This guy was OPR if she’d ever seen one. The Office of Professional Responsibility had a stellar reputation. She never imagined she’d be on the receiving end of one of their interrogations.
His caseload must be really light if he had gotten to her already.
And he was still waiting for her to respond.
She cleared her throat. “Yes. That’s me.”
Not that he didn’t already know that. He’d probably studied her file thoroughly.
“Agent Caldwell, OPR.” His pointer finger lightly tapped the file in his hand. “Come with me. Got a few questions about last night’s incident.”
Incident? Is that what he called it when your absentee father suddenly dropped into your life?
Well, she knew nothing about her father, so this should be a pretty short interview.
Rising, she rounded her desk.
Caldwell gestured to the adjacent conference room. “We can head in there.”
Weird. He was keeping this in her comfort zone rather than his.
Why wouldn’t he conduct the interview in his office? Or an interrogation room? Was he employing some kind of psychology on her?
Possible. Maybe he thought by keeping this in her territory, she’d let her guard down.
Too bad for him that it wouldn’t make any difference. She couldn’t tell him what she didn’t know.
He closed the door behind them and offered a crooked smile that looked like it might crack his otherwise stoic face. “Sorry about barging up here. The AC went out in my office, so I’m avoiding taking anyone in there until they get it fixed.”
Kevyn slid into a chair. “That’s no fun.”
“You don’t know the half of it. My windows face south. Nothing but sun. When it’s out.”
Sounded positively miserable. She bit back the sarcastic remark. “How can I help you?”
“Run me through last night. Starting from the time the doorbell rang.”
Doorbell. He’d clearly read her report. She recapped meeting Mitch – she refused to think of him as her father – noting the tightness in her voice and anger behind her words, but unable to temper it.
Nor should she. Caldwell wanted the truth? The truth was she was furious at the man who should have been a part of her life, but had chosen not to be.
“And you said this is the first time you’ve seen him since you were a child?”
“This is the first time I remember seeing him period.” It felt like splitting hairs, but she needed to be certain he understood the full scope – or lack thereof – of her relationship with Mitch. “He left when I was six months old and never came back. I have zero memories of him.”
Caldwell appraised her silently for a second. “Then how do you know it was him and not some freak with a hidden agenda?”
Oh, he was a freak with a hidden agenda all right, but he was also exactly who he claimed to be. No question about it. “His eyes. Mum always said I have his eyes.”
Caldwell studied her eyes for a second before nodding.
The unusual shades of green made further explanation unnecessary.
“So, if he doesn’t know you, why would he bring you this?” Caldwell slid a photograph of the newspaper article across the table.
If she’d let Mitch talk last night instead of losing it, she might have an answer. As it was now, she didn’t even have a way of getting an answer. “I don’t know. A pathetic attempt to make things right, maybe?”
“He didn’t give you any indication?”
Caldwell was trying to catch her in a lie. Well, he’d fail, because she was telling the truth. “He might have, if I’d let him talk. Instead, I told him what I thought of him and went inside. I didn’t even know he was holding that envelope until Dak gave it to me.”
“And tell me again what Agent Lakes was doing at your house at…” Caldwell made a show of checking his notes. “…Eight-thirty at night?”
“The team had come over for dinner. To celebrate Dak’s birthday. His wallet must have fallen out of his pocket. It’s all in my report.” She bit back the urge to tell him to read it. No doubt he had read it. Many times. More head games.
“I wanted to hear it from you. What did Agent Lakes and your father talk about?”
She shrugged. “You’d have to ask him. I was inside. Trying to cool down.”
And wishing she still had a wall or two to take down. Since smashing the sledgehammer into the object of her anger would land her in jail, a wall would have been an acceptable substitute.
Caldwell pursed his lips.
Dang. The man had a good poker face. Probably needed it in his field. She could normally read people, but he was a tough one.
“And Agent Lakes arrived while you were talking to your father?”
Another test. Watching to see if her story changed. “After. I didn’t even see him pull up, but he said he parked about the time I closed the door.”
He folded his stout fingers on the table in front of him. “And you haven’t heard from him at all since you were six months old? Not once? No phone calls? Emails? Birthday card?”
“Nothing.” It was like she hadn’t even existed. “For all I knew, he was dead.”
“Did your father give you any way to reach him? A phone number or anything?”
Argh. She hated answering questions that were in her report, even if she fully understood why they were being asked. “No. I don’t know where he is or how to reach him.”
“And he gave no indication when or if he’d return?”
“Again. If I’d let him speak, maybe he would have. But I didn’t want to hear anything he had to say.” Her gaze shifted to the photograph of
