Michael Prescott - Mortal Faults

Tess took a long moment to respond. “Honestly, Abby, I don’t know what to think about you anymore.”

Silence in the room, broken finally when Abby heard herself say words she had never spoken before. “Maybe I’d better call a lawyer.”

Michaelson gestured for Tess to rise. “There’ll be time for that later.”

“Hey. I’m supposed to get a phone call. It’s in the Constitution, or the Declaration of Independence, or some old document under glass.”

Tess walked out of the room without answering.

“It could be the Magna Carta,” Abby added helpfully. “You might check there. You hear me? I want a lawyer.”

Michaelson gave Abby a dismissive backward glance. “Later,” he said.

The door shut behind him, and she was alone.

Abby didn’t know how long she was left in the interrogation room. Time had a funny way of not passing when there were no windows and no clocks. Even her wristwatch had been taken. From beyond the closed door she heard activity in the hall, which seemed to flow in cycles, brief periods of commotion interspersed with long intervals of quiet. After a while the quiet times seemed to become longer. She had the impression that it was late. They had brought her in at eight o’clock and interrogated her for more than an hour. By now it must be well past midnight. She wondered if she had been forgotten.

“Hey,” she said loudly. “Anybody home?”

No answer. She spent some time making faces at the corner of the ceiling where she believed a hidden camera would be installed. She half hoped somebody would come in and tell her to cut it out. No one came. Maybe no one was watching.

Her left wrist remained manacled to the table. Although it constrained her movement, she was able to perform some simple exercises to work her biceps and hamstrings. Just because she was a prisoner in a federal facility didn’t mean she intended to get out of shape.

At some point she became aware of being hungry. The roast chicken and potato salad she’d swiped at Reynolds’ barbecue had been the last meal she’d eaten. How long ago was that? Almost twelve hours, she figured. If she’d been smart, she would have grabbed an early dinner rather than a quickie with Wyatt.

Then again, it might be the last quickie she would have for a while. Did they allow conjugal visits in federal prison? Didn’t matter; she wasn’t married. She had no husband to visit her. Ordinarily that thought wouldn’t have bothered her, but for some reason it chewed at her like acid tonight.

She was all alone. She had no one to come to her aid. She’d built a life based on isolation and secrecy, and now she was facing its downside.

“Anybody out there?” she yelled again. No response.

She tried to take stock of her situation. Things weren’t all bad. Her purse, with the tape recorder inside, would probably turn up. Unless that prick Michaelson didn’t want it to turn up. He could make it disappear. Such things happened. But she couldn’t start speculating that way. She couldn’t operate on the premise of a government conspiracy that would conceal evidence just to nail her. Not because conspiracies were impossible, but because that line of thinking would make her crazy.

She had to stick to the simple facts. Fact one, she was innocent. True, she might look guilty as hell, but she wasn’t. Fact two, the feds had already been suspicious of Reynolds. They would press him hard. Of course, what Reynolds said wouldn’t necessarily help her, even if he told the unvarnished truth. After all, she’d told him she had to get out of town because she was in trouble with the law. Her story had been a lie designed to sell the idea that she would betray Andrea, but unfortunately it also fit neatly into the scenario the feds had written for her.

And the tape recording, even if it turned up, wouldn’t clear her in Dylan Garrick’s murder. She wasn’t sure what would exonerate her, short of a confession from the real killer.

She winced. The real killer-it sounded like something O.J. would say. And she wasn’t one of your multimillionaire celebrity defendants. She couldn’t afford a Dream Team of lying lawyers.

Heck, she wasn’t even sure there would be a trial. Maybe they would just lock her up in Guantanamo Bay and leave her there to rot.

There was that incipient paranoia again. She really shouldn’t watch so many Oliver Stone movies.

It could be any time of night now. One a.m., three a.m., later. No way to know. The sun could be rising, and she wouldn’t be aware of it. In here, there was no sun. That might be the worst thing about being locked up for life. She would so rarely see the sun or feel the air on her skin. Her world would be a concrete cell barely larger than a closet. She wasn’t worried about the other inmates-she could fend for herself in any company-but to be caged for life, trapped within walls like that guy in the Edgar Allan Poe story, the one who was bricked up alive…

She realized she had leaped ahead to her incarceration as if it were a sure thing. Maybe it was.

The prospect seemed astonishing and unreal. She’d broken the law often enough in her career, but she’d never expected to be caught. Oh, sure, she could imagine herself on the run from the law-leaving the country, living abroad under an assumed name. She even had foreign accounts available for such a contingency. But never had she seriously imagined herself in lockup. Probably she’d always assumed the authorities would be too slow or too clueless to catch her. For the most part, her assumption had been valid.

But Tess had been up to the challenge, hadn’t she?

Abby shook her head. Never should have teamed up with a federale. But as the man said after diving naked into a briar patch, it seemed like a good idea at time.

She studied the cuff on her wrist. If she’d had her set of pick locks, she could’ve made short work of it. Even a safety pin or a scrap of wire would do. She scanned the floor, vaguely hopeful of finding some usable item.

Then she smiled at herself. Even if she did pick the lock, what was she going to do? Slip out of a high security federal high-rise unobserved? Steal a gun and shoot her way out?

Besides, there was probably somebody watching her, even now. She thought about giving the finger to the hidden camera, if it was really where she thought it was, but didn’t bother.

She was tired. She rested her head in the crook of her arm and closed her eyes. This was probably a mistake. She knew that law enforcement agents often judged a suspect guilty if he or she fell asleep in custody. An innocent person was presumed to be fueled with so much indignation and righteous anger that sleep was impossible. Only the guilty dozed off.

She didn’t care. Hell, everybody was guilty of something.

Abby slept.

Abby’s stomach was strongly advising her that it was breakfast time when the door finally opened and Tess came in.

“Thought you folks forgot about me.”

Tess smiled a little-a tight, nervous smile. “We didn’t forget.” She took out a handcuff key and released Abby from the manacle.

“So what’s it’s gonna be?” Abby asked. “Lethal injection or firing squad?”

“Come with me.”

Abby stood up, massaging her wrist, though it wasn’t really sore. It just seemed like the right thing to do. “Come where?”

“The director wants to see you.”

“J. Edgar himself, back from the dead?”

“The ADIC. Michaelson.”

“About what?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on, girlfriend, level.”

“I really don’t know, Abby. They pulled me off the case after I arrested you. I was in the interrogation room with Michaelson only because he thought you might talk more freely with me present.”