Detective Levesque smiled. “No one’s blaming you, Nita. We’re just having a discussion.”
Discussion. Yeah, right.
Nita’s eyes flicked between the two of them, panic rising. She felt trapped, like a caged animal. They knew everything. She thought she’d been so clever, and now she was sitting here, the consequences of her actions staring her in the face. They were going to arrest her and take her to prison.
The walls seemed to pulse around her, closing in. She was in a cage, just like the market, and they wanted to put her in another cage forever. Nita would never get out of jail given her crimes. Even if she survived the experience, which she doubted.
Sweat dripped down Nita’s forehead, and the silence dragged.
Then Quispe asked, “Is there something you want to tell us, Nita?”
Nita’s breath came in short, sharp gasps, and she looked up at the camera that was recording everything.
How could she get out of this?
Then the door opened, and Nita’s mother stood there. Her hair down, red streaking through the black like it was dripping blood.
“Hello, everyone. What did I miss?”
Forty-One
NITA HAD NEVER BEEN so grateful to see anyone in her life as she was to see her mother right then.
Detective Levesque rose. “You can’t . . . How did you . . . ?”
Nita’s mother waltzed into the interrogation room like she owned it. Her boot heels clicked on the floor with each slow, deliberate step, and her wide shark smile was hypnotic. She smiled at Levesque like she was Adair, with his terrifying mouth, just waiting to swallow the detective whole.
“I just told the officers out front I was here to see my niece, and they led me here.”
She sauntered over to Nita and stood behind her. Her mother wrapped her arms around Nita from behind, and reached for the papers Detective Levesque had been showing her.
“What’s all this?” She raised an eyebrow, taking in the papers and Nita’s rigid stance.
Detective Levesque frowned. “We were discussing Nita’s involvement in certain events in Toronto.”
Her mother’s fingers curled possessively on Nita’s shoulder. “Such as?”
“The shooting that occurred yesterday. Nita was filmed fleeing the scene, chased by an armed woman.”
“Yes. What about it?”
“We were just establishing what kind of relationship Nita had with the murder victims.”
Nita’s mother gave him a skeptical look, and her voice went flat. “So let me get this straight. Nita was running away from a woman wielding a gun. A woman who you know was at the crime scene. And we’re sitting here talking about if Nita was involved?”
Detective Levesque straightened, heat coming into his face. “It’s not that simple.” He slid the printout of the darknet chat over to her mother. “Someone online is claiming responsibility.”
Her mother picked up the paper and looked at it, then gave the detective a withering glare. “This seems to be an online site selling my niece’s phone GPS location.”
Levesque looked uneasy. “Well, yes. But if you look at the top comment—”
“The anonymous comment, that could have been posted by anyone. For example, another dealer on the black market trying to scare off the competition so he could catch Nita himself.”
Levesque blinked. “That’s one possibility.”
Her mother put the paper down slowly and slid it back to Levesque. “So you’re saying you saw that my niece was kidnapped, sold on the black market, and attacked when she got out, and you thought to yourself, I wonder if she’s been the villain this whole time?”
Levesque scrambled and then repeated, “It’s not that simple. And she’s never given a satisfactory explanation why she’s the only survivor of Death Market’s destruction—”
“Fire.” Nita interjected. “One of the generators blew, and it set off a chain reaction. If I couldn’t heal my burn wounds, I’d be as dead as everyone else.”
His mouth opened and closed, but he remained silent.
Her mother’s voice was icy. “Was there more?”
Levesque turned to Quispe, who’d been silent for the duration of Nita’s mother’s visit, just watching and listening.
“You were kidnapped with INHUP’s other charge at the airport,” Levesque said. “Only Nita and INHUP knew where you’d be and when.”
“That’s correct,” Quispe agreed, but her voice wasn’t accusatory. Just a statement.
“Oh?” Nita’s mother snorted. “I see. Were you trying to pin that on my niece too?” She leaned forward and glared at both of them. “Because you know what it looks like to me? It looks like INHUP isn’t a safe place to be. We get out of INHUP, and within hours, my niece’s cell phone GPS location is on sale. You try to transport another person, and you’re ambushed and kidnapped when you arrive. It sounds less like my niece is the problem and more like your organization is riddled with corruption.”
Nita felt a surge of smugness. No one could argue with her mother. It was impossible. All the traits that scared Nita, the tangible threat of her presence, the way she could manipulate a conversation, everything that made Nita want to run, made her hate her life—seeing them used in her defense was incredibly satisfying.
In any other circumstance, Nita would have laughed at her mother’s manipulation strategy. Using known corruption in INHUP to hide that it was Nita and Fabricio responsible for it all. There was a strange sort of irony in using INHUP against itself.
Detective Levesque glared. “How dare you insinuate that INHUP is—”
Quispe laid a gentle hand on his arm, and he stopped.
Then she sighed softly. “I think that’s enough.”
“But they—”
“I said that’s enough.” Quispe’s voice was soft. But her face had gone a little gray, and her mouth was pressed into a tight line.
Nita’s mother pounced. “You already suspected this was a possibility, didn’t you?”
Quispe’s expression smoothed into a poker face. “I’m not at liberty to say.”
“You just did.” Her mother leaned back and shrugged. “It would have been remiss of you not to consider the possibility, especially given how large the Toronto and Bogotá offices are. You can’t account for the quality of every person in both of them.” Her mother snorted. “Especially considering your other option is that a seventeen-year-old unnatural trafficking victim somehow sold herself on the black market, killed some dealers, and tried to kidnap someone she’d met days ago.”
Levesque was beet red, and he looked to Quispe.
Quispe’s eyes fell on Nita, and they seemed infinitely sad. Like she was taking everything that had happened as a personal failure on her part.
“I won’t say your theory lacks merit,” Quispe finally said. “And if someone in INHUP is responsible for this, I will find them, and I will make them face justice.”
Quispe’s face was hard and determined. Nita believed that Quispe would find the corruption. Not that there was any this time, given it was actually Nita’s fault. But there was enough corruption in INHUP that Quispe would find some.