Part 30 (1/2)
”I know that. You've been looking a long time, G.o.d knows. Maybe this time ...”
”Maybe. And maybe it'll be another dead end.”
He let out a short laugh.
Conscious of all his own regrets, Kane said abruptly, ”Don't give up.
Don't stop looking, Noah.”
”I'm the ruthless, coldhearted b.a.s.t.a.r.d of a federal agent, remember?
I'll use anything and anyone I have to in order to achieve my ends.”
Kane was silent for a moment, then said, ”That still rankles after all these years? From what you told me, she was so distraught she would have said anything then. You were the closest target, so you got the blame.”
”I deserved the blame.”
”You were doing your job.”
”No.” Bishop looked at him with a hard sheen in his eyes. ”I went way
beyond doing my job.”
”You were trying to stop a killer.”
”And instead, I allowed him to kill again.”
”Allowed him? Noah-”
”Never mind. It's the past, dead and buried. I don't know why the
h.e.l.l I brought it up. Right now, I'm worried about the present.”
Bishop hesitated, reluctant to interfere but unable not to. ”You can say
it's none of my business, but I would have to be blind and stupid not to notice how things are between you and Faith. And I'm neither.”
”I don't know what you mean.” Kane heard the echo of his earlier denial
to Faith, and wondered if everything he felt was branded on his
forehead like neon. ”And you're right. It's none of your business.”
Bishop was no more warned off than Faith had been. ”She got under your skin-and you're angry at her for making you betray Dinah.”
”You're full of s.h.i.+t.” Bishop smiled. ”Am I? Maybe about some things, but not this. All I'msaying is that you can't beat up yourself or Faith because of what youfeel, especially now. I can't believe Dinah would consider it a betrayalthat the friend she tried so hard to help might find a place for herselfin your life.”
”There's no question of that.”
”No?”
”No. I don't feel anything for her. Not anything like that. She's 'just... a tool I can use to help me find out who killed Dinah. Nothingmore.” Deliberately, Bishop said, ”It's h.e.l.l having a guiltyconscience, isn't it?”
”You don't know what you're talking about,Noah.”
”I'm sure you'd like to think so.”
”Leave it alone, all right? just-leave it alone.”
Kane didn't want to talk about it. He didn't want to think about it. And most of all, he didn't want to have Noah's probing spider sense focusedon him.
”I can't do that, Kane. It goes against the grain with me to walk awayand let a friend tear himself to pieces just because he's human. Andthat's all it is I you know. You're human. Dinah's gone. She's been gonefor weeks, and if you're honest with yourself you'll have to admit thatdeep down inside you knew she wasn't coming back.”
”Just shut up, all right?”
”It's the truth and you know it. You gave up on Dinah, Kane, even thoughyou kept going through the motions, kept telling yourself it wasn'ttrue. But it is true. She's gone, and even while you were searching forher, another woman got under your skin.”
Kane allowed some of the rage inside him to boll over. He was on hisfeet before he realized he had moved, hands clenched into fists, sodesperate to strike out it was a sick pain in his gut. ”What the h.e.l.l'swrong with you? Christ, Noah, Dinah's barely cold' She's lying on a slabin the morgue, hurt in so many G.o.d-awful ways I could hardly recognizeher as the woman I loved. Her final days were spent in a h.e.l.l of agony Ican't even imagine, and when thoseb.a.s.t.a.r.ds were finished with her they shut her away' her worst nightmare,leaving her to die alone and terrified, to bleed to death or smother inthe dark grave of that tiny room beneath the ground.”
”We don't know for sure she died in that room.
Maybe she never suffered that final terror,” Bishop said quietly.
Kane barely heard him. His voice rose, anguished, as he asked thecontemptuous questions that had been whispering in the back of his mindfor days now.
”What kind of man do you think I am? Do you think it's so easy for me toforget her, to just push her aside because a fresh new piece walks inthe door? Do you think any other woman could take Dinah's place?
That I could ever feel for anyone else a tenth of what I felt for her?”
”Kane-” ”I loved her. Do you understand that? I loved her.”
”I know.”