Page 60 of Tessa's Trust

“Oh, God. No,” he said. “No, no, no.” He walked out in front of me. “Come on. We’ll use interrogation room one.”

“Are you going to be in there with me?”

“I think it’d be better if I wasn’t,” he said. “I have him waiting for you right now.”

I stumbled when I followed him, surprised he’d leave me alone in an interrogation room with a suspect. He opened the door, and when I walked inside, I realized why.

Morrison was shackled to a table and, from what I could tell, his feet were tethered to the floor. He couldn’t get to me if he wanted.

The interrogation room was small, with a wooden table and blank, dingy green walls. A wide mirror was situated behind Morrison, and I didn’t doubt Pierce was behind there, watching. I could almost feel Nick, as well, but that could be the hickey pounding in my neck.

“Hi,” I said softly.

Morrison looked up. He wore an orange jumpsuit that contrasted with his bright red face. He had sandy-blond hair and a much darker beard, was probably about five foot nine, and approximately two hundred and fifty pounds. Some of it had gone to fat, but he looked pretty tough. “Hi,” he repeated, no expression on his broad face.

I pulled out a chair and sat, careful to keep a significant distance between the table and me, even though he couldn’t get to me. “I’ve never been in an interrogation room like this,” I murmured. The ones I’d been in before were much nicer, but I didn’t tell him that.

“Oh, I have.” He looked around. “The walls are always ugly. Why do you think they’re ugly?”

I looked at the dingy walls. “I don’t know. It seems like they should be cheerful. Like a bright yellow or maybe a lighter purple.”

“Purple?” Morrison asked. “I don’t think purple. I was thinking like an aqua.”

“Aqua would be pretty,” I admitted. I looked down at the stained and scratched linoleum. “Also, a wood floor or something a little homier. This floor is terrible.”

He looked down. “Yeah, I noticed that, too. It’s like they want you to be depressed in here.”

“I’m sorry about that,” I said, meaning it. “Nobody should get depressed from their environment.”

“I guess that’s what jail’s like,” Morrison said.

“Yeah, I heard about your brother. Sorry about that.”

Anger filled his eyes. “We have the right to hunt wherever we want.”

The laws didn’t seem to work that way. “I’m not a hunter, so I never really thought about it. A lot of my family hunts, though they get their licenses first,” I said.

“We shouldn’t have to get licenses, the nature is there for us.”

I’d never really heard it put like that. I didn’t think that was true, though. I thought the population had to be managed carefully to ensure their safety. “So, they said I could come and ask you why you had my picture.” And then I stared at him.

He stared back. “I’m not admitting that I had your picture.”

“I didn’t ask you to admit you shot at us, but you did have my picture. It was in your possession.”

“Says who?”

I blinked. “Says the police.”

“Maybe they’re lying.”

I chewed my lip and tried to think how an expert would handle this. “All right. Well, hypothetically, why would somebody like you want a printed out picture of me?”

He shrugged.

I wasn’t very good at this questioning thing. “Rumor had it I was dating Nick Basanelli. Did you figure I’d be with him?”

“Oh, that jerk? I’d love five minutes in a ring with him,” Morrison said. “Hypothetically, if I ever shot at him, it wouldn’t be to hit him—I’d just want to make a statement, you know?”

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