“I want the interview recorded.”
“Right.” He nodded. “For the record.” Because she was that good. He’d known he’d made the right choice, turning Luke Lincoln over to her.
“For the record,” she reiterated, but her tone had softened. Perceptibly. He imagined she had a look in her eye, the same look that had accompanied that tone in her voice the night before.
“What time works for you?” he asked, kind of hoping she’d rush him through in between other important things. Like court appearances.
“I’m done at four,” she said. “Would that work for you?”
He could be free at four. And would force himself to be the height of professionalism when he showed up, too.
Chapter 6
Emma took Jayden Powell straight to the interview room after he checked his gun into a locker. She didn’t look at him. So how did she still note that his jeans and button-down white shirt looked fresh. Not wrinkled from a day’s work.
Ms. Shadow was that good. A brief glimpse with peripheral vision and that girl could fly to the moon and back.
Or send Emma to hell, was more like it.
She’d once had Emma on the back of a motorcycle, throwing reason, good sense, and her conscience to the wind, all because she’d had the hots for the guy who owned it.
The story of her life: what made her happiest also made her miserable. That was why she’d chosen only unselfish happiness by serving others, being a mother, but having no partner, doing work that energized her, captivated her and made society a better place to live.
“We’re doing this alone?” he asked when she shut the door to the little room behind him.
“It’ll be on tape.” Emma nodded at the equipment on the table as they each took a seat, her on one side, him on the other. She’d already set up the Lincoln file, and typed on the keyboard to access it, naming the new document “Jayden Powell Interview.”
She switched on the recorder so fast, her fingers fumbled and pushed the wrong button, closing the file, which she then had to reopen. Thankfully she was the only party in the room privy to what was on the laptop screen built into the tabletop.
As soon as the recorder was in play, she relaxed. No chance for anything but professional conversation now. Her shadow side could just go hide.
“Tell me what happened this morning, starting from when you pulled up to the residence where Luke Lincoln was staying.”
She had a list of questions and made it through most of them in record time. Powell made a great witness, her shadow side was quick to point out, and this time Emma concurred with her lesser self. She was starting to feel better about her chances in court with his succinct, appropriate and immediate responses. Not only was he giving her facts she could corroborate, first off with his location app, which would validate timing, but the man also recorded every one of his visits.
He was that good.
And would make an excellent witness. She was picturing him dressed in a blue blazer over his jeans and white shirt, probably with a tie, his longish hair somewhat contained, sitting in the jury box, before she realized that Ms. Shadow was spending more time with her than in the box where she belonged.
Part of the problem was that she and her darker side were starting to agree on a thing or two where the probation officer was concerned, and that just was not acceptable. She’d decided a couple of years before, when she’d broken a wonderful man’s heart, that her mental and emotional health, and the good of those with whom she might relate, depended on her keeping her lower tendencies in their place. She’d tried with all her might to fall in love with the good man with whom she’d been living, had even pretended to herself that she’d succeeded, but it hadn’t happened. And he’d known it...
She was almost through her list of questions.
“Why did you go there alone?” she asked, although she believed now that he’d found the gun where he’d said he had.
“I do the job I do because I believe everyone is deserving of a second chance,” he said, surprising her with the...personal tone...of his answer. He wasn’t being any less professional, wasn’t giving her looks or smiles—hadn’t since he’d walked toward her in the lobby of her building when she’d gone out to meet him—but somehow she felt like he was sharing something real with her. Real to the man, not just the officer.
“Go on.”
“If I didn’t go alone, I’d be making Luke immediately defensive, without having a chance to talk to him, to convince him to stay put,” he said. “During our first interview, he asked if I’d be the only one visiting him. He didn’t want his sister upset with a bunch of different cops showing up at her house at any time of the day. She’d said she was okay with it during our preplacement interview, but Luke said he felt bad enough, having to put his little sister out. Said, as her big brother, he should be protecting her, not humiliating her in front of her neighbors.”
He looked her in the eye. “At which time I told him that as long as he complied with my rules, I’d visit alone most often. I knew if I showed up today with Leon, or anyone else, I didn’t have a chance of keeping him on the outside.”
“You knew he was potentially dangerous and you just walked in there anyway.”
“I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to do anything stupid, like attack me.”
She stared at him. He could have been hurt. And didn’t seem to get that. For such a smart man, he’d made a very stupid choice.