39. Elle
39
ELLE
S hock still rings inside my skull as I sit there in the interrogation room at the police station. It’s the same room as last time. The one with the walls that were probably supposed to be white but are now mostly beige. The same three pieces of furniture are still here. A metal table, and two chairs facing each other. Even the coffee stains on the wall by the door are there too.
Staring numbly at the pale wall ahead, I try desperately to figure out what on earth just happened.
We were at the charity ball, everything was going perfectly, and then he showed up. John Smith, whose real name I now know to be Derrik Payne. And he’s a police officer.
God above, what have I gotten myself into? What have I gotten us into?
My mind drifts back to those final couple of minutes in the annex.
Derrik Payne waited until his colleague had taken Tristan away before he arrested me as well, so that it truly looked like I had sold him out. It’s almost as if he wanted to punish me for ending our arrangement by making sure that Tristan truly hates me.
And by God, he truly does hate me.
Pain stabs through my chest at the memory of what he looked like back there. Of how he looked at me . The hurt and betrayal that flashed across his features almost tore my heart out. Then it transformed into cold and lethal fury. It dripped like acid from his final words to me.
Once a rat, always a rat.
The next time I see you, I will finish what I started that day when I made you drive out into the woods.
Which means that he is going to kill me.
I wring my hands in my lap as fear and panic twist like thorny vines between my ribs. God, I think he really might kill me this time.
The door to the interrogation room is opened. I whip my head towards it right as Derrik Payne aka John Smith strolls into the room. His gray eyes glint and his entire posture practically pulses with confidence and victory.
I stare at him as he pulls out the chair opposite mine and sits down. The door clicks shut to my right.
“You’re a police officer,” I say before he has even had time to put his little notepad down. My words are half statement, half question.
Derrik finishes setting down the notepad and then places his pen neatly next to it. Then he finally looks up and meets my gaze again.
“Yes,” he simply replies. Then a sly smile blows across his lips for a second as he shrugs. “I did tell you that I have friends in here. ”
“But I thought that… The way you said it… You made it sound like…”
My thoughts are still a tangled mess of panic and confusion, so I stop speaking and instead draw in a breath to try to clear my head. Derrik just watches me, a faint smile on his mouth. After blowing out another breath, I try again.
“If you’re a police officer, why didn’t you just say that?” I ask, shaking my head at him in confusion. “Why lurk in the shadows outside and approach me like that? Like some kind of shady crook.”
“Simple. It was a safety precaution in case Tristan caught you spying and pressured you into telling him why. If he knew that the police were involved, it would complicate my plans.”
Silence descends on the pale room. For a while, all I can do is to stare at him. It feels as if I thought that I was standing on solid ground, only to realize that it was actually a flimsy carpet. A carpet which someone has now yanked out from underneath me. And now I’m just flailing around, trying to get my balance back.
“I don’t understand,” I blurt out at last.
He casually leans back in his chair and appraises me with those smug gray eyes of his. “Which part?”
“All of it. Why all the cloak and dagger? And why even involve me at all? If you’re a police officer, don’t you already have resources? Why would you need me to spy on Tristan?”
“Why do you think?” He gives me an unimpressed look, as if he can’t believe that I’m even asking something so stupid. “He would’ve noticed if random people were following him. But you , you had a reason to keep tabs on him. It was the smartest choice for the mission. ”
“ What mission?” I demand, completely frustrated by everything I don’t understand.
“To take down Rob Bracken, of course.”
I blink and open my mouth. Then I close it again. My head is spinning. “So… this wasn’t about Tristan? It was about Rob Bracken?”
“I will admit that my decision to use Tristan as the gateway was made for… personal reasons. But yes, the main goal has always been Bracken. His drug empire is ruining Bercester and he needs to be dealt with.”
“So go and arrest him ! You must know where his headquarters are. Why involve me and Tristan in this?”
He clicks his tongue. “Don’t you think we have tried that already? The slippery little snake never keeps anything there. Nothing that can be tied to him, anyway.” He levels a hard stare on me. “I was hoping that you would be able to find Tristan, Bracken, and the drugs in the same place at the same time, and inform me about it. But unfortunately, you broke off our arrangement. So then, I had to resort to other methods. Which brings us back to why you’re here now.”
“This is illegal,” I blurt out. “This is entrapment… or something.” Staring at him in disbelief, I shake my head. “Isn’t it?”
Another one of those smug smiles tugs at his lips. “No, it’s not entrapment. It’s just thinking outside the box. Which is exactly what is needed to advance in this profession.”
And that’s when I see it. The burning ambition in his eyes. The insatiable hunger to move up the ranks. To prove himself superior to others. And the willingness to do anything to achieve it.
Cold dread seeps through my veins.
I’ve been tricked and arrested by a ruthlessly ambitious man who will do whatever it takes to reach his goals, regardless of who it destroys in the process. This will not end well.
“Now,” Derrik continues, and taps the pen against the notepad. “Here’s the deal.”
I blink in surprise. “Deal? You want to make another deal with me?”
“Yes. Even though I am deeply disappointed by the manner in which you ended our previous arrangement, I do believe in second chances. So I will show you one final bit of mercy.”
Since I don’t know what to say to that, I just keep watching him. Confusion is probably written all over my face. But I don’t care. My entire worldview has been flipped upside down so many times tonight that I feel like my head will be spinning for years to come.
“I will let you walk out of here a free woman,” Derrik says, a scheming glint in his eyes. “No charges filed. No record of any wrongdoing. Nothing.”
Disbelief clangs inside my skull. That is a better outcome than anything I could have hoped for. I lick my lips nervously.
“In exchange for what?” I ask.
He smiles. “In exchange for you testifying that you personally saw Rob Bracken hand that bag of drugs to Tristan and personally heard Bracken tell him to sell drugs at that charity event.”
I jerk back in my chair. “No!”
The word is out of my mouth almost before he has even finished speaking.
“It’s what happened anyway,” Derrik says with a casual shrug. “Right?”
“No,” I repeat. “I won’t do it.”
Silence falls over the room. For a few seconds, we only stare at each other from across the metal table. My heart pounds in my chest.
Then, Derrik sits forward in his chair again, draws his hand through the air, and snaps his fingers as if he has just remembered something.
“Oh,” he says. “That’s right. I forgot to tell you the other side of this deal.” A distinctly cruel expression flickers across his features for a second. And when he smiles at me, it’s cold and full of unspoken threats. “Tristan is getting the same deal.”
I draw in a breath. Confusion whirls inside my mind like thick clouds as I stare at Derrik. “What?”
“Tristan is being offered the same deal. If he testifies that he personally saw Rob Bracken hand you that bag of drugs and personally heard Bracken tell you to sell drugs at that charity event, he will get to walk out of here a free man. No charges against him. Nothing.”
“But that doesn’t work. We can’t both get the same deal.”
“Exactly. So whoever takes the deal first, is the one who gets it. Otherwise, you both go down for this.”
Straightening my spine, I level a determined stare on him and declare, “Fine, then we both go down for it.”
“Really?” His smile is slow and mocking as he watches me. “Do you really think that there is any sort of universe, at all, in which Tristan doesn’t take this deal? From what I saw when we arrested you, he looked very angry and very hurt. It looked like he wanted to kill you. And based on what you said last time you were here, he also hates you for something you did back when you two were in high school. And now, he is about to be presented with an offer not only to screw you over but also to save himself. Do you really, honestly, think that he will ever pass up such a golden opportunity? ”
My stomach drops and true fear spreads like cold poison through my limbs.
Because he’s right.
He is so utterly, undeniably right.
Tristan hates me now. He hated me before, when I made him lose his scholarship, but there was a short time this past week when I thought that we had finally been able to move past that. But now, after this… After he thinks that I betrayed him again , he is going to hate me forever. I could tell by the look on his face when the cops hauled him out of the room. There is no coming back from this. Not for us.
With his final words to me before being dragged out, he told me that he was going to kill me the next time he saw me. But this would be an even better revenge for him.
Not only would it be a sort of cruel poetic justice for him to get me arrested, since that is what I did to him in high school, it would also be a much more lasting revenge. Like he said that day when I had the panic attack, he didn’t want me to die because I hadn’t finished suffering yet.
Now is his chance. Sentence me to prison and utterly destroy my life while he walks free.
This is his shot at revenge.
At the perfect revenge.
“But like I said,” Derrik continues with a casual shrug. “I have some personal issues with Tristan, so I would much prefer it if you were the one to take the deal. Which is why I’m presenting it to you first.”
I just sit there, staring at him. Completely dumbfounded. My heart is beating so fast in my chest that I’m not even sure it’s beating at all. I feel like I have been hit really hard in the head.
Derrik picks up his notepad and taps it on the metal table a couple of times, as if gathering up the papers even though they’re already stuck to the notepad. “I’ll give you fifteen minutes or so to consider my offer while I go and present this deal to Tristan. Then I will check back with you first, giving you the opportunity to be the first one to take the deal. Because, like I said, I would prefer it to be you. But if I come back and you tell me no, I will go to Tristan next. And he will take the deal.”
The chair scrapes against the floor as he stands up.
My body feels heavy. As if it’s full of lead. I barely manage to raise my head to stare after Derrik as he starts towards the door.
When he reaches it, he pauses for a second and looks back.
“Choose wisely,” he says.
And then he walks out.
I’m left sitting there on the hard chair inside the bleak interrogation room.
My heart hurts and my mind is drowning with impossible choices.
If I take this deal, I will be screwing Tristan over. Again.
But if I don’t take this deal, Tristan is going to screw me over. He’s going to happily pin it all on me and send me to prison. My entire future will be gone in seconds. Ruined. Never to be repaired again.
I will never be able to go into politics. I will never be able to get any sort of job I want. Because who would hire someone who has served time in prison for dealing drugs? Not to mention all the precious time I would lose while I’m actually in prison.
Oh God, I don’t want to go to prison.
And I don’t want to throw Tristan under the bus .
But if I don’t do that, he is going to throw me under the bus.
Fear and dread and panic shred my soul as I stare desperately at the door while Derrik’s final words echo inside my skull.
Choose wisely .