Rapture's Edge

23

The interrogation room was small and cold, devoid of anything except a metal table, two metal chairs, and a small camera mounted high on the wall above the door. A large window covered one wall, and though it was blacked out she assumed it was two-way glass. Her own reflection mocked her there, a testament to her first failure.No matter. It was only a question of time. Just a short while until she healed and she could Shift to Vapor and slip out the door, the window, through a ceiling vent. She had only to survive long enough—

“Our little kitty has claws, eh, gentlemen?”

It was the officer in the corner who spoke, his voice soft and amused. He spoke in French, and though she’d pretended not to understand it before, somehow she knew that he knew she actually did. She slanted him a sideways, assessing glance. He was good-looking, this one, tall and finely made with thick brown hair and penetrating green eyes that didn’t seem to miss a thing. He watched her with those avid eyes now, ignoring her bare legs and concentrating instead on her face.

She’d have to be careful with him. Human men didn’t have the keen senses her kind did, but every once in a while one of them surprised her. At the very least he was trigger-happy; he was the one who’d shot her.

And then, in a flash, she recognized him. The man from Gregor’s office that night a week ago, the one who’d threatened the subpoena—

“Let’s try again,” said the first officer seated across from her, the one whose shirt she was wearing. She turned her attention to him. He was shorter and chubbier than the rest of them, with hairy forearms and what could only be described as dead shark eyes. Black and flat, they bored into her like knives. “And for the sake of expediency, I’ll dispense with all the bullshit.” He paused, evidently for dramatic effect. “We know everything,” he said.

Eliana narrowed her eyes, waiting.

“Everything,” he repeated more forcefully, leaning forward over the table. Beneath the rolled-up cuffs of his shirt, the backs of his pudgy, pasty hands were damp with sweat. “We know exactly who you are…and exactly what you’ve been up to.”

“I see,” she said, feigning a calm she definitely didn’t feel. Her heart was beating so hard in her chest she thought they all must be able to hear it. “I must be in very deep trouble.”

His shark eyes narrowed. He didn’t like being mocked.

“As a matter of fact you are.” His tone dropped. “But if you cooperate, you may earn yourself some leniency come sentencing time.”

Eliana resisted the urge to respond with a withering comment about fat, donut-eating primates not being able to intimidate her. Goddess Bastet, she silently prayed, smiling at the officer, please send a plague for this one. Preferably involving flesh-eating bacteria.

Holding his gaze, she murmured, “Oh, I’d love to cooperate. Cooperation is one of my favorite things, especially when it’s with someone like you. Someone so smart. And so obviously…” She glanced at his doughy arms, and her smile turned faintly mocking. “Strong.”

He blinked rapidly, and the flush in his cheeks deepened to scarlet. Like a preening peacock, his chest puffed out, and she had to restrain herself again, this time from rolling her eyes.

She’d never understand a man’s ego. It was their universal Achilles’ heel.

“But I’d like to ask a question before we get started.” She felt the lasered attention of the handsome officer in the corner as easily as she saw the chubby one in front of her lick his lips.

“Er…ah…yes,” he stammered, then cleared his throat. “What is it?”

She c****d her head left. “You don’t actually have any evidence against me, do you?”

It hung there in the following silence, reverberating like a struck drum. To their credit, the men standing around the room didn’t react, not a muscle was moved, but she tasted their sudden discomfort like a metallic tinge in the air and had all the confirmation she needed.

“No surveillance video, no fingerprints, no eyewitnesses. Nothing,” she said softly.

“We caught you red-handed in the Louvre, pigeon.” The chubby officer’s face had turned a mottled shade of burgundy. He was blinking fast again, and it made him look like a fat baby bird. “Trying to steal a famous piece of art. We have all the evidence we need to put you away for a very long time. Échec et mat.”

Checkmate? Clearly this one didn’t actually play chess. She did, however, and played it well. Her father had taught her when she was twelve years old, had told her every great general and military strategist in history had used the tools learned in chess to win a war: always keep your goal in mind; have a plan but stay flexible; think at least three moves ahead; protect your assets; and last but most importantly, don’t trust your emotions, because they lie.

She’d learned that final lesson the hard way. The very hardest way of all.

Her gaze went to the handsome, green-eyed man in the corner. He wasn’t smiling. In fact, his face had darkened, and his mouth had thinned to a grim, bloodless line.

“How do you know I was trying to steal a painting?” she challenged. “Maybe I just got locked inside the museum before it closed—”

“Naked?” Green Eyes interrupted, hard.

“—because I fainted in the ladies’ room and didn’t wake up until the lights were out and everyone was gone, and in my state of panic at being alone in the dark I wandered around the museum trying to find a way out—”

“Naked,” he repeated, even harder.

She lifted a shoulder. “Some people cry when they get scared.