Where Evil Waits by Kate Brady Page A

knew there was no choice.
    She gave the gun to Varón.
    He pocketed it but didn’t gloat. Instead, he braced a knuckle beneath her chin. “You can do it,” he said.
    Yes, she could. She had to.
    Varón and Aidan headed down the back stairs through the kitchen and into the dining room. From there, Kara knew he would be able to hear her conversation. She went down the front stairwell in a strange fog that made her feel only partly in control. Varón appeared to be doing what she’d asked him to. But with the smallest tilt of thought, his actions could just as easily be interpreted as holding her son hostage at gunpoint while listening to make sure she followed his instructions with the police. She tamped that thought down—
she
had contacted
him
—and headed toward the front door. She started to straighten her blouse, then thought better of it: Damn Varón, but he was right. If she hadn’t been in the midst of planning a felony with a known criminal, she’d have been asleep. She should look like it.
    The doorbell rang a third time. Kara gathered her poise and opened the door.
    Two uniformed officers stood on the stoop and, God help her, she recognized both of them. One was Drew Connelly, a twenty-something patrolman who had once been assigned as her escort during three days of a particularlyhigh-profile trial. He had developed something of a crush on her. The other was Paul Langford, a near-retirement beat cop.
    Langford stepped forward. “Counselor,” he said, “we’re sorry for disturbing you at this hour. But we’re doing some legwork on a missing-persons case.”
    Missing person?
Not murder. Then they didn’t know yet that Penny Wolff was dead.
    Kara worked to keep her heart from pounding through her chest. She was Kara Chandler, Assistant District Attorney. Not Kara Chandler, accomplice to hit man Luke Varón and perpetrator of fraud and a dozen other soon-to-be-committed crimes. She rubbed her forehead. “What’s going on?”
    Langford said, “A woman named Penny Wolff has disappeared. You remember her?”
    They knew she did. They knew a helluva lot more than that. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be here.
    Kara touched her stomach. It seemed to be liquid.
You can do it.
    She tried to recall what she
shouldn’t
cover up. The name Penny Wolff would be familiar to her. Penny’s husband had confessed to killing Kara’s. And it would be crazy to deny that she’d seen Penny, especially since she’d made no effort to cover her trac—
    “Investigators found your phone number in some of her things.”
    “My number?” That’s why they were here. Kara had written it down and told Penny to call her if she remembered anything else. She summoned her poise. “Oh. Well, that’s because I went to talk to her. Tuesday night.”
    The two officers looked at one another. “What time?”
    “About seven thirty.”
    Langford scratched his head. “Why?”
    Kara straightened. “This week is the anniversary of my husband’s death,” she said, and Langford nodded. “Penny lost her husband in the ordeal, too. It just seemed…” She lowered her head. “John Wolff never meant any harm to my husband. It seemed time to acknowledge that.”
    “Huh,” said Langford. “So you two… er… talked for a little bit?”
    “Yes. And I gave her my number. Are you telling me that she’s missing now, Officer?”
    “She is. Her living room was all torn up and her kid left behind. You haven’t heard that? It’s been on the news.”
    He was suspicious. Stay the course. “I’ve been a little distracted this week. No, I hadn’t heard. Is her child all right?”
    “Yeah. She’s with a relative now. How were things when you left her?”
    “I was only there a few minutes. Penny was fine. Her living room was fine and she said the baby was in a playpen. Penny showed me out the front door when we finished.”
    Connelly jotted that into a notepad. Langford said, “Was your conversation with her… er… hostile?”
    “Not