As Xeno opened the door, Haiden visibly relaxed. They had talked little since Saturday, and there was a slight air of awkwardness between the two. "Hey, are you ready?" He grinned, though there was a hint of anxiety in his expression.
"As ready as I'll ever be." Xeno grimaced.
"Hey, it's okay." Haiden said, looking at him. "It'll all be over soon, yeah?"
"Yeah." He replied, mentally bracing himself.
"I've checked the schedules; she should be free super soon if you wanted to go to her today?" He was clearly desperate to get this done. Why shouldn't he be? The sooner it was done, the sooner Steve would be brought to justice.
"I'd like that. It'll be like ripping off a plaster, right?"
"Right."
Haiden glanced at the clock. "We'd better get going then. She gets off in five minutes, and I'd assume we want to catch her early into her break."
"Before we do anything, can we please make sure we give her a fair trial? Like we did with Aruda and Crossley. I don't want to throw around a completely random accusation, so we shouldn't tell her we've narrowed it down to her. Let's treat it like we've got a couple of other suspects."
Haiden looked at him, a little confused, but replied, "Sure. That makes sense, I guess. I wouldn't wanna scare her."
As the pair started walking to her office, trepidation was building inside Xeno. It was like slowly going up on a roller coaster, just waiting for the big drop. He really hated roller coasters.
When they finally reached her office, he noticed that Haiden was looking around furtively. He was clearly nervous too. "Hey, are you okay?" Xeno asked, concerned. "I thought you were excited to have this over with. I can handle the talking, if you want."
Haiden shook his head. "Everyone's looking at me. It's like they're expecting me to do something wrong. I don't like it. I don't even know most of them."
Xeno thought for a second. "Once we solve this, things can go back to normal. Ms. Pepper won't cut our departments, and the sabotages will have stopped."
"Yeah.. normal." Haiden looked away for a moment before steeling his resolve and looking towards the door. "It's now or never." He said.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE:
"Come in." Sounded Carmazan's voice through the door. Despite her age, she was intimidating as she was cryptic.
As the pair of them entered, Carmazan looked up. Xeno noticed that her office was in a similar state to how his usually was, in that it was slightly messy. It was clear she had been at the museum for a while. The carpet on the ground looked ancient, and dust was collecting at the tops of cupboards that he presumed she couldn't see due to her relatively short stature.
"What did you want?" She asked, eyeing them suspiciously.
He heard Haiden gulp before he said, "We just wanted to ask you some questions."
Her gaze didn't divert. "What kind of questions? Xeno, is this about your training? I know we haven't talked in a while, but given the recent state of affairs, I thought that you'd be more understanding."
Haiden walked towards her desk, closing the door behind them. "We're trying to figure something out." He hesitated, clearly measuring his words in his head. "Where were you before the last work party started?"
"Are you serious?" Her pen fell out of her hand, clattering to the ground. "I know what you're implying." She was immediately defensive, though he didn't know if that was just her personality or if it indicated her guilt.
"Please, just answer the question." Xeno cut in, sounding more confident than he felt. Truth be told, he feared Dr. Carmazan. Though not an intimidating woman by looks, you never knewquite where you stood with her. As the saying goes, she kept her friends close and her enemies closer.
Her expression of shock hadn't left her face. "Well, I'll have you know that I was writing something up. I was right here, sitting in this very seat in my office. After work ended, I was right here, where I stayed until the party. I was revising what I'd written."
"Do you have any proof?" Asked Haiden untactfully.
"No, I don't have any proof!" she exclaimed. He winced. Despite her intimidating nature, it was rare to hear the woman raise her voice. "I'm innocent until proven guilty. And if there's no proof, then I'm not guilty!" The walls seemed to shake with her voice. She stared at both of them, clearly furious. Suddenly, Xeno had a thought.
"What did you write? And what was it on?"
"I wrote on my computer, in a Word document, why?" Her emotions seemed more reined in, but that was almost more terrifying.
"Can I check when you saved it?" Xeno asked. "If you're innocent, then it should say you'd saved it just before the party, and we can look at the revision history."
