“Yeah, no kidding. Well, do us all a favor. Stay in the chair until the interview is over, and keep your hands to yourself, Mister Grant. Just like I told you the first time, okay?”
I nodded and answered, “Yes sir.” Under the circumstances I still thought it best not to correct him about my name.
Once he had exited and Officer Bardwell resumed his station, I glared across the table at Miranda.
She smirked. “That was fun.”
“You aren’t getting Felicity,” I told her. I kept my voice at an even timbre, but it was impossible to mask the hatred that drove it.
“And who is going to stop me? You?”
“Obviously I already have.”
“Do you really think so?”
“You’re here.”
“No. Annalise is here. I am wherever I wish to be.”
“No, you aren’t. You’re trapped here with her.”
“Really?” She actually chuckled. “How do you know I am not trying Felicity on for size again right now?”
I steeled myself and clenched my fists at her question. What made it almost intolerable was her casual use of my wife’s name. To an outside observer it wouldn’t have meant a thing, but to me it inferred an unwanted intimacy between them.
As my fingernails bit deeply into my palms, I replied, “Because you’re here talking to me.”
“That means nothing, and you know it. Connections, little man.”
“Not anymore. I broke your connection to her.”
“Did you?”
“You know I did.”
She laughed. “Is that the lie you have been telling yourself these past months?”
“It isn’t a lie, it’s a fact.”
“Be truthful, little man. You do not believe that.”
“How do you figure?”
“That is easy. You came here, did you not? If you truly believed you had broken all of the connections, you would never have shown up.”
She was a step ahead of me all the way. Maybe even two. However, I had already given up too much, so I wasn’t about to surrender anything else if I could help it.
“You’re the one who demanded to see me,” I spat. “Besides, if you know so much, you should be well aware that I came here to talk to Annalise. Not you.”
“Of course you did.”
“Then let me,” I said. “Or are you the one who’s afraid?”
She snorted out a laugh. “What is it you think I fear?”
“What Annalise might tell me.”
“Such a sad little man,” she told me, shaking her head. “Annalise has nothing to tell.”
“Then let me talk to her.”
“No.”
“I can make you go away.”
“And how do you propose to do that?”
“Thirsty at all, Miranda?” I threatened but remained still in my seat.
All it took was that simple phrase for her to know exactly what I meant. I had used salt water on more than one occasion to chase her out of Felicity’s body when she had managed to sneak her way in. That was before I had discovered the gateway that was allowing it to happen in the first place-one half of a paired necklace that had been charmed by magick well over a century ago, and more recently, re-empowered by blood.
My query didn’t sound like much of a threat, I know, but salt was the basest form of purification, and when it came to magick, sometimes the simplest path was the most effective. At this particular moment I was perfectly happy to test that theory by pouring some down Annalise’s throat.
She laughed again then shook her head. “Petty magic, little man. Is that your answer to everything?”
“It works,” I growled.
“Perhaps not. Maybe I merely allowed you to believe that,” she corrected.
Our eyes remained locked for a handful of heartbeats. Finally, I said, “You’re lying.”
“Am I?”
“Of course you are.”
She laughed. “Go ahead and cling to your faulty beliefs. It only makes things easier for me. Although, I must admit, I was looking forward to a challenge from you. I should have known better.”
Her words were audible but shrouded by the resurgence of blood rushing in my ears. In that instant the hammering in the back of my head spread forward to encompass my entire skull, and all I wanted to do was scream. Instead, I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes as I rubbed my temples.
“Yeah… Whatever…” I mumbled.
“All right… Now I am done,” Miranda said.
“Done what?” I asked in return while opening my eyes.
She ignored my question. Instead, she turned and called over her shoulder in a flat, matter-of-fact tone, “Officer Bardwell, we can go now.”
“Hold on,” I demanded, shifting forward and glaring at her. “We aren’t finished here yet.”
The corrections officer was already starting to disconnect her restraints from the table as I spoke.
“Yes, little man,” she replied. “We are.”
“Stand up,” he ordered her.
She complied, waiting silently as he deftly reconnected the cuffs with the Martin chain looped around her waist. Taking hold of her upper arm, he guided her around the chair and away from me toward the door where they had entered earlier. I couldn’t do anything but sit there quietly and watch them go. Hanging my head, I let out a long sigh. As if the agony trying to chisel its way out through the side of my skull wasn’t enough, now I was stewing in self-recrimination over the fact that I had allowed her to win.
“Just a minute,” Miranda said, her voice coming from a few steps away.
I looked up and saw the two of them standing next to the door. Miranda turned slightly and leveled yet another pitying stare upon me.
After a thick silence she stated coldly, “You want to know about the other half of the necklace.”
My throat tightened as my heart jumped in my chest. Suddenly, her lead was no longer measured in steps. She had already lapped me and was still pulling out ahead. It really shouldn’t have come as a surprise that she knew what I wanted. The dead always seemed to know things they shouldn’t. I guess, under the circumstances, I was simply having trouble thinking of her as dead, and that was just another of my critical errors in all of this.
It was obvious that lying about the necklace wasn’t going to work, so I replied, “Yes.”
She regarded me coolly for a moment. “Come back tomorrow and maybe I will let you ask Annalise if she knows anything about it.”
With that, she turned away from me. A few seconds later they were gone, and I was left alone with a blinding headache and an icy chill slowly working its way up my spine.
CHAPTER 5
“Are you okay, Rowan?” Constance asked. “You don’t look well at all.”
We were sitting in an office normally used by one of the staff psychologists. Actually, I was the one doing the sitting. Constance was pacing back and forth in front of me.
Following my less than productive visit with Miranda, Officer Baker had escorted me back to the administrative unit where the petite FBI agent was waiting. Although the thrum in my head had been blinding me to most everything else resembling lucid thought, I still somehow managed to make it a point to apologize to him
