep him from felony first class while he's here?”
Frank shrugged. “I don't know. Sam does seem to gentle him somehow. And he came to you for a reason.”
Molly's smile was wry. “He showed up for the same reason you do. My artwork. He has been better since the arrest, though. Maybe he just needed somebody to put a foot down.”
“You mean somebody to give a damn, don't you, St. Molly?”
Molly understood every nuance of that statement and ignored them
all. She looked at her steakburger, but couldn't actually pick it up. She reached for her teacup, only to realize she was out of Stoly again. God, she thought, trying like hell to hide her shakes from Frank, she wasn't going to make it much longer.
And what was even worse, she'd forgotten how to anticipate the quiet time after Christmas. All she could see was this cluttered, dismal room and Patrick's hostile eyes.
I can't do this, Frank, she wanted to say. I can't keep digging into my past, just to remind myself of every failure I've ever committed, every mistake I've made. Every loss I've suffered. Isn't Christmas bad enough without rubbing my face in everything I've given away over the years?
Tears, she thought in terrible amazement. I'm going to goddamn well cry if I don't stop this. And I'm going to do it in front of Frank Patterson, God help me.
“What else do you have to do here before you're ready to go home?” Frank asked as if he'd heard her.
Molly looked up to see him lounging complacently across from her nibbling on another of her fries. “You're not going to start following me around again, Frank,” she warned with a scowl. “You still look about as healthy as Rasputin pulling himself out of the Volga, and you have kids to think about. Besides, aren't there Christmas parties to go to or something?”
“I only go to Christmas parties to make business contacts, Molly. And nobody wants to trust a lawyer who looks like he lost.”
The reason Molly knew it wasn't Rhett barging in on them was because he didn't knock. Instead it was Baitshop, who looked as pulled and drawn as the rest of them, her attire at this time of night an academy sweatshirt and baggy jeans. “We have news ⦠well, hi there. You're new on the force. You come to make my life happy?”
Frank was already on his feet. No matter how thankful she was for the diversion, Molly offered a huge scowl. “Baitshop, this is Frank Patterson. To be safe, don't touch without proper protection. That being a whip and a chair.”
“Who wants safe?” Baitshop demanded, already having succumbed to the Patterson pirate smile.