He Came Back Running (Maya and Mason) novel Chapter 147

Chapter 147

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Chapter 147

Zara’s POV

The interview room was small and deliberately uncomfortable.

‘Not physically…. the chairs were functional, the temperature was managed. The discomfort was architectural.

I had been sitting in it for two hours before my lawyer arrived

Those two hours I spent saying nothing beyond my name and my request for legal representation, repeated as many times as the detective required.

The Detective was good at his job.

I understood this within the first twenty minutes….. the way he asked questions that seemed to be about one thing while actually being about another, the way he created silences and watched what filled them, the way he returned to the same territory from different directions as though the view might be different each time.

He had been working toward something specific since before I sat down

He believed I was connected to the shooting

He was right that I was connected to the shooting.

What he didn’t have was evidence sufficient to build an arrest on.

I knew this because I had spent two hours in the silence of the waiting room calculating exactly what he could and couldn’t have, and the answer kept coming back the same way. The man I had hired had not named me…. if he had, the arrest would have come before the questioning.

The communication between us had been through channels that required significant digital forensics to trace. Mason’s overheard conversation in the corridor was usable as a tip but not as evidence

He had brought me in on the strength of something that pointed without landing.

My lawyer arrived at one-fifteen.

His name was Caldwell and he had been handling situations like this for twenty years

He reviewed the situation in four minutes.

Then he looked at the detective across the table and said: “My client will not be answering further questions at this time. If you have evidence sufficient to support a charge, charge her. If you don’t, we’re leaving.”

The Dectetive looked at Caldwell.

Then at me.

Then at the folder in front of him

The folder contained whatever he had. I watched him look at it and understood from the way he looked at it that what was inside was not enough.

He closed it

“Interview suspended,” he said, to the recorder.

I collected my coat and bag from the property desk with the methodical efficiency of someone who needed to

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Chapter 147

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maintain a physical routine because every other kind of control had been temporarily unavailable.

Caldwell walked beside me.

“Don’t speak to anyone,” he said. “Press, police, anyone connected to the investigation. Call me if anyone contacts you.”

“Understood” I said.

We reached the corridor leading to the exit.

“Ms. Collins.”

The Dectetive

Behind us.

I turned

He was standing at the end of the corridor with his hands in his jacket pockets and the expression of a man who had not gotten what he came for and had decided the exit was an appropriate moment for the last word.

“You may have walked out today,” he said. His voice carried without effort. “But I’ll get there. These things take time.” He held my gaze from the length of the corridor. “Enjoy your freedom while it lasts:”

Caldwell touched my elbow.

“Walk,” he said quietly.

I walked

Then stopped on the pavement.

Caldwell said something about next steps, about staying available, about not travellinotification. I

heard him and filed it and said yes in the appropriate places.

He left

I stood on the pavement outside the police station.

The Detective’s words followed me down the hallway in the way certain sentences followed you….. not loudly, but with the low, persistent quality of something that intended to stay.

Enjoy your freedom while it lasts

I thought about the man I had hired.

The man who had discharged a weapon at a wedding.

Who was either cooperating with investigators or about to be.

Whose name, once connected to mine through any digital thread, would produce the supply corridor and everything in it.

Mason had put me in handcuffs today

Not directly. Not with his hands.

With the information he had chosen to give someone, communicated through the careful distance of a man who

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had learned that the most dangerous moves were the ones that never had your fingerprints on them.

I stood on the pavement and looked at the grey sky and thought about what I had said to him in the corridor.

We have nothing in common.

I looked at the station door

At the cuffs that had been around my wrists an hour ago.

At the freedom he had told me to enjoy while it lasted.

And I understood, finally… the reason why I was in that room was just because of one person…. Alex, and that’s

because I loved him… 2

P

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