Kate straightened, hauling Webb to his knees.“Peachy.”
Marcus looked around at the crowd, then at Webb.“Congratulations, Doc.You’re about to go viral.”
Webb glared up at them, fury and something colder flickering in his eyes.
Kate leaned in.“Flight’s cancelled.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The interview room smelled faintly of disinfectant and frightened men in nylon shirts.Webb was already seated when Kate entered, hunched forward over the metal table like it was a lectern he’d been summoned to preach from.
He brightened — absurdly — when he saw her.
“Agent Valentine,” he said, as if greeting a familiar colleague instead of the woman who’d wrestled him to the pavement thirty minutes ago.“I just want to say from the start, this is all a misunderstanding.”
“Good,” Kate said, pulling out the opposite chair.“Then let’s misunderstand each other as little as possible.”
She placed the folder on the table.Didn’t open it.Didn’t need to.He stared at it anyway, the way people did when they assumed the answers inside were already damning.
Up close, he looked younger than she’d expected.Mid-forties but soft around the edges, a man whose past gym membership had been replaced by stress and bad takeout.His hands fidgeted ceaselessly — picking at a thumbnail, smoothing down creases in his jeans, tugging at his cuff, a restless choreography of nerves.
“You bought a plane ticket to Paris,” Kate said.“One-way.Paid in full.Four hours before leaving your apartment in a state that suggests you’d been chased by wolves.”
Webb winced.“Look, I can explain that.I can explain all of it.”
“Please do,” Kate said, folding her hands.
He took a deep breath, the kind people take before diving into cold water.“I got a payout.Compensation.Totally unexpected.I wasn’t planning on it, not in a million years.My best case scenario was a year-long legal battle and low odds of a win for me. But it came through on Friday and I thought, you know what?I’ve worked hard.I’ve put up with a hell of a lot.I deserve a break.A real break.So—Paris.Just like that.”
“You booked the ticket impulsively.”
“Yes.”He nodded eagerly.“Exactly.That’s who I am.Impulsive.My therapist says I have ‘avoidant tendencies,’ which is a fancy way of saying I make rash decisions.My ex-wife will tell you that too, if you ever want to ask her.”He gave a strained laugh.“She used to joke that hurricanes packed more neatly than I do.That’s why—”
“Your apartment looked like a crime scene,” Kate finished.
“Yes!”He pointed both hands at her as if she’d won a prize.“Exactly.I always leave mess.Always.I hate packing.I shove everything into bags, forget half of it, buy new socks at the airport.It’s a thing.”
She didn’t write that down.It was more interesting to watch the way he said it — too rehearsed to be spontaneous, too messy to be a lie.A truth he’d polished until it was almost unbelievable.
“All right,” she said.“Let’s assume the mess is… just you being you.Let’s assume you weren’t running.Then explain the part where you sprinted from us the moment we identified ourselves.”
He froze.Blinked twice.“I… didn’t hear you.”
“You didn’t hear us shouting ‘FBI—stop where you are’?”
“No!”His voice cracked.“I swear.I heard shouting but I didn’t know it was you.I thought—” He swallowed hard.“I thought it was Boston again.”
Kate leaned back.“Boston?”
“The boys of the fine ol’ BPD,” Webb said, bitterly.
He rubbed his palms along his thighs, the motion agitated, compulsive.“Six years ago.I told the officer already.Two Boston cops jumped me.Mistaken ID.Beat the living hell out of me before anyone realized.Broke three ribs.Concussion.I still… I mean, loud commands, people running at me—my brain goes straight back there.It’s PTSD.Complex PTSD, the doctor said.”
His breathing hitched, and for a moment she saw the truth in him.Not the guilt-or-innocence truth; the other one.The raw truth of a man who’d been hurt badly enough that the memory had built a shelter around itself and welded the doors shut.
She didn’t soften.She couldn’t afford to.But she registered it.
“You have medical documentation of that?”she asked coolly.
