He set his cell phone on the table in front of him. “Do you mind if I tape this?”
“Yes.”
The sharp slap of Hanna’s voice made me smile. She intended to get answers. Gabe didn’t know that yet, but he’d figure it out.
“Ah.” Gabe lifted a small notebook out of his bag. His hand lingered inside until it came out with a pen.
Hanna nodded at his bag. “Put the second recorder on the table. Turned off.”
I doubted she cared if he taped our discussion or not. This was a power play. Her letting him know she controlled the room and the topic.
After some hesitation, he placed a small tape recorder next to his phone. “It wasn’t turned on.”
“Sure.”
Hanna’s eye rolls rivaled my mom’s.
Gabe scanned his first page of notes. “I have a few questions to start. Background and—”
“Who are you?” I’d told the ladies about Lukas’s findings, so I led with that. About Gabe being someone other than Gabe until recently. “Not the fake identity. Your real one.”
Gabe frowned. “Excuse me?”
“Let’s make this easy.” Hanna sat on the table right in front of Gabe, facing him. “This is us asking a few questions to see if you can be trusted with an interview.”
“A test?” Gabe shifted the pillows piled behind him. Slid over a few inches on the cushions. Treated us to more than a few “uh” responses before settling down again.
“The Tanner story is too personal for us to blurt out what we know. This is about building a rapport, and by that I mean we need to trust you. We don’t currently. You have one shot to change that.” When he started to ramble about his qualifications, Hanna talked over him. “We know your real name isn’t Gabe. We know you’re tied to Aubrey. You came to town with her.”
The last two were guesses. But we knew what we saw in the Tanner house. Gabe in the window. Not Jeremy. He wouldn’t have run. He wouldn’t have had a reason even if seeing Hanna there panicked him. Gabe had a reason. We just needed to know what it was.
He shook his head. “I think we’ve gotten confused.”
“You’re staying at her run-down family home.” Marni picked that moment to talk. She kept it brief, which gave the comment more punch.
“That’s not... No.” Gabe shook his head. “I’m staying at a place in Tarrytown.”
Marni didn’t let the answer slide. “Where?”
Gabe pressed back tighter into the couch cushions. “I’m here about a story.”
For Aubrey’s sidekick, Gabe lacked her killer instinct. Wasn’t great at lying either.
“Is this the choice you want to make?” I leaned forward in my chair.
This is the point where I’d normally bring up my position in the courthouse. Mention Lukas and his job. The performative posturing tasted sour in my mouth. It smacked of being a Xavier move. The sort of thing Victoria would say. Their names openeddoors and closed mouths, and I’d relied on that power for so long. Now the exercise rang hollow. The implied threats sounded like nonsense in my head.
“We need to know if this is really about a story or if you’re hunting for gossip. Or, worse, if you’re working for Aubrey.” I spelled the concern out as clearly as I could.
“This is about the Tanners. She’s one of them.” Gabe’s gaze bounced from one of us to the next.
“Oh, Gabe.” I waded into my usual role no matter how uncomfortably it fit today. “You’re not helping yourself. We want to trust you.”
Hanna hadn’t moved. She sat there, forcing Gabe to pay attention to her. “Have you been inside the Tanner house? Patrick and Victoria’s?”
“I’ve been in it.” The words came out choppy, as if he thought about each one as he said it. “It’s not in any condition for guests.”
He wasn’t wrong about that. “Were you there the other day when we showed up?”
