A couple of seconds later, the door to the interrogation room was pulled open by a middle-aged police officer.
‘The officer will take you back to your cell,’ Kendall said, as he gathered all the photos from the table.
Mary got up to follow the officer, but Choi halted her just as she got to the door. ‘By the way, they’re trying to get Margot Robbie to play Grace-Kelly.’
Mary paused and looked back at him, feeling a panic attack begin to wrap its long fingers around her heart. ‘What did you say?’
‘That Mr. Cameron told us that they were trying to getMargot Robbie, the actress, to play the lead in the production – the con woman – in the script, her name is Grace-Kelly Mitchell.’
One Hundred and Three
As soon as the officer locked the holding cell door behind her, Mary ran to the latrine and puked her guts out.
‘This can’t be fucking happening,’ she whispered to herself, as she took a seat on the bed, back pressed against the cold concrete wall, knees bent up against her chest, with her arms tightly hugging her legs. She buried her head into her knees as the tears began rolling down her cheeks.
How?
How could Quaddra know her real name?
Mary had never, not once, used the name Grace-Kelly Mitchell since she’d left England all those years ago, so how the hell could he know that?’
Images began flashing inside her head like some crazy picture show, taking her all the way back to Nelson’s trial.
Nothing made sense, but at the same time… it all kind of did.
The reason why Quaddra had asked the two detectives to show her all those photos and tell her about that script was because he ‘wanted’ Mary to put it all together herself… he wanted her to realize the mistakes that she’d made along the way… but most of all, he wanted her to know thathewas the one running a con on her… not the other way around – a con that seem to have started a full year before she’d even met him.
The puzzle pieces were all there. All she needed to do now wasslot them into their correct places – and the first piece had to be the last photo that she was shown – the courthouse in Woburn, Massachusetts – where, over two years ago, Nelson’s trial had taken place. That had to be where it all began. That was why Quaddra wanted her to see that photo last. This, somehow, was all Nelson’s doing and Quaddra was his revenge.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ Mary said through greeted teeth.
Brrrrrrrr.
‘What the fuck?’ Mary’s heart practically relocated. Something had vibrated on her bed.
Brrrrrrrr.
There it was again, vibrating exactly like a cellphone.
Brrrrrrrr.
It seemed to be coming from under the thin pillow at the head of the bed. Mary reached for it and lifted it up. There it was – a smartphone together with a pair of in-ears headphones – Bluetooth.
‘What the fuck is going on here?’ She looked back at the door – still closed and locked. ‘Who the fuck put this here?’
The phone vibrated again – incoming video call. Mary immediately recognized the number as Quaddra’s.
It was clear that he wasn’t done with her quite yet.
One Hundred and Four
The phone rang one more time before Mary reached for it and rejected the call. She began wondering if this was all a dream, an episode ofTwilight Zone, or cruel reality.
Silence ruled the cell for the next thirty seconds before the phone pinged once, making its screen come alive to display a text message.
QUADDRA: Answer the call, Mary. I know that you want answers, and I’m the only one who can give them to you. You might be able to figure most of it out by yourself, but you won’t figure out everything… and the ‘not knowing’ will eat you alive, so answer the call because this is the only chance you’ll get to finding those answers.
Mary breathed out anger because Quaddra was right – she needed answers. Not only because she wanted to know, but because if she knew exactly how she ended up in that situation, she could, maybe, mount a counterattack.
