Chapter 4 - The Interrogation Room
The state police barracks in Orwell smelled of damp wool, industrial floor wax, and cheap coffee. The interrogation room was windowless, its concrete walls painted a dismal institutional green. A single metal table stood bolted to the floor beneath a glaring overhead fluorescent fixture.
When the heavy steel door creaked open and I stepped inside, Clara was sitting at the opposite end of the table.
She wasn't crying. Her blond hair, usually immaculate, was pulled back into a messy ponytail, and she wore a standard-issue grey sweatshirt provided by holding facilities. But her posture was rigid, her chin lifted with that familiar, haughty defiance that used to charm me in boardrooms and cocktail parties, but now made my stomach churn.
She looked up as the door clicked shut behind me. A slow, unsettling smile touched the corners of her lips.
"Arthur," she said softly, her voice smooth and devoid of remorse. "I knew you’d come."
I didn't sit down. I leaned my hands against the cold metal table, glaring across the small expanse between us.
"Where are they, Clara?" I snarled, my voice vibrating with controlled fury. "How could you do that to your own flesh and blood? What kind of monster locks a baby in a dark room?"
"I kept them safe, Arthur," she replied, her tone infuriatingly calm, almost maternal.
"Safe?" I slammed my hand onto the table, making the metal clatter. "You starved them! Tommy was hours away from organ failure! Lily was crawling on the floor like an animal because her legs had atrophied from lack of movement! That isn't safety, Clara—that's torture!"
Clara tilted her head, her blue eyes narrowing with a flash of genuine irritation. "You don't understand. You never understood anything outside your spreadsheets and your corporate business trips."
"Try me," I challenged, leaning in closer. "Explain to me how locking our children in a makeshift prison cell while you packed your bags to run away constitutes keeping them safe."
She folded her hands neatly on the table, leaning forward into the harsh overhead light. "Because of what was coming, Arthur. Because of them."
"Them who?" I demanded.
"My family," she whispered, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial register that sent a genuine chill down my spine. "The people I ran away from six years ago. The people who found out where we were living."
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I stared at her, genuinely wondering for a terrifying second if my wife had suffered a complete psychotic break. "Clara... your parents died in a car accident in Seattle when you were in college. You were an only child. There is no family."
Clara laughed—a short, sharp sound devoid of humor. "That’s what they wanted the world to think. That’s the lie my father paid millions of dollars to bury."
