Catherine wasn’t sure what they had gotten out of the interview, except maybe that Jill had lousy taste in friends. She couldn’t imagine how anyone could deliberately set up a friend to be frightened for her life. If anyone tried to pull a stunt like that on me . . . Then again, she recalled, a bunch of the guys at the lab, including Nick and Greg, had recently staged a mock “kidnapping” of Henry Andrews, the lab’s toxicology whiz, as a birthday surprise. From what she’d heard of the prank, poor Henry had been utterly convinced that he had fallen into the hands of dangerous criminals—until the guys pulled off their ski masks. It seemed you could never underestimate how far some people would go to play a practical joke. Just the same, she thought, nobody had better volunteer me for Shock Treatment. Not if they know what’s good for them. She watched Debra leave, then withdrew back into the trailer. Over by the makeup table, Brass was on the phone to someone. “What? Did you remind him that we happen to be investigating a possible homicide?”
