Dangerous Games by Michael Prescott Page B

know enough about Kolb to allow us to rule him in or out as a suspect.”
    “No, I don’t. If I knew that much, I would’ve told you. My feeling is that Madeleine could be right, or she could be wrong. I have to know more. I have to get up close and personal—again.”
    “Renew your acquaintance with Kolb?”
    “Why not? There are lots of ways for two old pals to bump into each other.”
    “Suppose he knows you helped send him away.”
    “He never made me as an undercover operative.”
    “You can’t be sure how much he’s figured out.”
    “I can never be sure of anything. It’s all subjective, remember? I’m playing the percentages. Odds are, he hasn’t got a clue.”
    “If you’re wrong…”
    “Then I’d better watch my back. But I would, anyway.”
    Tess looked down at the table. “I don’t know. It might be arranged—if we had backup in place, and you were wired…”
    “No, no, no.” Abby had both hands in the air like a cop stopping traffic. “That’s not my style. Backup, wires, all that stuff just gets in my way.”
    “Well, you can’t go in solo. The Bureau would never allow it.”
    “I don’t work for the Bureau. I don’t work for anybody. I’m freelance. Emphasis on free .”
    “Then what exactly are you proposing?”
    “That I reacquaint myself with Kolb, find out what I need to know, and report back to you. We keep it between the two of us, just us girls, our little secret.”
    “I’m not working with you in any unofficial capacity.”
    “Why not? It’s my butt on the line. You only have to listen to whatever I say. I can find out if Kolb is or isn’t your guy, and I can do it faster and more efficiently than anybody else.”
    “You’re talking about a rogue operation.”
    “Rogue—I like the sound of that.”
    “This isn’t funny,” Tess snapped. “And it’s not going to happen.”
    “Give me one good reason. I think we can work well together. I’m the ego; you’re the superego. We’ll be a team, like Cagney and Lacey, only without the overtones of sexual ambiguity.”
    “I can’t agree to that.”
    “Okay, feel free to add the overtones, if that’s what turns you on.”
    “You know what I meant.”
    “What I know is that you’re passing up an opportunity to make some major progress. If there’s any evidence linking Kolb to the Rain Man, I’ll sniff it out. I’m a regular bloodhound.”
    “Any evidence you found would be obtained illegally.”
    “I can arrange for you to find it all over again in whatever legally acceptable way you like.”
    “There are approximately a thousand things wrong with that answer.”
    “You’re telling me you’ve never colored outside the lines, not even a little? Not even in the Mobius case?”
    “My methods of operation aren’t the issue here.”
    “No, the issue is nabbing a bad man who’s killed two women and intends to kill more.”
    Tess didn’t like where this was going. She leaned back in her seat, realizing too late that Abby would read her body language as a signal of discomfort. “What’s your interest in this, anyway? Do you expect to be paid?”
    “Well, I’m hoping you’ll pick up the tab for my soyburger.” She grinned. “Joke.”
    Tess wasn’t smiling. Abby didn’t seem to care.
    “I’m not in it for the money,” she went on. “Kolb is unfinished business. I don’t want to leave him that way.”
    “You could do this on your own, without my participation.”
    “But I’ll have an advantage if I know what you know about the case. My sources in the LAPD can’t tell me everything. Information is what I need to work this job.”
    “What kind of information?”
    “I need to see the case file.”
    “You don’t know what you’re asking for. Even I haven’t seen the case file yet.”
    “You haven’t?”
    For once, Tess had the advantage in the conversation. “The case file is every scrap of information collected by every agent working the investigation, collected in a binder the