I searched every hallway we passed anyway. Every doorway. Every holding cell.
Still no Booda.
By the time they stopped walking, my stomach was in knots.
One officer opened the door. “Go in,” she demanded, roughly pushing my shoulder.
I stepped into the interrogation room, and the door slammed shut behind me with finality.
The room was exactly what I expected. Dingy beige paint peeled from the concrete walls. A metal table was bolted to the floor. Two chairs were on opposite sides, and a mirror that wasn’t fooling anybody hung on the wall.
A man sat on the other side of the table. Detective, probably. He had tired eyes, a wrinkled shirt, and a coffee stain on his tie that had probably been there since yesterday.
He didn’t raise his head when I entered. His gaze was fixed on a folder sitting on the metal table. I was directed to sit in thechair across from him. The cuffs were removed, and an officer remained by the door while the other one exited the room.
That was when the detective finally looked up. He studied me for a second before leaning back in his chair.
“I’m Detective Vega,” he said before gesturing toward the man beside him. “This is Detective Mercer.”
Mercer looked me over with open irritation written across his face before snatching the lid off his coffee cup.
I said nothing.
Vega folded his hands together on top of the folder in front of him. “You wanna confirm your name for us?”
Silence.
“Well, since you won’t say anything. I’ll tell you what I know. Will that work?”
I still paid him dust.
With a grin, he started reading from a sheet of paper. “Konika Holiday. Thirty-six years old. Date of birth February seventeenth, nineteen ninety—”
I kept my mouth shut.
Mercer shifted in his seat with a frustrated exhale, his chair scraping the floor as he leaned forward.
“You’d make things a lot easier for yourself if you’d at least answer basic questions.”
I leaned back in the chair and stared at the wall behind him.
“What’s your current address?” Vega asked calmly.
Silence.
Mercer laughed under his breath, but there wasn’t anything funny in it.
“You executed a woman in broad daylight in front of witnesses, and now you’re mute?”
Still nothing.
The irritation on his face deepened.
“Open your mouth, bitch!” Detective Mercer banged his hand on the table.
“Mercer,” Vega warned, and he threw his hands up before leaning back again, jaw tight.
Vega never raised his voice. Never changed expressions either. That told me he was the dangerous one.
