Harmony looked around the room, wondering if someone was watching her from the cameras in the corners and the one-way glass along the wall.She brushed an invisible piece of lint off her gray leggings and toyed with the hem of her teal shirt.She looked around again, finding absolutely nothing interesting about the drab gray walls and plain metal chair she sat in.
A minute later, the door opened and the man she met that morning walked in with a folder and a smile.“Nice to see you again, although not under these circumstances.”
“You, too,” Harmony said.Was she supposed to shake his hand?Hug the man?Pretend she was excited to be there?
“I know this is awkward, and I don’t intend for it to be.I just want to ask a few questions about your night.Find out what happened.In your own words.”
“Okay.”
Detective Murphy opened the file and scanned down the sheet in front of him.
Harmony resisted the urge to look at what was in his file and leaned back in her seat, eyes on his face.
“You met Ms.Mercer at Demeter, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“In the bathroom?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see her or speak to her before then?”
Harmony shook her head.“I definitely didn’t speak to her.If I saw her, it didn’t sink in.”
Detective Murphy’s brows tugged together.“What do you mean by that?”
“I don’t know if you’re trying to get me to say I didn’t see her and then you’re going to show me a video of me looking right at her or something.I don’t know.I don’t remember seeing the woman before the bathroom.”
Detective Murphy grinned.“I’m not trying to trick you.Who started the conversation in the bathroom?”
Harmony swallowed.“She did.”
“She walked in after you, correct?”
“Yes.I went to the bathroom, and I heard the door open when I was in the stall.When I walked out, the stall a few down from mine opened.She walked to the sink next to me and said I should be careful who I spend my time with.”
“Why did she say that?”Detective Murphy asked, making a note in the file.
“She said Damien isn’t who he says he is.She knew we’d only just met but kept running into each other.She knew he was flirting with me and asked me out, that he was trying to get to know me and asking questions about my past.She said he was trying to find my weaknesses to use against me.”
“And you believed her?”
Harmony shrugged.“I didn’t want to, but we don’t know each other that well, and it freaked me out that she said all that.She wasn’t wrong.She told me to watch my back.She knew my name.”
“She knew your name?”Detective Murphy asked, leaning forward and looking surprised by that tidbit.
Harmony nodded.“She said my name.”
“What else did she say?”
“That was it.She said I should watch my back, then she walked out of the bathroom.”
“Did you follow her?”
Harmony shook her head.“Not immediately.It threw me off.I was scared.Everything has been… Since that press conference, I feel like everyone wants something from me.Damien was the only one who didn’t, but I wondered if maybe that was his plan.Pretend he didn’t and catch me off-guard.That’s how con-artists work, right?”
Detective Murphy smothered a grin.
