"Oversees what? Knows what?"
She laughed at him. "Don't you have manners? Never ask an artist to explain her work."
He gazed back. "I don't have manners. I'm a cop. I'm still asking the questions."
She snorted and turned away.
Knowing she had every right to demand that he respect her privacy, he changed the subject to Diana. That engaged her. She didn't like Diana.
She described her as "the most evil person I ever met." Then, when she recounted their last conversation, in which Diana had said that she knew Dietz was carrying something valuable and that she had a buyer for it, Janek felt he finally had some proof to support his theory that Diana had been approached by Kane. "Maybe Thatcher told her," Gelsey objected.
Janek didn't think so. "Thatcher could have given her our sketches. We held them close, but not that close. But no one except my squad and my supervisor knows about the Omega. I'm sure Kane got Diana's address out of Kirstin, then went to her and offered her a piece of the action if she could get the chip away from you." Gelsey told him about Tracy and the note Tracy had left instructing her to get in touch with Diana. When Janek heard that, he had an idea about how to proceed: Gelsey could call Diana, say she'd changed her mind and would I sell the Omega. Then Sue Burke could take Gelsey's place at the payoff.
Gelsey objected; she didn't want anyone taking her place.
"Kane's already killed twice for the chip," Janek warned her. "He won't hesitate to kill again." But Gelsey said she wanted to help. "Maybe it'll win me points with a judge. I need that. Please."
At first he thought she wanted to play a role in the arrest only because she thought doing so might keep her out of jail. But as she talked on, and he understood the depth of her guilt, he realized she was looking for redemption.
He thought: How can I deny her that? If she were my own child, I'd feel proud.
"Tell you what I think," he said, looking at her sketches again. Earlier he had noticed a huge half-completed drawing of a monster's head. Now he studied it. "I think your Leering Man is really the Minotaur."
She stared at him coldly. "Got any more flaky ideas?"
"You don't buy it?"
She marched off to the other side of the loft.
"Why don't you answer?"
"Do you think I owe you an answer?"
"No, you don't owe me anything, Gelsey. You only owe yourself." It's funny about her, he thought, the way she moves or changes position whenever she feels cornered. He found her body language transparent and was surprised she'd been so successful in the bars. But then he remembered that the woman in the bars was someone else-her mirror twin, her dream-sister-for whose actions she, Gelsey, was not responsible.
She strode back toward him. "Suppose you're right," she said. "Then what?"
"The reason you go down into the maze all the time isn't to become mirror-girl. It's to seek."
"Seek what?"
"You don't see it."
"You're so fucking smart-!"
"Do you always get angry when you know the other person's right? When you talk tough like that, you give yourself away."
She sneered. "Give what away? Seek what? Speak, Janek! Say what's on your mind."
"Seek Leering Man, a. k.a. the Minotaur. That's why you go downstairs.
That's why you paint. It's the same quest. You want to discover who hurt you, who even now makes you hurt. Your shrink told you the answer was down there. But you haven't found it yet. There is something down there, too. You know there is, but not quite where or what. That's the secret, isn't it? That's what you're looking for" Tell me I'm right, and maybe I can help. But if you deny that's what you're after, you'll never find it. Never."
Later he would wonder what had made him speak to her like that, what instinct had formed the words. He often made leaps, but he didn't think he had ever taken such a chance with someone he barely knew.
Normally he'd be afraid that if he were wrong he'd lose the person's confidence. Still, his little speech seemed to have found its mark.
Gelsey responded as if dealt a blow.
"Dr. Z never talked to me like that. You know how shrinks are?" Janek shook his head. "They're slow. They plod. They try to get you to the point where you think it's your idea." She grinned at him. "You don't deal with people that way."
He shrugged. "I like to move things along."
"You're wrong, of course. There is no Minotaur. The monster is just something in my head." "That's what Dr. Zimmerman told you?"
"It's my conclusion." "Maybe you're right," Janek said. "But still it could be real-not a beast, not half-man, half-bull, but someone who is looking at you, someone your father invited in to watch."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"I'm a detective. To me incest is a crime. That's how I look at it; that's how I understand it."
"so?,, "So, when you want to understand a crime, you examine everything-the people, the scene, the evidence-and ask yourself: What was the criminal trying to do? I don't mean literally. Your father was abusing you.
But what was behind that? Why did he do it in a mirror maze, where it would not only be reflected a million times, but where a person standing on the catwalks could see it, too?"
"No one was up there." She bit her lip.
"How do you know? You were down on the floor. You couldn't see above the ceiling. But since the ceiling's made of one-way glass, someone looking down could see you." "Wrong," she said, firm in her rebuttal. "When we went down there he'd always lock the door. No one could possibly get in or out. Anyway, I saw the Minotaur on the floor. Just a couple of flashes, but he was there."
"Hey, you can't have it both ways. One minute the Minotaur's in your head, the next he's real."
"Fuck you! Why're you doing this?"
"I'm trying to help you. Can't you tell?"
"You just met me. What do you care?"
He shrugged. "Maybe I like you. But not the way you think. I I She screwed up her mouth into an exaggerated seductive smile. "No hard-on, Janek?" He shook his head. "So, what's your game?"
"I don't play games."
"You're just a Good Samaritan?"
"Sounds corny, I admit."
"Sounds like bullshit. What do you really want)" A good question. He thought through his answer before he replied: