Page 51 of Confession
“We have some questions,” Cohen replies.
They stop about four feet away. It’s way too close. I scan the dark parking lot for more agents or the DiMaggios. Vitali will do the talking. My job is to protect—
“Questions for Quinn Richmond.”
Oh, fuck.
“Questions about what?” Vitali demands.
Cohen’s face is impassive as he regards Vitali. “About an open case. Murder.” Cohen’s eyes jump to me. “Man by the name of Leo Pedano.”
Old habits surface to save me. Everything locks up inside. I return Cohen’s impassive gaze. “Am I under arrest?”
“Should you be?”
I don’t answer that.
Vitali says, “If he’s not under arrest, you can fuck right off.”
Cohen looks to Vitali. “We can get a warrant or—”
“You do that,” Vitali cuts in.
“—or Mr. Richmond can come down to the field office and help us out. You know, in the interests of justice.”
I put my hand on Vitali’s stomach, both to pass him my phone and to still him as I walk by. Taking the phone automatically, he hisses, “Quinn,” but I don’t stop.
I walk straight past the agents too, heading to their car. Vitali can be very hotheaded, and I don’t want him getting in trouble. Besides, if I don’t comply, theywillget a warrant, and that will only make things worse. Better to find out what they know.
The Jag pulls into the parking lot, headlights blazing over the scene. I nod to Sasha in the driver’s seat, willing her to stay calm. Leaving the car running, she gets out, her gaze running from me, to the agents walking after me, to Vitali.
When I reach the agents’ car, I wait because I know the drill. I put my arms up and let Cohen’s backup agent pat me down. I don’t have any guns on me, but the agent finds my knife and takes it.
Meanwhile, Vitali is walking to the Jag. Once he’s in the passenger seat, Sasha gets back in.
The agent opens the door for me then closes it once I’m in the car. He and Cohen get in, then we’re moving. No one says anything as we drive across the city. I don’t look back, but I can see the Jag’s headlights beaming straight into the rearview mirror. God, I love Sasha. And thank god I’d already texted her. Thank god she was close. There’s only reason she would’ve been. She expected trouble.
But maybe not this form of it.
Sasha and Vitali can’t follow us into the field office parking lot, so they wait at the barricade, watching as I walk into the building with Cohen and the other agent.
The agents take me through the quiet, after-hours lobby and up a few flights of stairs to a steel door. Dread pools in my stomach, though it’s more from memory than from my present circumstances. This isn’t my first time in an interrogation room.Interviewroom, they like to call it these days.
I go straight to the chair that’s meant for me, the one facing the two-way mirror.
“You’ve done this before,” Agent Cohen observes as he closes us in. The other agent doesn’t enter.
I get comfortable in the chair. “You know I have.”
Cohen removes his light jacket and drapes it over the back of his chair, revealing his gun, cuffs, and the slight paunch showing against his blue button down. He looks about fifty. He’s one of those ordinary-looking men. Average height and built, average face, tidy haircut. They’re always the ones you have to watch out for, always the ones on someone’s payroll. Smart enough to look for a sweet deal, not smart enough to realize that it never pays out. He’ll be dead within a year.
“You do have an interesting history, Mr. Richmond.”
“You can call me Quinn.”
“Prefer informality?” When I don’t answer that, he guesses more accurately, “Or you don’t like your last name?”
“Is that what we’re here to talk about?”
