Days pass, and while Allison has done a great job of holding off the cops thus far, it’s time for me to speak to them.
I haven’t even been able to tell Allison what happened, so speaking to them with her present feels daunting.
I’m still not sure what I’m going to say to them when I walk in beside Allison hours after getting ready to godowntown.
Our ride here was silent. Other than the random lawyery question she’d ask me, we let the radio fill the awkward silence.
Once inside, Allison does all the speaking until we’re sitting in a small room, a tape recorder in the middle of a drab, gray table, with a camera pointed at us.
Memories of what happened only days ago, before one of Koen’s cameras, rush through my mind. A wave of sadness I can’t comprehend yet follows, and I swallow thickly, my throat sliding.
The officer across from me narrows in on my every reaction, so I stiffen in my chair.
It feels as though I’m the one on trial whenI’mthe one who was kidnapped.
“State your name for the record,” the officer across from me says.
There’s one in the corner, lurking in the shadows of the room as if observing.
“Greer Allen,” I say after Allison’s foot slides over and prods me to answer.
“Thank you, Ms. Allen. I’m Detective Harold, and this is Agent Lasko from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. You’ve been missing for two weeks, correct?”
I bite the inside of my cheek.The FBI is involved?“I don’t honestly know how much time I was gone. He had my phone and belongings.”
Agent Lasko shifts, but remains steadfast, staring me down. His wool sweater over his collared shirt has to be itching the shit out of him, but he remains stoic.
“Tell me, Ms. Allen, did you go willingly with Mr. Grady?”
I do as Allison told me on the way in and think carefully about my answer. “I did.”
There are cameras inside Allison’s house that she put there. It hadn’t been hard for Koen to tap the feeds.
Thinking of him as someone with a name, when for so long I knew him asStalker, is odd. I didn’t have any time at all to get used to his name before I was thrust into the middle of a shitstorm.
“Can you explain why you went willingly?” Detective Harold asks, his hand fidgeting on a pen over a yellow legal pad.
“He threatened to harm Ms. Cheney if I didn’t comply.” This truth comes out easily, as I don’t think it’ll affect Koen’s case at all.
Not that I care.
Fuck, I don’t want to care.
He nods and scribbles something down.
“Then it stands to reason that Ms. Cheney is more than your lawyer, is that correct?”
I flick a look over to Allison, who already has her hand raised. “That’s not important to this case. Our relationship doesn’t interfere with my representation of Ms. Allen,” she snaps back.
Officer Harold sits straighter, gripping his pen tightly. “I’m sure it doesn’t. I was only asking.”
“I’m sure you were,” Allison grinds out.
Typically, I’d love to watch her go toe-to-toe with a man like Officer Harold, who exudes a pompous air, from his shined shoes to his tie that looks like it cuts off the oxygen to his brain. But now, after Koen, I’m confused and… preoccupied.
“Stick to things pertinent to your case,” Allison adds, crossing her arms and sitting back in her chair.
The pink silk shirt beneath her suit jacket is nearly as blinding as her grandmother’s pearls around her throat. She dressed to kill today.
