I can't shake the feeling that I've made a powerful enemy tonight.
One who knows where all the bodies are buried.
Or at least, one who might start looking.
CHAPTER 8- PHOENIX
The call comes while Jade is in the shower.
I'm sitting on the balcony, watching the waves roll in beneath a gray morning sky, when my phone buzzes with an unknown number. I almost let it go to voicemail. I've been ignoring calls from numbers I don't recognize ever since that anonymous text message arrived, unwilling to engage with whoever is trying to rattle us.
But something makes me answer.
"Mr. Crawford? This is Detective Tomasz Nowak, LAPD. We spoke last week about Marcus Webb."
My stomach drops. I keep my voice steady, neutral, betraying nothing. "Detective. What can I do for you?"
"We'd like you to come down to the station for a formal interview. You and Ms. Catalano, if she's available. Just routine, tying up some loose ends in our investigation."
Routine. The word sounds harmless, but I know better. There's nothing routine about being called into a police station. They've found something, or they think they have, and they want to see our faces when they confront us with it.
"Of course," I say, because refusing would look worse. "When would you like us to come in?"
"Tomorrow morning, if that works. Say, ten o'clock?"
"We'll be there."
"Excellent. Ask for me at the front desk. I'll have someone escort you back."
The line goes dead.
I sit there for a long moment, staring at my phone, my mind racing through possibilities. Routine. Tying up loose ends. The words sound harmless, but I know better. There's nothing routine about being called into a police station.
My first instinct is to call a lawyer. We have an attorney who has handled everything for my family for years, from contracts to crisis management. He'd know exactly what to say, how to deflect questions, when to invoke rights I didn't even know I had.
But showing up with a lawyer to a routine interview sends a message. Innocent people don't bring attorneys to answer simple questions about a missing acquaintance. Innocent people cooperate, smile, act like they have nothing to hide.
And we have everything to hide.
No lawyer. We go in alone, we answer their questions calmly, and we walk out looking like exactly what we're supposed to be: two people with nothing to fear.
The shower shuts off inside. A few minutes later, Jade appears in the doorway to the balcony, wrapped in one of my robes, her dark hair wet and dripping onto her shoulders. She looks soft and vulnerable and completely unaware that our world is about to shift again.
"Who was on the phone?" she asks, toweling her hair.
I don't know how to soften this. There's no way to make it less terrifying than it is.
"Detective Nowak. They want us to come in for a formal interview tomorrow morning.”
The color drains from her face. She stops moving, the towel frozen in her hands, her eyes going wide with the fear I've seen too many times in the past week.
"What? Why?”
"He said it's routine. Tying up loose ends.”
"That's not routine." Her voice is climbing, edging toward panic. "They don't call people into the station for routine questions. They do that when they have something. When they know something.”
“Jade."
