That morning, before Lex’s arrest. When he took me out for breakfast to make up for the pancakes he messed up by adding too much baking powder. He wanted to make them extra fluffy, just for me. I smile softly at the memory of that morning. That’s the last time life felt real.
I never got to teach him how to make fluffy pancakes like I said I would. And I refuse to live in a world where I don’t get to fulfill that promise.
I take out the prepaid phone and dial the number I’ve learned by heart. It only rings for half a tone before connecting me to the line I created for Iris.
“Hello, Andrea,” she greets me with her electronic voice. “Is this your signal?”
“Twenty-three minutes. You wait twenty-three minutes, and then you unleash hell.”
“Will do.”
I hang up and immediately break the phone in half, flipping it the wrong way. I then remove the battery and take out the chip. I then lodge it between my molars and bite down to destroy it. This should be enough, but I’ll burn it all as soon as I’m out.
The rest seems like what I imagine an out-of-body experience to be. I exit the car with my bag, lock it, and walk up to the entrance. I smile and nod when I pass agents, all the way to the front desk. Then, I introduce myself and explain who I’m here to see. When I’m told to go sit in a chair and wait, I comply.
I’m in the enemy’s den now, and there’s no going back. My nervousness leaves no room for other emotions. I’m not scared, worried, reluctant, regretful, indecisive… I’m all nerves and determination. Iris knows what she has to do. No going back. In seventeen minutes, my world will change forever.
Hopefully for the best. Possibly for the worst.
Only time will tell.
“Miss Walker?” a feminine voice asks to my left. I turn toward it, finding a woman in a light-gray pantsuit, which contrasts well with the darkness of her skin. Her hair is buzz-cut so short it almost looks shaven. I’d guess she’s somewhere in her forties, but her skin barely shows any sign of age, especially with that slender and athletic silhouette. As she comes closer to me, I note the assertiveness of her walk and the confidence of her posture.
“I’m Special Agent Lewis. We spoke on the phone earlier this week.”
“Yes, of course.” I take the hand she extends and shake it.
“Thank you for coming all the way here, Miss Walker.”
“Of course.”
“If you’ll follow me, my partner and I have a few questions prepared for you.”
She’s a lot friendlier than I expected her to be. But then, she’s probably trained to incite trust in the people she interrogates. Everything in her attitude tells me she’s a seasoned agent. Surely, a woman with her experience is used to prying information out of people. She’s the one who realized I needed to be interrogated when her colleagues had deemed it unnecessary. She knows what she’s doing, and I can’t lose sight of that.
We reach our destination, and she opens the door for me. It looks more like a conference room than an interrogation one. This would probably work on me if I didn’t realize this is to make me let my guard down.
A man in his late fifties is already here. He has an enormous mustache that must be to divert the eye from the balding situation—or compensate for it. There’s also a camera on a tripod, ready to film the whole thing. A shiver crawls up my back. If they tape this, I have to deliver an Oscar-worthy performance.
“Miss Walker, this is Special Agent Powell,” Lewis introduces. I shake the man’s hand, eyes drawn to the over-the-top facial hair.
I refuse the water she offers, and we sit down, with them in front of me. Powell turns on the camera and states the date, time, and place. There it is. My irrefutable alibi.
“Thank you again for coming, Miss Walker,” Special Agent Lewis says.
“No problem. Like I told you on the phone, I’m surprised we’re doing this so late in the investigation.”
“From the transcript I’ve read, Mr. Coleman presented you as an employee he was casually seeing, which led my colleagues to think you weren’t a person of interest in this matter. But since you have moved into his apartment, and are one of the two people on his list in the state penitentiary, I believe you’re more than that, aren’t you, Miss Walker?”
So, they do listen to our phone calls… There’s no point in denying it, and I’ve learned that the best way to lie is to stick as close to the truth as possible, which is why I say, “I mean… I’d like to think we’re more than that. But I mainly moved to his place because my roommate’s boyfriend was at our place all the time, and I was kind of done listening to them bang.”
I do this the entire interview. I downplay my relationship with Lex as much as I can, keeping in mind she’s heard our conversations. When I can, I try to pass as a little vapid and materialistic. Anything to make her think I’d never go to extreme lengths for him. It’s all very basic, and I’m almost offended they’d make me come all this way for answers they can find in the HR logs at Kelex.
It’s clear that Lewis is the one in charge of the interrogation, as Mustachio barely speaks, sitting there with his arms folded in front of him. The few times he opens his mouth are usually to ask something hardly relevant, and I can’t help but notice it annoys his very efficient partner.
Time passes, and I lose track of it. But it’s better that way. Not knowing what’s going on right now with the heist allows me to remain in denial. Maybe it hasn’t happened yet, or maybe it did, and it all went well. The moment it’s done, the Nammota website will come to life again, nearly five years after Lex shut it down. On it, the manifesto that comes with the heist, like he used to do, and the twenty-five names that were given some much-needed karmic retribution.
“Okay, Miss Walker, now I’d like to talk about Mr. Bianchi. Katherine Knox’s ex-boyfriend. I saw from the court transcripts that you didn’t remember well the events that involved him. Would you mind if we tried going over that timeline again, to see if anything comes back to you?”
