Over the years Lien-hua had seen some terrible, unthinkable things.
And she’d always kept her cool, kept her wits about her. But today she wasn’t sure she’d be able to.
Ever since hearing about the DVDs, she’d been thinking about the accident no one in her family ever spoke of.
Bruised innocence.
Stay focused, Lien-hua. Don’t get distracted.
The arrangement would never be the same again.
She paused, leaned against the wall just around the corner from the interrogation room, and tried to pull herself together.
Why couldn’t Pat just stop trying to protect her?
OK. Fine. It was flattering, but it was starting to tip her perspective, cloud her objectivity. She needed to focus and not let her feelings for him distract her.
I don’t need protecting. I can do this on my own.
She took a moment to slide Pat out of her mind and order her thoughts, then walked around the corner and motioned to the two officers stationed outside the interrogation room.
They unlocked the door, and she stepped inside.
I threw open the door to the observation room.
Maybe I was angry at Lien-hua, maybe at Tessa, maybe at myself. I couldn’t tell. I just knew I never should have let myself have feelings for Lien-hua. That was the problem. It made it harder to be objective. Harder to step back and see things clearly.
Detective Dunn was already seated at the table, facing the two-way mirror, musing over a pile of notes and file folders. I wasn’t in any mood to talk to him, so instead, I stared at Creighton Melice through the glass. Lien-hua had just entered the room, and Melice was eyeing her coolly. His obsidian eyes tracking her every step. I could see him, but he couldn’t see me.
Everyone knows the bit with the two-way mirrors-that the big mirror on the wall is really a window for law enforcement personnel, but still, it’s surprisingly effective for getting suspects to talk.
People tend to forget that others are watching them when they’re busy watching themselves.
Melice was seated, his ankles shackled together, his wrists cuffed and attached to the table by a short chain.
A collection of maps with crime scene photos hung on the wall to Lien-hua’s left. She took a chair from the corner of the room and dragged it to the table so that she could sit facing Melice.
Detective Dunn stood abruptly, walked to the two-way mirror.
“I need to tell you I’m not comfortable with this.”
“Agent Jiang can take care of herself.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Oh.” I walked to him. Leaned my arm against the glass. “What exactly do you mean?”
He glared at me. “She’s a woman.”
Oh, man. He was pushing things too far. Way too far. “Yes, she is, Detective. And you better be careful what your next few words are. That’s a friendly warning because I’m a nice guy, but I do have my limits. Now, please. Go on.”
He gestured toward the interrogation room. “This guy, Melice, he manipulates women. Seduces them, tortures them, kills them.
He’ll feel more powerful, more in control, with her in there. I don’t want him toying with her.”
“You don’t know Agent Jiang.”
“You’re right,” he said. “I don’t. And that’s what I’m worried about.”
Lien-hua took her seat on the other side of the glass, pulled out her notepad, and started the interrogation.