Chapter 9 - The Interrogation on the Kitchen Floor
The kitchen fell into a stunned, ringing silence, broken only by the ragged, wheezing breaths of David still pinned against the cabinets and the sharp gasps of Clara pressing herself against the refrigerator.
Mark stood over the suited man, his chest heaving slightly, his face a mask of cold fury. He reached down, grabbed the lapels of the man's expensive charcoal suit, and hoisted him up until the man’s toes barely touched the floor.
"Who sent you?" Mark demanded, his voice a low, gravelly growl that vibrated through the small room. "Is it Briggs? Or did the director want me quiet before I reached the congressional committee?"
The suited man coughed, a thin line of blood trickling from the corner of his mouth where he had hit the counter on his way down. Instead of answering with fear, a dark, cynical smile spread across his bruised face.
"You think... you think you're the only ghost they let walk back, Captain?" the man wheezed, his eyes darting toward Clara and David before snapping back to Mark. "Look around you. You’re already a ghost in your own home. The world moved on. Your wife moved on. Why couldn't you just stay in the ground where you belonged?"
Mark’s fist tightened in the fabric of the man's suit, his knuckles whitening. For a second, the temptation to snap the man's neck and end the nightmare right there hung heavily in the air.
"Mark, stop!" Clara cried out, rushing forward and grabbing Mark’s arm with both hands. Her fingers dug into his biceps, her nails biting through the camouflage fabric. "Put him down! What is happening? Who are these people?"
Mark looked down at Clara. The raw terror in her eyes wasn't directed at the armed intruder bleeding on her kitchen floor; it was directed at him. At the violence radiating from his body, at the lethal efficiency he had just displayed in the very room where she used to make coffee every morning.
"These people are the reason I was gone for fourteen months, Clara," Mark said, his voice softening just a fraction as he looked at her. "They’re the reason you got a folded flag and a condolence check."
The suited man let out a wet, raspy chuckle beneath Mark’s grip. "She didn't just get a check, Captain. Ask her what else she signed when the probate court cleared your estate. Ask her what the government required her to sign to secure the survivor benefits."
Mark slowly lowered the man back onto the floor, keeping a heavy boot planted on the man's chest to pin him in place. He turned his head slowly to look at Clara.
"What did you sign, Clara?" Mark asked, his voice dangerously quiet.
May you like
Clara stepped back, her face turning chalk-white as she avoided his gaze entirely, her hands flying up to cover her mouth once more in that familiar gesture of absolute dread.
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