“Very ready.”
Eve walked in first. “Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, and Teasdale, Agent Miyu, entering Interview. Excuse me, Doctor Mira, we’re going to have to cut you off. You’re welcome to stay, of course.”
“This is bullshit.” Callaway jabbed a finger into the table. “As I’ve been telling Doctor Mira, you’ve obviously got me confused with someone else. I’ve never heard of this Menzini person. My maternal grandfather was a decorated military officer, Captain Edward Gregory Hubbard. I can verify that. I demand to contact my parents. It’s my right to have communication.”
“Not once you’re charged with terrorism.” Eve shrugged as she sat. “We can hold you for forty-eight hours without communication or representation. It sucks, but that’s how it plays.”
“If there’s been a mistake”—Mira lifted her hands—“it would save time, and any additional stress to Mr. Callaway if you arranged for his parents to come here. If you spoke with them to verify his parentage.”
“I won’t have my family subjected to interrogation by incompetent police and witch-hunting government agents.” Callaway folded his arms. “I’ll wait. I have nothing to say for the next forty-eight hours.”
“Okay. You can just listen. We can and will run DNA tests to prove Menzini’s your grandfather.”
“Go ahead! I welcome it.”
“And once we do that, you’re not just cooked, you’re served up with tasty side dishes. How did you know about Red Horse?”
Like a child, he turned his head away, stared at the wall.
“Because it’s interesting you’d bring up Red Horse in connection with the killings as Menzini headed one of the sects during the Urbans. Menzini was a chemist, more self-taught than educated. And completely bat-shit. He created a substance that caused violent delusions, extreme paranoia. The same substance you used at On the Rocks and Cafe West.”
She let it hang, said nothing. Silence ticked, ticked, ticked as she kept her gaze steady and cool on his averted face.
He shifted in his chair. “I’m not a damn chemist. I can’t make something like that even if I wanted to. Which I don’t.”
“How did you know about Red Horse?”
“My grandfather served during the Urbans. I’ve heard stories.”
“He died before you were born.”
“They’ve been passed down. And I’ve familiarized myself with some of the battles he was in. He fought this Red Horse cult. When you mentioned religious fanatics, that came to mind. It’s that simple.”
“But Menzini was never mentioned in this family history?”
“I’ve never heard the name before today.”
“That’s pretty strange, Lew, seeing as he’s your mother’s biological father.”
“That’s utter nonsense. If you had any brain at all, you’d have checked her birth records.”
“Oh, I had enough brain to do that. With enough left over to ask her face-to-face.”
Now his head came around, fast. “What did you say?”
“It’s really more what she said. I get you didn’t want us to speak to her or your father, but, hey, I’m just bullheaded that way.”
“Obviously you frightened and intimidated her. She’s not a strong woman. She’s frail, emotionally. You coerced her.”
“That would be your method. Here’s the thing—the break I’m going to give you right here and now. You can keep denying knowledge, figuring when the truth comes out, you stick to being unaware. Nobody ever told you.”
She waited a beat, gave him time to calculate. “That’s one way. Or you can admit you found out, discovered the documents your mother told me about. The shock of that sent you into a tailspin. Why, your family lied to you, and your grandfather, rather than being a decorated war hero turns out to be some homicidal lunatic mass murderer and child abductor. A religious looney on top of it. He might get mentally impaired out of that line, right, Doctor Mira?”
“The shock alone …” Shaking her head, Mira trailed off.
“It could work to your advantage.”
“I want to speak with my mother.”
“Not going to happen, Lew.”
“A mother testifying against a son,” Teasdale said quietly. “The weight of that testimony will be great.”
His jaw set. Eve imagined she heard his teeth grinding.
“She’ll never agree to it.”
“She won’t have a choice. And when we bring Menzini in—”
“He’s dead!”
Eve angled her head. “What makes you think that?”
“I—I assumed.”
Smiling, she wagged her finger. “You shouldn’t assume. He’ll tell the whole story, about your biological grandmother, the abduction of your mother, her recovery. It’s the sort of thing that might play for you, if you admit you knew—you found out and it screwed you up. APA’s on the way. I want to wrap this up, get home, have a drink. The prosecutor’s office wouldn’t like me giving you this wiggle room, however slim. Make a choice, Lew. And fast.”
“I want to speak to someone in charge.”
“You are. Oh, you mean a man. That’s not going to happen either. Make a choice. I know you found the box of documents. I know you learned Menzini was your grandfather. You found the formula. You’ve got a chance to come clean on that, help yourself. Or you can keep lying, and go down that way.”
“They did lie to me.” He turned—a deliberate move—to Mira. “All my life. I could never understand why they couldn’t love me, couldn’t give me the affection a child needs. My father … He’s a violent man. The secrets in that house … I can’t speak of it.”
All sympathy, Mira leaned toward him. “Your father abused you, physically.”
Callaway turned his head away, managed to nod. “And in every way. She never stopped him, never tried to. My mother. But she couldn’t help it. She’s weak, and afraid.”
“He abused her as well.”
“She’s terrified of him,” Callaway whispered. “Of everything. We moved constantly when I was growing up. I never knew what it was to have a real home, friends, roots. Then I found that damn box, and knew why she’d never protected me. I was a constant reminder to her of what her mother had suffered—her real mother. I even look like him a little. The coloring, the build. I stepped into a nightmare.”
“I understand,” Mira said gently.
“How can you? How can anyone? To know that runs through you. I wanted to kill myself.”
“But you kept going back,” Eve interrupted. “Hoping to find more.”
“Yes, yes. To find it all, to get rid of it. I brought it all back here, and I dumped it all in a recycler.”
“Oh please.” Eve rolled her eyes. “How stupid are you? Nobody’s going to buy that. You brought it back, and you re-created the substance. Admit it, for God’s sake. Own it. The PA’s going to push for consecutive life sentences in an off-planet cage. Hard as hard time gets. Lay it out, lay it all out and you might have a shot at a facility on-planet. You can write a goddamn book, do media interviews. You can
“I was going to kill myself. I was going to use what he made to destroy myself. I lost my mind for a while. I wasn’t sure it would work, but I took it with me, into the bar. I was going to wait until it was nearly empty, but Joe wouldn’t leave. I lost my nerve. I got up to go, and that woman bumped into me. She knocked the vial, and it fell. I panicked, and I got out.”
He covered his face with his hands. “All those people.”
“You made the substance?” Eve repeated. “You took it into the bar?”
“Yes. God help me, yes,” he said just as Reo stepped in.
“APA Reo, Cher, entering Interview. Pull up a chair. Lew’s entertaining us with fairy tales.”
“How can you be so callous?” he demanded. “So cold.”
“Me? You’re the champ there. Lew’s just confessed to creating the hallucinogenic and taking it into the
