A burly patrolman stopped him just inside. “You Kincaid?”

Louis nodded and the man pointed down the hall. Al Horton and Wainwright were coming out of Horton’s office. They saw Louis approach and pulled the door shut.

“How is she?” Louis asked.

“Good shape overall,” Wainwright said. “She’s got a laceration on her left forearm she won’t let us fix.”

“Mentally?”

“Cool as ice. I couldn’t believe it,” Horton said, shaking his head slowly. “I mean, this bastard had her in a shack of some kind, bound in a chair, a hood over her face. He cut her arm just before he let her go.”

“Jesus,” Louis whispered.

“That isn’t all,” Horton said. “She says he killed Heller while she was there.”

“She saw it?” Louis asked.

“No. She heard it.”

Louis ran a hand over his face. “How’d she get away?”

“He left her in the shack and she eventually wiggled her hands from under the rope,” Horton said. “When she got out, she found a phone and called 911.”

“Where was she?” Louis asked.

“About a mile from Fisherman’s Wharf, in an abandoned storage shack. It’s near where the shrimp boats put in. Our guys are already there.”

Horton shook his head again. “You should’ve seen her when they brought her in, Louis. She refused to go to the hospital, just kept telling us that she was ‘evidence.’ ”

“Evidence?”

Horton nodded. “She asked for a crime scene tech, a change of clothes, and a pad to write down her statement. The CSU guy is in there with her now.”

Louis glanced anxiously at the door.

“We have paramedics on standby,” Wainwright added.

The door opened and the tech man come out, carrying a black case, a plastic bag holding Emily’s clothes, and a smaller bag holding a wadded black cloth.

“I’ve got all I could,” he said.

Horton nodded and the tech left. Louis moved by Wainwright and went into the office.

Emily was seated in an armchair, facing Horton’s desk. She was wearing an oversized gray sweatshirt that said FORT MYERS POLICE and sweatpants that billowed over her bare feet. Her helmet of red curls was crushed from where the tech had combed for evidence and her face was streaked with a mixture of dried sweat and tears.

Louis stared at her. Something was different. Her glasses. He had never seen her without them. He noticed now that her eyes were brown, underscored with shadows. A two-inch bandage circled her left forearm. Louis could see blood seeping through the gauze.

He slid into the chair across from her.

“How you doing, Farentino?” he asked softly. She looked at him, her eyes slightly dazed, but steady. “Hey, Kincaid,” she said softly. “Have you found my glasses?”

Louis nodded. “Yes, but . . . I’m sorry . . . I didn’t think . . .”

She looked away. “That’s okay.”

Louis glanced back at Wainwright, standing behind him, then back at Emily. Tentatively, he reached over and took her hand. She didn’t seem to notice.

“He came up behind me in the lot at the bar,” she said. She stopped and looked over at Horton.

“You’d better turn on the tape,” she said.

“It’s already on,” Horton said.

She nodded woodenly and looked back at Louis. “He threw something over my head and coldcocked me,” she said. “I woke up, tied to a chair, with the cloth still over my head.” She looked at Horton again. “Forensics has it, right?”

Horton nodded.

“Go slow,” Louis said. “Tell us what happened, whatever you can remember.”

She took a deep breath. “I heard him pacing and swearing, like he was talking to himself. Then a dragging sound.” She paused. “I didn’t know what it was. It was probably Heller.”

“Did he talk to you?” Louis asked.

She nodded. “He told me to listen, that he wanted to say something. Then he said that he had to change his plan, something like, ‘It’s all ruined.’ ”

“Then what?”

Tears welled in her eyes and she brushed them roughly away. “I heard him stabbing Heller. It went on for a long time. I started to get sick.”

Emily drew in several slow breaths. Her hand, resting on the arm of the chair, was trembling. “He started beating him after that,” she said, the words pouring out. “I could hear that, too.”

She ran a shaky hand over her brow. “Then it stopped and it was quiet. There was a sound, like a hiss. He was painting him. I could smell it.”

“Did you hear him say anything while he was doing it?”

She nodded. “He said, ‘Motherfucking piece of shit.’ ” She hesitated. “And something else . . . ‘Get it right this time, you fucking idiot.’ ”

Louis laid his hand over hers. “Then what?”

“He said, ‘No, no,’ like he was sorry about something. But then he started yelling, ‘He made me do it.”’

“He said this to you?”

“I’m not sure. Sometimes I couldn’t tell if he was talking to himself or me.” She drew in another shaky breath. “Then I heard a door open and I think he dragged Heller out. Then he was back.”

“Then what?”

“He asked me who I was and what I was doing there.”

“At the Dockside?”

She nodded. “I told him I was an FBI agent and went there to take a missing person’s report.”

She paused. “Wait . . . wait. He said something strange then. He asked me who was missing.”

“Who?”

“Yes. I told him Tyrone Heller and he asked if Captain Lynch had been the one reporting him missing.” She ran a shaking hand across her forehead. “He sounded angry, not making any sense, and he asked me what Lynch said about Heller.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think he wanted to know what Lynch thought of Heller. So I told him Lynch described him as a fine young man.” She paused. “It almost sounded like jealousy.”

Louis glanced up at Wainwright and Horton. Neither man had moved a muscle.

Emily drew in another deep breath. “He started pacing again, saying things like, ‘I didn’t want to do this.’ And then—”

She closed her eyes. The room was quiet.

“Then he said, ‘I have to finish it.”’

Her fingers wove through Louis’s and she squeezed tight. “I . . . I thought he was going to kill me and I lost it.” A tear made its way down her cheek. She withdrew her hand from Louis’s and wiped it quickly away.

“I was pleading with him, telling him I wasn’t black. Oh, God . . .” She covered her face.

“It’s okay, Emily,” Louis said quietly.

She shook her head rapidly, looking at him. “He wanted to know if I had ever slept with a black man.”

Her voice grew tight. “No, no . . . he said, exactly, ‘Have you ever fucked a black man?’ And when I said no, he said, ‘Good, all you get from that are monkeys who should’ve been scraped from their mothers’ wombs with a spoon.’ ”

Louis glanced back at Wainwright. He was shaking his head.

“That was all,” Emily said softly. She was staring at the floor. “Until he cut me.”

Louis took a deep breath. “Why do you think he cut you?”

She closed her eyes.

“Farentino?” He touched her arm. “Emily . . .”

She looked up at him, tears welling again. “I don’t know, Louis. He cut me and then I felt him put his hand over it to stop the bleeding. Then he was gone.”

The room was quiet. Emily was slumped in the chair, her face like chalk. She brought up a hand to shield her eyes and sat motionless for a long time. Horton turned off the tape.

“I think—” Horton began.

“I was so stupid,” Emily whispered.

“What?” Louis said.

She removed her hand, looking at him. “I blew it, Louis. I blew everything.”

“Emily—”

“I was in the same room with him,” she said. “I should’ve been able to talk to him. I should’ve been able to get more out of him.”

“Emily, stop.”

She curled her hands into fists and leaned on her knees. “That is what I do! It’s what I was trained to do and I couldn’t get past my fear. I just sat there paralyzed!”

Blood oozed from under the bandage.

Louis leaned forward, hands on her shoulders. “Emily, listen to me. It’s not your fault.”