Chapter 6 - The Interrogation Room
The interrogation room at downtown headquarters smelled of stale coffee, industrial floor wax, and decades of human despair. The stainless-steel table bolted to the linoleum floor reflected the harsh overhead fluorescent tube that hummed with a low, maddening frequency. Marcus sat unhandcuffed in the metal chair, his uniform shirt wrinkled, his forearms resting flat against the cold surface. Across from him sat Internal Affairs Detective Vance—no relation, thankfully—and Captain Miller. They hadn't asked him a single question about his patrol duties for three hours.
Instead, they played an audio loop on a small digital recorder: Eleanor Kensington’s voice, clear and chillingly polite, reciting a timeline of alleged domestic abuse and financial blackmail orchestrated by Marcus and Clara.
"Play it again," Marcus said, his voice flat, his eyes fixed on the spinning tape reel on the digital screen.
Detective Vance clicked stop. "We don't need to play it again, Marcus. You know how it sounds. A rogue cop using his position to shield his wife from a multi-million-dollar breach of contract. The district attorney already has a grand jury empaneled for tomorrow morning."
"It's a fabricated timeline," Marcus said, his jaw tightening. "Eleanor had access to our smart-home network. She can synthesize any voice file she wants using commercial AI tools. You're a cop—look at the metadata on that audio file. It was edited three minutes after she left my apartment."
Captain Miller leaned forward, resting his heavy forearms on the table. "The metadata has already been reviewed by the cyber crimes division, Marcus. It’s clean. The file was created on a secure corporate server inside Kensington Industries at midnight last night, long before you ever got the call."
Marcus stared at the captain, the pieces clicking together with terrifying precision. Kensington Industries didn't just own the legal contracts; they owned the cyber crimes division's server routing protocols. They had built the trap years ago, waiting for the exact moment Clara tried to walk away.
"Where is my wife?" Marcus asked, ignoring the corporate nonsense entirely. "The ambulance never checked into St. Jude’s. I called every trauma center in the tri-county area. She doesn't exist in the system."
Detective Vance exchanged a quick, unreadable glance with Captain Miller before sliding a single sheet of paper across the metal table.
Marcus looked down. It was a transfer order signed by a federal judge, transferring custody of Clara Vance from municipal emergency medical services to a private, secure medical facility located inside the Kensington corporate research campus ten miles outside the city limits.
"She's not under arrest," Detective Vance said smoothly. "She's receiving specialized prenatal care at a facility equipped to handle high-risk surrogacy complications. By order of the federal court, you have no legal right to visit her."
Marcus stood up so violently that his metal chair scraped backward against the linoleum with a screeching metallic wail that made both officers flinch. He leaned over the table, placing his palms flat on the stainless steel, his face inches from Captain Miller's.
"That's my wife," Marcus whispered, his voice trembling with a terrifying, controlled fury. "And that's my child. You think a piece of paper from a bought-and-paid-for judge is going to stop me from walking through the front gates of that compound?"
Before Captain Miller could signal the guards stationed outside the heavy wooden door, the interrogation room's wall-mounted speaker hissed to life with an emergency precinct-wide broadcast.
May you like
"All units, all units. Priority one alert," the dispatcher's voice crackled, distorted by static. "We have an active armed breach at the Kensington Bio-Research facility on Route 9. Suspect is reported wearing a dark blue police uniform."
---
