I folded my hands on the table, the wrist that had been cuffed still carrying a red ring. I made sure both agents could see it. “Am I under arrest?”
“Not at this time.”
“Am I free to leave?”
“Given the circumstances, we’d strongly encourage you to stay and talk with us.” Harwood opened the folder. Inside was a stack of documents, photographs, and what looked like printouts of surveillance footage.
Agent Davis uncrossed and recrossed her legs. “Let’s start simple. When you were admitted to the hospital in Albuquerque, you were listed as having sustained injuries consistent with a fall during a hiking trip. You were brought in by an unidentified male. Twelve hours after being brought out of a medically induced coma, you tore out your IV, broke a window restrictor, and climbed out of a second-story hospital room via a tree.”
She paused, as if waiting for me to interject. I didn’t.
“Your friend Mark Alvarez was recently found dead, you are the last known person to have contact with him, and your sudden departure from the hospital obviously raised some questions.”
“Understandably.”
“But then things get even more interesting.” Harwood pulled a photograph from the folder and slid it across the table. It showed the parking lot of the Turquoise Sands motel, taken from what appeared to be a security camera mounted on the building’s exterior. A figure was visible in the frame, grainy but identifiable.
It was me, checking in.
“We have you on camera at this motel. We also have a blood trail leading from a first-floor room with a shattered window. The room was, to put it mildly, destroyed. Blood on the carpet, on the walls, significant property damage.” He slid anotherphoto across, this one of the motel room aftermath. Even in the flat, clinical framing of an evidence photograph, it looked like a bar fight had taken place. “The blood isn’t all one type. Some matches yours. Some doesn’t match anything in any database we have access to.”
I kept my expression neutral. If someone was going to be the first to bring up all the paranormal shit that had barged in on my perfectly normal life, it wasn’t going to be me.
“You have visible injuries.” Davis nodded toward my forearm, where the gauze had been replaced by the female agent who’d driven me here. “And we found you handcuffed to a bed in a private safe house that you accessed with the assistance of a federal park ranger.”
“There are explanations for all of that,” I said.
“We’d love to hear them.” Harwood leaned back in his chair. “Who hired you, Miss Gregory?”
I blinked. “Hired me to do what?”
“Mark Alvarez was killed. Someone must have wanted him dead. Probably the same person who cuffed you to that bed. Who was it? The ranger? Someone she works with?”
“Nobody hired me. Mark was my friend.”
“Then why did someone want him dead?” Davis’s voice was clipped, efficient. “And did they eventually turn on you, or was it the ranger or someone else who handcuffed you?”
I stared at them both.
They thought I was a contract killer. Or at minimum, an accomplice to one. They’d constructed a narrative from theavailable evidence that cast me as a young woman who had gotten in over her head with dangerous people, participated in or facilitated a murder, been injured when her associates turned on her, and been stashed in a safe house when things went sideways.
It was, I had to admit, a considerably more plausible explanation than the truth.
“I didn’t kill Mark. Nobody hired me to do anything. And the person who handcuffed me to the bed did it because he was trying to protect me, in his own extremely misguided way.”
“He.” Harwood pulled another page from the folder. “The man from the hospital? Large, dark-haired, no ID, multiple visits to your bedside. Tell us about him.”
“He’s not involved in Mark’s death.”
“You’re protecting him.”
“I’m telling you the truth. Mark was killed by something that is not a person and is not an animal, and no one in this room is going to believe me if I elaborate, so I’m going to exercise my right to not waste both our time.”
Harwood and Davis exchanged a look. It was a controlled, practiced look, the interrogation equivalent of a doubles team at the net silently agreeing on the next play.
“Miss Gregory.” Harwood closed the folder. “Given the circumstances—the hospital escape, the blood-soaked motel room, your visible injuries, and your discovery in a restricted safe house handcuffed to a piece of furniture—I can almost certainly get a psychiatric hold ordered by a judge at the veryleast. For now, you can sit here and decide when you’re ready to tell the truth.”
They left.
