5. Behind the Tears
Chapter five
Behind the Tears
The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead with an irritating drone.
I sat huddled on a metal chair in the center of the sterile precinct interview room.
The unmistakable smell of industrial floor wax and stale coffee lingered in the stagnant air.
A female uniformed officer stepped into the small space.
Her boots squeaked against the polished linoleum.
Carrying a gray synthetic emergency blanket folded over her arm, she approached my chair and shook the fabric out.
“Let’s get this around your shoulders,” the officer said. She draped the material over my back, tucking it behind my neck.
“It’s so cold,” I whispered.
I shifted my hands from my abdomen, gripping the scratchy edge of the fabric. I pulled it tight over my dirt-stained cashmere coat, shrinking back against the hard slats of the chair.
“The adrenaline crash drops your core temperature,” she said, her voice shifting into a calm, soothing tone. “I’m going to grab you something warm to drink.”
The officer retreated to the hallway, leaving the door cracked open. I kept my chin tucked into the collar of my coat, staring at the scuff marks on the floor.
The civilian who found me at the gas station bought my hysterics without a second thought.
The police would need a much better show.
I needed to bury the cold anger I felt in Bastien’s penthouse and play the broken victim.
If the detectives caught me in a lie right now, the entire investigation would turn against me.
The officer returned a moment later carrying a Styrofoam cup. She held it out to me. The lukewarm tea barely penetrated the dense foam. I accepted the cup with both hands, holding it over my lap.
If I was going to sell this, the tears needed to be real. I closed my eyes, forcing my mind back into the kidnappers’ black SUV. The bruising grip of a stranger’s hands dug into my biceps. The jarring sway of the vehicle. The suffocating darkness of the rough cloth blindfold.
I squeezed the sides of the Styrofoam cup until the tea sloshed over the rim and spilled onto my knuckles, willing my hands to tremble.
The officer knelt beside my chair and offered a sympathetic smile.
“Take small sips, sweetheart,” she said. “You’re safe now. Detective Loxley will be right in to take your statement, and we’ve already contacted your family.”
I looked up at her, blinking hard to coax a fresh tear down my cheek. I forced my voice to waver, carefully masking any trace of calculation.
“Thank you,” I said. “I… I just want my husband. Did you reach Tobias? Is he coming?”
“He’s on his way,” the officer said, patting my knee. “Just keep that blanket tight around you.”
I pulled the rough edge of the blanket closer to my chin and waited for my husband.
The interview room door swung wider. A man in a rumpled brown trench coat walked in, carrying a yellow legal pad. His hair was disheveled, and a permanent shadow of stubble darkened his jawline.
“That will be all, Officer,” he said. “Close the door behind you.”
The uniformed officer nodded and backed out of the room. The door clicked shut, cutting off the ambient noise of the precinct.
The man walked to the opposite side of the small metal table. He pulled out a chair. The legs dragged across the linoleum floor with a loud, grating scrape. He sat down and tossed the notepad onto the table.
“I’m Detective Arthur Loxley,” he said. He clicked a ballpoint pen. “I know you’ve been through hell today, Mrs. Stanton, but I need to ask you a few questions while the memories are fresh.”
I stared at the deep bags under his eyes.
He looked exhausted, like a man working his third consecutive shift.
Under any other circumstance, I would have answered his questions.
But if this detective started digging into Tobias’s life right now, he might spook my husband into burying his financial tracks before I could find them myself.
The police investigation needed to hit an immediate wall.
I reached forward and set my Styrofoam cup on the metal table.
I shrank back in my chair, pulling the edges of the blanket tighter around my shoulders. I pressed my palms against my cheekbones and buried my face in my hands. The salty taste of my own tears touched my lips as I forced myself to weep.
“Mrs. Stanton, I know this is incredibly difficult, but I need anything you can remember,” Loxley said. The sharp scratch of his pen filled the silence. “Did you see a license plate? Hear any names?”
“They blindfolded me in the car,” I said, my voice muffled behind my fingers. “I couldn’t see anything. It just smelled like damp concrete.”
“Alright, take it easy,” Loxley said. The scratching paused. “What about their voices? Accents?”
I shook my head, keeping my face hidden. I couldn’t risk looking a trained investigator in the eye while I lied to him.
“I don’t know!” I cried, letting feigned panic bleed into my voice. “They just yelled at me to stay down. It was so cold.
“I think… maybe I was underground at one point. But I’m not sure. I know they were talking about a ransom, but everything beyond that is such a blur.”
The room fell silent. I waited behind my hands, heaving my shoulders to fake a sob. Loxley sighed.
He pressed his pen to the paper again, writing my dead-end story onto his notepad.
The heavy door of the interview room slammed open, striking the wall with a loud, metallic crack.
Loxley jerked in his chair. “Hold on, folks, you can’t just barge in here. I’m taking a statement—”
He didn’t stand a chance. Lavinia stormed past the threshold, dropping her designer purse. The leather and brass hardware hit the linoleum floor with a sharp clatter that echoed off the cinderblock walls.
“Oh, my sweet girl!” Lavinia shrieked, her voice pitched high and theatrical. “My precious baby! Thank God you’re alive!”
She crowded the tiny room, but Tobias moved faster.
He ignored the detective entirely, lunging across the small space between the door and my metal chair.
He dropped straight to his knees on the scuffed floor.
He threw his arms around my waist, burying his face directly into the fabric of my cashmere coat, pressing his forehead against my pregnant belly.
A suffocating wave of expensive cologne flooded the stale air.
I pressed my back against the metal slats of the chair.
The urge to recoil washed over me. I wanted to kick him.
I wanted to grab his hair and scream the truth into the harsh glare above us.
The man clinging to my waist, weeping into the coat covering my unborn child, was the exact same man who had authorized a group of thugs to drag me across wet concrete.
He was a coward. He was a monster wearing a tailored suit.
But Bastien’s voice cut through the rage in my head. The performance had to be flawless.
I willed the tension from my shoulders, letting the emergency blanket slip away as I placed my trembling hands on the stiff wool of Tobias’s jacket.
“Cecilia! God, I was so terrified,” Tobias choked out, injecting a devastated waver into his voice.
He squeezed his arms tighter around my waist. I stared down at the perfect, golden-blond part in his hair. The grotesque hypocrisy of his tears turned my stomach. I pushed the disgust aside, forcing a ragged sob.
I tangled my fingers in his styled hair, pulling him closer.
“Tobias,” I cried, letting my voice crack with forced terror. “I was so scared. I just wanted to come home.”
Lavinia stood right behind him, her hands hovering over my shoulders like predatory talons.
“I just wanted you,” I lied, willing fresh tears to well up and fall. “Thank you for getting me out of there.”
I sobbed against his chest, wrapping my arms around the monster who sold me, and thanked him for bringing me home.
Lavinia crowded the space behind the metal chair.
Her hands descended on my hair, her manicured nails scraping against my scalp in a parody of maternal comfort.
She leaned down, pressing a lingering kiss against my temple.
The touch burned my skin. Her floral perfume layered over Tobias’s cologne, thickening the dead air of the interrogation room.
Their combined body heat radiated against me, raising the temperature in the tiny room until it felt unbearably heavy.
Tobias shifted his weight on the scuffed linoleum. He pulled back just enough to break our embrace, bringing both of his hands up to frame my face. His palms were warm. He dragged his thumbs across my cheekbones, wiping away the tears. The damp pressure of his skin against mine repulsed me.
“You’re safe now,” Tobias whispered, his green eyes locked on mine.
I stared back at him, keeping my eyes wide and my breathing deliberately shallow.
“I swear to you, I will never let anyone hurt you again,” he continued, his voice dropping into a tone of fierce, practiced devotion.
The audacity of the lie nearly broke my composure. He knelt there, playing the savior, soaking in the glory of a rescue he had purchased with my trauma. They were reveling in this.
Behind Tobias, Detective Loxley sat silent, a passive spectator to their grand performance. They had an audience. Tobias and Lavinia believed they had secured the trust fund payout, duped the police, and gotten away with it.
Lavinia stepped closer. Her heavy wool coat brushed against the back of my chair, trapping me between their bodies. “We are taking you home, darling. Right this second.”
I kept my gaze fixed on Tobias’s collar. I couldn’t risk looking up at her.
“You never have to leave the house again,” Lavinia added, her tone dripping with a sickening sweetness.
If I looked either of them in the eye for even a second, my hatred would shatter the illusion. I squeezed my eyes shut, cutting off the sight of him. I pushed my weight forward, breaking Tobias’s gentle grip on my jaw. I buried my face against the abrasive wool of Tobias’s lapel.
The abrasive wool scraped my chin raw. I focused exclusively on that rough texture, using the harsh friction to steady my performance. I let my shoulders shake, feigning another wave of panic. I played the part they wanted, giving them the docile, broken victim they expected to see.
“Don’t leave me, Tobias,” I cried, muffling my voice against his chest. “Please, just don’t let go of me.”
I burrowed deeper against his chest, holding on to the man who arranged my kidnapping, and begged him not to let me go.
Loxley cleared his throat, the dry sound piercing the stifling tension of the interrogation room. He pushed his chair back and stood up. He stepped around the small table, walking into the tight space between Lavinia and the door.
“Mr. Stanton, I hate to interrupt,” Loxley said. He shoved his hands into his pockets. “But whoever grabbed your wife is still out there.”
Tobias stiffened against me. He pulled back from our embrace, pivoting slightly to face the detective.
“But surely they’re not still dangerous,” Tobias countered. He kept his voice steady, easily slipping back into his boardroom persona. “Now that they’ve received the ransom.”
“Anything is possible,” Loxley replied.
He stared down at Tobias, his expression flat, playing the role of the exhausted, uncompromising cop to perfection.
“And we don’t have the manpower to park a cruiser at your estate indefinitely,” Loxley continued. “You need 24-hour private security starting tonight. Someone who can secure the perimeter and shadow her every move.”
“Of course,” Tobias said without hesitation. He pushed up from his knees, standing tall in his tailored suit. “Money is no object when it comes to my family’s safety. I’ll make calls to the firm immediately.”
“There is a firm I trust,” Loxley said.
The detective pulled a crisp white business card from the inner pocket of his coat and held it out toward my husband.
“Kavanagh Security Solutions,” Loxley said. “They handle high-threat corporate protection. Call that number, tell them I sent you, and they’ll have men at your perimeter within the hour.”
I stared at the white cardstock pinched between his fingers. Loxley was not just a tired precinct detective working the afternoon shift. He belonged to Bastien. The rumpled coat and the permanent shadow of stubble were just camouflage.
Tobias reached forward and plucked the card from Loxley’s hand.
My husband did not ask questions. He did not ask to vet the firm. His ego demanded he play the protector in front of a police detective, completely blinding him to the snare closing around his ankles. He was inviting the syndicate boss he paid for the kidnapping directly into our house.
I buried my face against the abrasive wool of Tobias’s lapel. I shut my eyes, pushing deeper into the fabric to hide my expression.
“Thank you, Detective,” Tobias said. “I will call them from the car.”
I kept my face pressed against his chest, playing the broken wife as he pocketed the card that would bring Bastien into our home.