“It wasn’t her fault,” I said.
He looked down at his watch, twisting it around his wrist so that he could check the time. “No. It wasn’t.”
When he didn’t look back up, I said, “Patrick?”
He said, “What happened next?”
? ? ?
We spent the rest of the day going over my story. Whatever Patrick felt at what he heard, much of which I’d never told him before, he hid it behind his lawyer’s mask. It was a good mask. Almost as good as mine.
Lex was less adept at hiding her feelings. Although she avoided the dining room, she was agitated all day, constantly keeping herself busy and snapping at everyone over tiny things. When we were set to leave the next morning, she was pale and her hands were visibly trembling.
“It’s so unfair you have to go through this,” she said as she forced me to take another pancake from the mountain she’d made before I came down to breakfast. “Being interrogated, like you’re some kind of criminal.”
“They just want my help,” I said. I was more anxious than I’d ever been in my life, but I was Zen compared to her.
“Danny’s right,” Patrick said. “Maybe you should stay here. You don’t look too good.”
“No way,” she said. “I’m going.”
Patrick gave her a look, and they engaged in the kind of wordless conversation I’d seen pass between them a hundred times. Whatever was said, Lex came out the victor.
Out in the foyer, the front door opened.
“Mom?” Lex called.
Jessica appeared in the kitchen. She was wearing shapeless clothing and no makeup, which made her look like a ghost of herself.
“Why aren’t you ready?” Lex asked. “We’re leaving soon.”
“I’m not going,” Jessica said in a voice so subdued it sounded like she barely had the energy to get the words out. “You don’t need me there, do you, Patrick?”
Patrick turned his head toward her, but not enough to actually look at her. “No. The power of attorney you signed is still in effect, so we’re good.”
“Mom,” Lex said. “I really think Danny could use your support—”
Jessica suddenly came alive, like she’d grabbed a live wire.
“I won’t play this game with you, Alexis!” she snapped.
Lex looked stricken, like she’d been slapped. Patrick jumped to his feet.
“That’s fine, Mom,” he said. “We’re okay. How about you go on upstairs?”
Jessica walked away, and Lex turned to the sink and started vigorously washing the dishes inside. I looked at Patrick.
“Want another pancake?” he asked.
Ten minutes later the three of us were walking out to Patrick’s car. On the way we passed Jessica’s rental, which was parked haphazardly in the driveway as usual. It was covered with a thin film of orange dust up to the windows, and I wondered where she’d been.
My interview was set to take place at the FBI’s Los Angeles field office. The building seemed to loom over me, taller than the buildings I was used to, and I wondered if it had been designed to be intimidating. My pulse kicked up, and I tried to tell myself that it was just a bigger version of the Collingwood Police Station. I’d been scamming cops for years now. Nothing to it.
As we walked inside, Patrick filled the air between us with last minute reminders and assurances.
“Just tell the same story you told me,” he said, “and if you start to feel uncomfortable, let me know and we’ll put a stop to it.”
“It’s going to be fine,” I said.
“Of course it is,” he said. “Morales will try to put you on the defensive, make you feel like you’ve done something wrong. Don’t let that fluster you. It’s just her strategy for getting the most information.”
“I hate that bitch,” Lex said.
I’d done my research on Agent Morales, the FBI’s lead investigator on the case from the beginning. She never gave anything but the most perfunctory statements to the press, so it was hard to judge her personality, but she was always insistent that the investigation was active and ongoing, even years after the fact. She’d been interviewed in the wake of the LA Magazine article—which mentioned rumors of tension between her and the Tates, including one that they’d tried to have her removed from the case—and had intimated that there was a recent development in the investigation, although she’d declined to elaborate. Was that true or just something to cover her ass since she still hadn’t solved the case six years later? It made my feet itch to run thinking that the FBI might have some mystery piece of evidence I couldn’t be prepared for.
When Agent Morales came to meet us in the waiting room, I was surprised by her appearance. The picture I’d built in my head was of an older woman with a severe haircut and ill-fitting clothes. In reality, she was young, maybe thirty-five, and pretty. She had curly, dark hair that she wore in a half ponytail and full, pink lips with a shine of gloss on them, just like Lex. But she had a slightly masculine way of walking, probably the result of time spent in the military, and an air of seriousness that was more what I expected from a Fed.
“Mr. McConnell,” she said, shaking Patrick’s hand. There was something in her expression I couldn’t quite read, a tightening at the corner of her eyes so subtle it was hardly noticeable. She nodded at Lex. “Ms. McConnell. Thank you for coming in.”
Lex’s smile was more like bared teeth. “It seems we didn’t have much of a choice.”
Morales stood with her hands clasped lightly behind her back. Definitely a military background.
“And you must be Danny,” she said. “It’s good to meet you after all these years.”
She reached out to shake my hand as well, but I shied a little closer to Lex. I’d let the traumatized routine lapse in the past few weeks, and I needed to bring it back now. Danny wouldn’t be eager to touch strangers after what he’d been through, and this bit of acting now would reinforce my story later.
Morales withdrew her hand. “How about we head back?”
She led us into the building, past cubicles and offices, like any insurance or accounting company in the world. As we walked, Patrick exchanged a small nod with a young man bent over a computer screen behind Morales’s back. I curled my hands into the sleeves of my hoodie. This was part of the traumatized act too, with the added bonus that it would keep me from accidentally touching anything.
“There’s no need to be nervous, Danny,” she said with that overly gentle tone that people use with small children or the mentally disabled. “We just want to hear your story to help us as we look for the people who did this to you, okay?”