Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
“This is your shot, Foster.” Mendez crossed his arms and eyed Adriana. “If you want to listen in to this interview, you have to give me your word that what you hear stays here.”
They were back at the FBI field office but on the fifth level instead of the third. She’d discreetly texted Knox she was safe as soon as she’d had the chance, and he’d replied with a Thank God.
She’d hoped to see him when they’d returned to the office fifteen minutes ago, but she hadn’t seen Knox’s Suburban in the parking lot.
“Didn’t we already go through this earlier?” she asked, irritation shooting an arrow to her heart for the second time in the last minute.
The first arrow hit when Mendez ordered her to hand over her personal and work cell phones. He was worried she’d call Knox while observing the interview of Aaron Todd’s girlfriend.
She’d nearly snapped out an Are you out of your damn mind? back at the FBI director, but Rodriguez shot her a please-God-don’t look. So, she’d turned her phones over.
“Knox can’t think clearly. He’s already decided Aaron Todd’s innocent.” Mendez was still riding the trying-to-convince-her train, which she supposed meant he cared about her opinion, or he wouldn’t give a damn what she thought.
He could’ve kicked her out of the room, or even off the investigation, because of her friendship with Knox, so she’d take her presence as a win and ignore the anger at having her phones taken away like a punished teen.
“A.J. knows Aaron. Maybe he can offer us better insight into the man. We shouldn’t keep them in the dark.” She had to try one more time.
“Sorry, Foster.” He faced the glass as Chelsea Baker was brought into the room on the other side. “If we’re not on the same page, you need to leave.”
They weren’t even in the same book.
He was reading a twisty political thriller, and she was maybe in a romantic suspense.
“Yes, sir. Understood.” She buried the snark from her tone the best she could. “You didn’t need to take my phones, though.”
Rodriguez stood by the door waiting for Mendez, and he shook his head at her words. He was a guy who always played by the rules. Nothing wrong with that. But she’d learned at a young age from her mother that sometimes you had to color outside of the lines.
“Don’t make me regret allowing you to stay in this room to observe,” Mendez said before striding out, Rodriguez quietly following.
She took a few deep breaths and faced the window.
When the Feds had picked up Aaron’s girlfriend at her apartment thirty minutes ago, she’d answered the door with two black eyes and a swollen lip.
Not a good sign for Aaron.
Mendez slid into the metal chair on the other side of the small table.
The interview room was more like an interrogation room. No windows. Twelve by twelve in size. The black painted cinder block walls and concrete floor made it feel small and claustrophobic.
The only decor was the mirror on the wall, which was actually the one-way window allowing Adriana to view and hear the proceedings.
“Thank you for speaking with me,” Mendez began, his voice much softer than when he’d spoken to Adriana. “This interview will be recorded.” He pointed to the camera in the upper right-hand corner of the room.
Adriana glimpsed the screens over her head and reset her focus on the glass.
“As you’re aware, you’re here due to your relationship with Aaron Todd.” Mendez waited for her to acknowledge with a nod before continuing. “When was the last time you saw or spoke to him?”
Even from where Adriana stood, she noticed the tremble in the woman’s hand on the table. Chelsea slipped it to her lap. She looked like she’d been the underdog in an MMA fight.
Did Aaron do that to her?
“I saw Aaron yesterday morning. We got into an argument,” she whispered, tears cutting lines down her cheeks long before the first question.
“Is that how you got the bruises? Did he hit you?” He lifted his pen and pressed the point to the legal notepad but didn’t write.
“Yes.” It was a small sound. A “woman afraid of admitting her boyfriend beat her” kind of sound.
“And what time did you leave Aaron’s house on Tuesday?” Mendez needed to see if Aaron had an alibi for the time of the shooting without influencing her answers.
“I think I left around eight.”
Adriana grimaced at the news. The shooting took place around ten, which gave Aaron time to get to the hotel.
“So, to confirm,” Mendez said while writing something down, “when did you first arrive?”
“I spent the night on Monday.”
“And what time did you get to his house on Monday?”
Adriana inhaled at Chelsea’s words, waiting for an answer.
The shooter had been with Sarah Reardon the night before, and if the time frames didn’t match up, Aaron might have an alibi.
She wanted to catch the killer, but she really wanted to deliver Knox some good news, to let him know a veteran hadn’t tried to assassinate his father.
“I.” Chelsea closed her eyes, showing more of the purplish-black marks over her lids. “I’m sorry. I can’t remember. It’s been a strange few days.”
“I need to know Aaron’s whereabouts Monday evening, and can anyone confirm your location?” Mendez asked.
Rodriguez remained quiet, hands in his pockets, his back to Adriana, his eyes, no doubt, on Chelsea.
“We were alone at his house.” Chelsea shook her head, more tears falling when her eyes opened.
Did she think Aaron would kill her if she talked?
Aaron’s alibi was slowly flying out the door with every falling tear.
“I went to his house pretty late. He said he had plans and to wait for him at his house until he got there. That’s all I can remember. I’m sorry.” She chewed on her bottom lip.
“What was the fight about? Why’d he hit you?”
“I accused him of cheating on me. I thought maybe he was seeing someone else. It upset him.”
Oh, shit. Adriana braced a palm on the glass for support.
“You ever fight before?” Mendez continued to jot down notes.
“No, but he’s got a lot of issues. I haven’t known him for very long, but he’s been struggling. Nightmares. PTSD,” she said around a sob.
“Any reason for you to believe Aaron would want Isaiah Bennett dead?” he asked.
“Is it true then? What the media has said about him?”
“I need you to answer the question, please.”
They’d found an arsenal of weapons at Aaron’s place earlier, none of which was the so-called smoking gun that took the shot yesterday. Not even any boxes of ammo to match the ballistics report.
“Aaron and I met at a coffee shop a few blocks from my work about four weeks ago. I was new to the area, and he was so friendly. We bonded over the fact we grew up only a town apart in Texas, and yet we’d never crossed paths until Charlotte.
He, uh, asked me to dinner.” She sniffled.
“So, no, after four weeks, he never mentioned some crazy plan to kill a presidential candidate. I would have alerted the authorities and broken up with him.”
“Have you heard from Aaron since your fight?”
“No.”
And yet, Adriana could practically hear the yes float from her lips.
She was lying, wasn’t she?
“Is this my fault? Did I upset him, and he snapped?”
“You’re not to blame.” Mendez reached across the table and pressed a hand over her forearm. The first sign of compassion she’d witnessed since meeting him. “But we need to know absolutely everything you can tell us about him. Places he frequents. A list of friends.”
“I never met his friends. And we mostly only spent time at his house in Matthews. He doesn’t have much money. He worked construction jobs for his cousin every once in a while, which was why he’d moved to Charlotte—there wasn’t any work back home when he got out of the military.”
Mendez didn’t press the topic of Aaron’s cousin. A team had already been dispatched to bring him in for questioning. Aaron hadn’t been hiding out at his place, which had been the hope, but that didn’t mean the cousin didn’t know where he might have run off to.
“You ever see this woman before?” Mendez placed a photo in front of her. Probably Sarah Reardon.
“Only on the news as the missing woman. My friend told me she was a guest at the hotel the day of the . . . you know.”
“I need to know if you’re familiar with her aside from that.”
She took the picture and lifted it. “We have a lot of guests coming and going. Aside from the news, I don’t recognize her.” She set the photo down.
“Did you ever provide Aaron with a service keycard so he could utilize the back entrance and—”
“Oh, God.” She covered her mouth with both hands. The tears didn’t feel as real this time when they streamed. Adriana’s mom would’ve called them crocodile tears. Why the change now?
“It’s okay,” he said in a soothing tone. “Please tell me what you can.”
And why was Mendez buying the act?
Chelsea took a few deep breaths and lowered her palms to her lap.
“I didn’t give it to him, but last week when I got to work, it wasn’t in my purse like always.
I thought I’d lost it. The card was terminated when I got a new one, though, so it shouldn’t have been able to work unless .
. . unless he used my laptop to reprogram it. ”
“And did he have access to your laptop?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. He’s been in my office at the hotel before.”
“Has he been there since you lost the card?”
Chelsea nodded.
He glanced at Rodriguez. “Call the hotel. We need her laptop.”
“This is my fault. He used me to shoot that man, didn’t he? He probably bumped into me on purpose that day at the coffee shop.” More tears fell. More fake tears. So different than earlier. “Was he even from Robert Lee?”
Robert Lee was a small town north of San Angelo, Texas, and it’d been where Aaron had gone to school. She’d read up on his background on her way back to the field office.
After the Navy, Aaron moved in with his parents, but he couldn’t find work, so he moved to Charlotte with a promise from his cousin for some construction gigs.
His parents insisted he’d never shoot an innocent man, but wouldn’t all parents say that?
“Did Aaron ever talk about Isaiah Bennett to you?” Mendez asked as Rodriguez rejoined Adriana.
“You believe her?” Adriana looked at Rodriguez as he lifted a phone to his ear, starting for the exit.
“I don’t know,” he said, then left the room to make his call.
“You already asked me that,” Chelsea said, bringing Adriana’s focus back to the interview.
“And I’m asking again.”
“No.” Her brows drew together. “Do you think Aaron will come after me? Will he know we talked? Am I going to be safe?” Real fear ebbed and flowed through her words this time, and if this was an act, it was one even Adriana was buying.
“We’ll be posting two cars outside your building. One in the back and one out front in case he shows up. Anything else you can tell us that might help?”
“I’m sorry, but if I think of something I can reach out.”
Mendez left the room a few minutes later and joined Adriana. Two other agents entered the interview room and escorted Chelsea out.
“Is it possible she knows more?” Adriana asked him. “Something is off. I can feel it.”
“You heard her. She practically convicted him with her statement.” He tapped the legal pad against the side of his thigh.
“Not exactly. She sounded conflicted.”
“Her boyfriend tried to kill a presidential candidate after he beat the shit out of her . . . how do you expect her to feel?”
Her mouth tightened as she fought for the right words. “I’d still like to look into her a bit more.” But would he let her? And would he give her phones back, already?
“Fine,” he snapped, his approval almost surprising. “But as far as I’m concerned, Aaron’s our shooter, and the sooner you get on board with that idea, the better.”