Eleven
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE TABLE
I SAT AT a gunmetal gray table, under bright-seeming lights.
My body curled around the metal chair, hitting every uncomfortable dent and bump that made up the seat and back. The chair had been bolted into the floor within a few feet of the table... close enough that I could rest my cuffed wrists on the scratched surface.
It was the opposite side of that same table from where I’d been sitting only days before.
This time, it was me wearing handcuffs.
Unlike Black, I wasn’t chained to the floor, however. They’d left my ankles free.
Instead of someone like me sitting across the table, I found myself looking at Nick and Angel, the latter of whom looked uncomfortable and angry and borderline confused, although I couldn’t tell at what exactly. Either way, she refused to sit but instead stood by the one-way mirror set in the wall across from me, watching me with that confusion and anger and discomfort, almost like she didn’t know me at all, or doubted whether she did.
I honestly couldn’t tell if she was angry at me or Nick at that point though... or just the situation more generally.
“So you’re saying it wasn’t Black who had the gun on you?” Nick said.
It had to be the twentieth time he’d asked me that question.
He’d started before I even got out of the hospital.
I was familiar with the repetition game, of course. I’d watched Nick do it to plenty of other perps. I’d seen him do it in Afghanistan, too.
I was also familiar with the whole “informal interview” request to try and get something out a potential suspect before they lawyered up. Truthfully, if I’d had a real lawyer of my own, meaning someone whose card or phone number I had on hand, I probably wouldn’t have agreed to the interview at all, but as it was, I knew a public defender wouldn’t help me much and I hadn’t been able to get ahold of Ian when I used my one phone call.
So basically, I was killing time until Ian got my message and sent in the cavalry.
Assuming he still wanted to, that is... which might depend on if Nick had spoken to him already too, and what he might have told him.
So yeah, I wasn’t totally blind to what Nick was doing.
He didn’t have anything concrete on me yet, or they would have processed me for real and read me my rights.
I also knew the strategy behind his asking me the same thing over and over again, ad nauseum... but I wasn’t sure if he was even consciously employing that strategy yet.
Truthfully, it sounded mostly like he was just angry.
Either his acting chops had gotten a lot better in the last week or so, or he really was stuck in a kind of mental loop around me and Black. That same part of him seemed convinced that if he asked me the same question enough times, he might eventually get me to not only speak, but to give him the answer he wanted.
Or maybe just the answer he believed had to be true.
I was really tired of playing though.
“You know it wasn’t him,” I said, glaring at Nick before I looked at Angel, who avoided my stare, folding her muscular arms and leaning against the wall by the one-way window. “You know it wasn’t. You have to know that... you were there.”
Nick scowled, leaning over the table. “I know we can’t pin it on him, Miri. Not yet. Not without you. That’s not exactly the same thing.”
“So you don’t care if you actually catch the guy who set off the bomb... or who tried to kill me?” I didn’t flinch when he aimed a hard stare at me, and my voice stayed equally cold. “You just want to bring Black in for... what? Your dick issues? Your pride? Fuck the truth. Is that the kind of cop you are now, Nick?”
His eyes turned a considerably darker shade of brown.
“We know he was there, Miri,” he said through gritted teeth. “We know he was involved.”
“How?” I demanded. “How do you know that?”
“You mean apart from the fact that you practically told us as much? You said ‘man down,’ Miri. You said it... I fucking heard you!”
“So?” I said, throwing up my hands as much as I could in the cuffs. “Even if that were true... that would more or less point to the gunman not being Black, wouldn’t it?”
“What was he doing there, Miriam?” Nick snapped. “What were you doing there?”
I shook my head, staring down at the surface of the table.
Exhaling in frustration, I combed my fingers through my hair.
“You didn’t find anyone in that other exhibit hall. Did you, Nick?” I said.
But Nick went on as if I hadn’t spoken.
“...It would speed things up considerably if you would at least testify that you went there of your own volition. That Black went there with you. That you broke into the Legion of Honor together.” He clenched his jaw, hard enough to make the muscle in his cheek jut out. “Of course, it would help even more if you told us why, Miri. If you gave me some clue what the fuck you were doing there? What you meant to accomplish?”
“Don’t you have him in custody?” I said, leaning over the table towards Nick. “The man who tried to kill me... don’t you have him?” When I got nothing but silence from the two of them, I bit my lip, glancing at Angel before I looked back at Nick. “How could he have possibly gotten away? There was no way out of that lower structure... none. He set off a fucking bomb, Nick. You had like twenty officers there. Are you really saying––”
“You saw him do that?” Nick shot back. “You saw your so-called ‘masked man’ set off the bomb in the courtyard?”
“Do you have him in custody or not, Nick?” I demanded.
No one had given me a real answer on that, either.
Maybe, like Nick, some part of me wanted to keep asking it until they told me what the hell happened. I still had gotten almost zero information about what transpired between the time that masked man hit me in the head with the butt of my own gun and when I woke up in the hospital, gasping in pain as a nurse cleaned and disinfected my leg.
Not long after that, an intern had come in to stitch up the cut and bandage it.
The end product still throbbed dully, even after I washed down a few Vicodin. Moreover, I felt strangely vulnerable because of the injury, and maybe from being high on the painkillers now, too. I was also so tired it took work to make coherent sentences.
The bandage itself made a bulky lump on my leg, large enough that I now wore men’s dark blue sweat pants, given to me by Angel out of the police locker room’s lost and found. All they’d had at the hospital were scrubs, so Nick had Angel bring them for me, presumably so he could drag me down to the station.
Still, I guess I could blame myself for that, too. After all, I’d given them permission to move me from the hospital.
Stupid me, I’d thought I was actually going to be sent home.
One more reason being high on drugs right then made me nervous.
I knew Nick was taking advantage of that fact, which angered me, too.
“I need a lawyer,” I said, rubbing my face. “I can’t do this right now, Nick.”
“Just a few more questions.”
“Not until you answer some of mine,” I snapped, dropping my hands and looking up at him. “How did he get away, Nick? How is that even possible?”
He and Angel looked at one another.
I bit my lip, fighting harder than maybe I ever had in my life to keep my promise to myself not to use my psychic abilities on either of my friends. I already knew I might have to break that promise, given the current situation. That is, if I was going to get out of this without doing prison time. Wincing at the thought, I felt my heart beat harder as something else occurred to me.
“Where’s Ian?” I said. “Is he here? Are you keeping him from me?”
The silence deepened.
In it, Angel and Nick again exchanged looks.
Then Nick gave me an incredulous stare. “Ian’s in Bangkok, Miri.”
“What?” I stared at him. Then, biting my lip, I shook my head. “No, Nick. He’s not. I told you that already. Hell, he told you that... or I think he did...”
I trailed, my frown deepening.
Remembering Ian’s words to me earlier that night––or really, the day before, since it had to be well into Thursday by now––I fought to think through the haze of painkillers. Combing my fingers through my hair, I winced at knots and tangles, smelling smoke on my fingers once I’d finished. I looked between them.
Finally, I just shook my head. “Ian’s back. I told you that. He’s been back for hours... at least twelve by now. I thought you talked to him?”
Nick continued to stare at me, his expression suggesting he thought maybe I was in shock, or suffering from some other kind of mental breakdown.
“I did speak to him. In Bangkok. It’s a twenty hour flight, Miri. Minimum.”
“Didn’t he tell you he was getting on a plane?” I said, ignoring his blank stare. “He told you he was coming back early, right? I saw him last night... at the Cliff House.”
At their silence, I looked between the two of them again.
“Miri,” Nick said, shaking his head. “You need to walk us through this. From the beginning.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t. I need to talk to a lawyer, Nick. And you know it. Which means I probably need to talk to Ian... before I talk to you. So if he’s here––”
“Miri, he’s not in the fucking country!”
“The hell he isn’t! I saw him tonight...” At Nick’s stare, I corrected my words. “...Last night. I saw him last night. At the Cliff House. Like I said.”
Again, Nick and Angel exchanged looks. That time, Angel shrugged. I could tell from the look on her face that she thought I’d cracked too.
My mind fought through the haze of Vicodin.
“What did you talk to him about?” I said. Looking up, I met Nick’s gaze, realizing only then I hadn’t included him in my entire thought process. “Ian,” I clarified. “What did you tell him, when you talked? Did you tell him about Black?”
“Did I tell him about Black?” Nick leaned back, placing his hands on the metal table as his eyebrows rose. “Jesus, Miri. Why the hell do you think I called him? Of course I told him about Black. I felt like shit about it, actually... it scared the hell out of him.”
“But did you tell him about him, Nick?” I said, my voice more insistent. “Did you tell him his name? Anything about who he was?”
“Of course I did! I wanted Ian to run a background check on the asshole. I gave him everything I had, Miri. Mug shots. Claimed name and address. Everything we got on his P.I. shop. The small amount I got on his military record. Fingerprints––”
“And when was that?” I cut in. “When did you talk to him, Nick? The first time?”
Again, Nick glanced at Angel.
Angel didn’t return his look that time. Instead she continued to stare at me, her lips pursed as she seemed to be trying to read behind my expression. Unable to get her attention silently, Nick turned his focus back on me.
“This is important right now... why?” he said.
I swallowed, fighting to think through everything he’d just told me.
Ian. Ian knew who Black was when he met him.
He’d lied to me.
Suddenly, I felt a lot less confident that Ian was going to walk through that door. I also felt a lot less confident that I’d have a lawyer to look out for me anytime soon.
I was on my own.
My mind tilted, flashing me back to being inside a police station not unlike this one, describing to a different detective––an older African-American man with kind eyes, gray, tightly-cropped hair and a patient voice––what I knew about my sister’s personal life.
That had been the night I came home and found police waiting for me.
The night I found out my sister had been killed.
“I don’t think I’m going to answer any more questions,” I said, looking up from where I’d been staring at my hands splayed on the metal table. It didn’t really occur to me until I looked away that I’d been focused on my engagement ring, staring at it without seeing it. “This interview is over. Not another word until I speak to a lawyer.”
“Miri,” Nick began, frustrated.
I looked up, meeting his gaze. “I mean it, Nick. No more.”
I wasn’t even angry. I’d just... shut off.
“Miri,” Nick began, his voice holding more concern that time. “Miri, be reasonable. I’m pissed off at you, yes. But I do see you as a victim in this. I think Black dragged you into this somehow, and I want to know why. I want to know how you know him, what you feel you owe him... whatever it is that he’s got over you. It’s not you we’re after, Miri. I want Black. Do you understand? I’m trying to help you––”
He didn’t get any further though.
The door opened with a bang.
Jumping, I turned, startled but already feeling a flush of relief.
Nick wouldn’t interrupt an interview in process, so that meant someone else had done it. In the few seconds before my mind wrapped around the person standing there, I was sure it was Ian, that he’d come for me after all.
But the face of the woman standing there wasn’t one I knew.
She exuded competence, however... and confidence. African-American, perfectly coiffed and maybe in her mid-forties, she carried a dark brown leather briefcase in both hands, had a fit, athletic body clad in a charcoal designer suit, and looked at me with an utterly clinical expression on her face. Her shoes looked Italian. Her hair had been sleeked back in a perfect bun. She wore light make-up and dark brown lipstick.
She couldn’t have screamed “lawyer” more if she’d been wearing a sandwich board proclaiming herself as such.
Before she even opened her mouth, I knew Ian hadn’t sent her.
I don’t know how I knew, I just did.
“Ms. Fox?” she said to me, her voice melodic, perfectly professional.
I glanced at Nick, then back at her. “Yes?” I said.
She held out a hand, smiling at me. “I’m Victoria White. I’m your lawyer.”
“My lawyer?” I glanced at Nick again, and from the scowl on his face, I could tell he recognized the women from somewhere. I was about to turn, to speak to her again, when the door opened behind her.
That time, I recognized the man who walked in the room.
Bad toupee and all.
“Farraday,” I murmured.
I looked at Nick, whose scowl had just deepened even more. Now at least I knew why. I felt my heart stutter briefly in my chest as I tried to make sense of the information standing in front of me, putting the pieces together even as I doubted the obvious conclusion.
Then another person entered the room.
He also, wore a suit.
I almost didn’t recognize him, maybe for that reason alone. Then I looked at his face, and those gold eyes bored into mine, holding so much feeling that I flinched.
It was Quentin Black.
And he looked furious as hell.
HE FINISHED LOOKING at me, his eyes showing a flicker of relief after they’d slid down me, as if he’d been unsure if I was even alive.
I found myself looking at him, too, noticing the bruise on the side of his face, abrasions on his neck and forehead, along with a smattering of smaller cuts that must be from the glass raining down on us from that skylight. He looked more or less intact though, and a profound relief at discovering him not dead washed through me, nearly bringing tears to my eyes.
I blamed the Vicodin for that, too.
A faint smile touched his lips, almost like he heard me.
Then he turned his head, glowering at Nick with an anger I could actually feel, even from a few yards away.
“You’re letting her go,” he said, his voice an open threat. “Now, Tanaka.”
Nick glared at him like he was the antichrist. “The hell I am. I should arrest you right now.”
“On what charges?” Black shot back, even as Farraday held up a hand, as if to warn him to remain silent.
“How about blowing up a museum, for one?” Nick snapped.
Black let out a derisive snort.
Nick’s eyes narrowed. “You want to tell us how you injured yourself in the last twenty-four hours, Mr. Black?” he said, staring pointedly at Black’s bruised and cut hands.
Black looked about to speak, but that time, Farraday and his bad toupee stepped between the two of them, gripping his own briefcase even as he put up his other hand in a stop gesture aimed at Nick. The woman who’d introduced herself as Victoria White also moved deeper into the room, standing right next to me, in an unmistakably protective gesture.
“Do you intend to charge my client with something?” Farraday demanded.
Nick let out a disbelieving laugh, glaring at me. That time, the look in his eyes verged on disbelief, mixed with a betrayal that stood out on the surface.
“Which one?” he said coldly.
Victoria White set her briefcase down on the table next to me, now practically looming over where I sat. “Personally, I would primarily like to hear any charges you have against Ms. Fox, Inspector Tanaka. Although I do confess to some interest around any related charges levied against Mr. Black, assuming we should be taking your posturing towards him seriously right now.” Her voice was clipped, but polite. “To answer your question, however, Ms. Fox is my client, technically speaking, as Mr. Black has retained me to look out for her well-being specifically. Therefore, I can only assume Mr. Farraday meant Mr. Black.”
Nick glared at her, his expression openly hostile.
That time, it was Angel who intervened.
Stepping away from her position by the wall, she approached the group now clustered between me and the door. She held up a hand too, right before she addressed Victoria White.
“She’s a witness to a possible terrorism case,” Angel said, enunciating slowly, as if explaining something to someone incredibly slow-witted. “You can’t possibly be questioning our motives in taking a statement from her?” Angel’s voice grew a touch more bite. “...Or think we’ll be the only ones to want to talk to her?”
“Not your motives, perhaps,” Victoria White said, her eyes holding a denser meaning. “But your right? Most certainly.”
Angel’s lips pursed.
Victoria White didn’t give her a chance to speak.
“...I would like a list of any agencies wishing to speak to my client, as well as the reasons. Before that, I insist on information relating to any charges filed by your department.”
Angel let out a disbelieving laugh. “How about Homeland Security for one? The F.B.I.? How about––”
“I would like those requests in writing.”
Victoria White’s expression didn’t waver, but her voice hardened audibly.
“...A list of agencies wishing to speak to my client, as well as reasons and any charges filed is a bare minimum requirement for me to discuss when and if you may continue to speak to my client. You certainly can no longer do so when she’s under the influence of heavy narcotics and probably in shock from a near-death encounter with a suspected serial killer...” Her voice verged on openly angry when she added, “Without sufficient cause and/or charges filed, I insist that you allow my client to come in for interviews after she’s had a chance to recover from this harrowing ordeal. Preferably after she’s been seen by at least one mental health professional and counseled around the obvious emotional distress this must have caused her...”
Her voice grew lower, even as she placed her hands on the table.
“I would also caution you to take extreme care in terms of charging my client at this time, detectives... before your department has definitively ascertained her exact role in this tragedy. If I were you, and I valued my job, I would make sure that the evidence was pretty damned close to unassailable in this case. After all, Ms. Fox fits the exact profile for the murder victims of this alleged serial killer...”
The silence deepened.
I saw Angel look at Nick. That time, even on drugs and despite their expressionless faces, I found myself understanding the glance that passed between them.
“Do you have any evidence of wrongdoing by my client?” Victoria White’s voice still held that harder edge.
I glanced at Farraday, who was smirking at Nick, and then at Black, who was watching Nick with an openly furious expression on his face.
“You mean apart from finding her wearing body armor in the middle of a break-in at the site of a bomb attack?” Nick said, returning Black’s look with a murderous glare of his own.
“My client was found with absolutely no weapons on her person.”
“She was wearing holsters,” Angel said, her voice incredulous.
“...Which are not weapons,” Victoria White returned at once. She waited a beat. “Am I to understand you’re charging my client? If so, I would like to know what she is being charged with... and on what grounds? Again, tread lightly here, detectives... my firm is quite comfortable pursuing a civil suit if we feel any impropriety occurred that resulted in the unfair targeting of my client... particularly given our feeling that she is very much the victim here.”
Another silence fell.
Glancing around at faces, I had a sudden, wholly inappropriate desire to laugh. I wanted to blame the Vicodin for this sudden flush of humor, but I found myself envisioning a tumbleweed blowing through the middle of the room, like a standoff at the OK Corral.
I looked at Black. That time, I found his eyes fixed on me.
I couldn’t help noticing he looked pretty damned good in a suit, too.
The suit was black, of course, and had to be tailored to fit him that well, given his height and how broad his shoulders were. He wore a dark blue shirt under the mandarin collar jacket and no tie. I found myself looking him over for too long––again, I blamed the Vicodin––before I felt him noticing my stare and looked away.
When I did, I caught Nick’s furious scowl at me and realized he’d watched me look at Black, too.
“When did you last talk to Ian?” I asked him compulsively.
Victoria White touched my arm, gently but insistently. “Please don’t speak right now, Ms. Fox. They are going to do this right... or they’re not doing it at all.”
When I looked back towards Nick, I could already see on his face what was going to happen here. Whatever circumstantial evidence they had on me, they weren’t going to risk holding me for it, not even with Homeland Security breathing down their necks.
“She’s free to go of course,” Nick said, still staring at me as he said it. His eyes glided up, taking in Victoria White. “We’d only hoped for her help at this point... you know, to catch a killer.” He shifted the direction of his glare, aiming it at Black. “...One we know will kill again. Probably soon, unless we stop them. One who targets women like Ms. Fox, as you yourself pointed out. I’m sure you can understand our urgency in this.”
“Of course,” Victoria White said crisply.
She managed to convey pure professionalism and utter disdain in the same breath.
“But our main concern is for the well-being of our client, detective,” she said. “Which I’m sure you can understand as well. So unless you are charging her this morning... I am taking her out of here. You can arrange times for interviews for her through my office.”
She deliberately placed a pristine white business card on the table. The raised black letters faced Nick as she slid it towards him with two fingers.
Then she laid a hand on my shoulder.
Once more, her touch exuded protectiveness.
I knew it was her job to seem to be on my side, whatever her personal feelings. Even so, I found myself relaxing into the protective shield I felt from her that time. As I did, I realized again how exhausted I was, and then I was fighting a flush of gratitude so intense that it nearly brought tears to my eyes.
“We’re leaving, Ms. Fox,” she murmured to me gently, squeezing my shoulder. She looked at Nick. “Handcuffs, Mr. Tanaka?”
I just sat there, stunned, as Nick leaned over the table.
He didn’t look at me as he used his key to unlock the handcuffs on my wrists.
Once he’d finished and the cuffs disappeared into one of his pockets, I just rubbed my wrists, not moving from the chair.
Then it hit me again that Nick and Angel really weren’t going to try and stop me.
I rose shakily to my feet. Somehow, in all of that back and forth, I’d forgotten about my hurt leg. It crumpled under me as soon as I put weight on it, and I reached out, grabbing hold of the back of my chair and the table to catch my fall. Before my weight rested on either of my hands fully, Black was behind me, gripping my arms in both of his hands.
He held me up easily, pulling my back up against him.
He glared down at Nick.
“She never should have left the hospital,” he growled, his voice furious. “I never thought her friends would let anyone take her out of there in that condition... much less in order to handcuff her and grill her like a common criminal when she’s loaded to the fucking gills on painkillers...” Pausing a beat as he continued to glower at Nick, he added more darkly, “You’re never speaking to her in an official capacity again, if I have any say in it... not without a lawyer. And I will sue this department into the stone ages if you pull anything like this again...”
“Mr. Black,” Farraday spoke up, his voice warning.
I felt Black wanting to say more.
He was breathing harder, even as he fell silent.
His emotions crashed around me as he did, shocking me a little.
It hit me that this wasn’t just an act, or even posturing to get at Nick. Black was furious––so angry he was having trouble controlling himself. Now that he was standing so close, gripping my arms in both of his hands, that anger practically bled through the pads of his fingers and the palms of his hands into my skin. That anger felt aimed almost solely at Nick.
He saw what Nick had done to me, bringing me down here, drugged and in shock and injured, as the worst kind of betrayal imaginable.
When I glanced at Nick himself, I saw a scowl touch his face.
Glancing at me, he leaned back, folding his arms.
Nick’s expression remained closed, stone-faced as he looked away, focusing on the floor. Still, I saw something different there for the first time.
Something that looked a lot like guilt.
Then again, maybe I just wanted to see it.
BLACK CONTINUED TO support me, holding my arms in his hands as they led me out of the police station. He didn’t speak to me again until we reached the street.
“You’re staying with me tonight,” he said, blunt.
I looked up, but I couldn’t really see him from where he stood behind me.
“What?” I said, confused. “No. No... I just want to go home.”
“You can’t go home,” he growled, gripping me tighter in his hands.
I watched a stretch limousine pull up to the curb next to us.
It occurred to me only then that Black and I now stood on the sidewalk alone. Farraday and Victoria White had walked away as soon as we hit the open air outside the station. When I craned my head and neck around, looking for them, I saw them walking and talking as they made their way up McAllister Street, presumably to return to their own cars.
The sky was lightening. When the realization hit me, I looked around with a dull surprise. I couldn’t decide if I was surprised the night was over, or that it hadn’t been over hours ago. It was still pre-dawn, but the sun was definitely on its way up.
I wasn’t sure I had the energy to argue with Black.
“Good,” he said.
“Why can’t I go home?”
“It’s not safe. And I’m not letting you go, Miriam, so drop it. It’s my place or a hotel under armed guard... my people. Take your pick.”
Nodding numbly, I didn’t argue.
My mind started to turn over what Nick told me about Ian. I shoved that from my mind as well. I couldn’t think about that now. I would think about that after I’d slept.
A chauffeur had gotten out of the driver’s side of the limousine by then, and walked around to where we stood. Tipping his cap at the two of us, he gave me a concerned-seeming smile, right after he gave a much more deferential look to Black himself.
Then he was opening the back car door.
“Well?” Black said. “Where am I taking you, doc?”
I only exhaled, shrugging. “Wherever.”
Letting out a relieved-sounding sigh, Black immediately began to steer me towards the open car door. I let him bring me inside, leaning on his proffered arm before I got in and pulled my hurt leg onto the white leather seat behind the rest of me. I found myself strangely relieved that I didn’t have to explain more. I only sat there, my head leaned against the leather headrest, as Black walked around the back end of the car, not waiting for the driver but opening the door himself. He slid onto the back seat next to me.
“Take us home,” he told the driver.
“Very good, sir.”
I fell asleep before we even got there.
I had a vague memory of Black waking me when we arrived.
I had an even vaguer memory of being carried into an elevator... and then, after a blank-feeling pause, through a door I only vaguely recognized.
Not long after that, everything went blissfully dark once more.
That time, it stayed dark for a long time.