The Interview Room

Miller’s office was a box of stale coffee and bureaucratic despair.

I sat in the hard plastic chair, my hands folded on the metal table. The cuffs were gone, but the feeling of metal on my wrists lingered like a phantom pain.

"Let's go over this one more time," Miller said, leaning back in his chair. The springs squeaked, a sound of mechanical exhaustion.

"I already told you," I said. "I dropped the drive. Thorne kicked it."

"And the backup?"

"There is no backup."

Miller sighed. He rubbed his temples, his eyes closed. He looked like a man who just wanted to go home and forget the world existed.

"Mrs. Vance," he said, opening his eyes. "You understand the situation. Thorne is dead. Your husband is missing, presumed dead. The house is a total loss. And you are the only one left standing."

"I'm a victim," I said.

"Are you?"

He leaned forward.

"Because from where I'm sitting, you look like the winner. Thorne is out of the picture. Julian is gone. And you... you walk away with everything."

"I have nothing," I said. "My house is gone. My company is gone."

"Insurance," Miller said. "Life insurance. Corporate buyout clauses. You stand to inherit millions, Elena. Motive."

I stared at him.

"You think I planned this?"

"I think you're smart," he said. "Smarter than Julian. Smarter than Thorne."

He tapped the table.

"You played them against each other. You let them destroy themselves. And then you walked out of the ashes."

"I survived," I said. "That's not a crime."

"It is if you lit the match."

He stood up. He walked to the window, looking out at the gray dawn.

"We're going to find Julian," he said. "Or his body. And when we do... we'll know the truth."

"Good luck," I said.

He turned back to me.

"You're free to go, Elena. For now. But don't leave town."

"I have nowhere to go," I lied.

I stood up. My legs were stiff, my ankle throbbing. I walked to the door.

"One more thing," Miller said.

I stopped.

"The drive," he said. "The one Thorne kicked. We recovered some fragments."

I froze.

"And?"

"Garbage data," he said. "Corrupted. Useless."

He smiled. A thin, knowing smile.

"almost like it was a decoy."

I didn't smile back.

"Goodbye, Detective."

I walked out.

I walked through the bullpen, past the tired cops and the ringing phones. I walked out the front door, into the cool morning air.

Sasha was waiting in the rental car.

She looked worse than I felt. Her arm was in a sling, her face pale and drawn. But her eyes were bright.

"Did they charge you?" she asked as I got in.

"Not yet," I said.

"Where's Sarah?"

"Gone," I said. "She took the first bus out of town."

"Smart girl."

Sasha started the car.

"So," she said. "What now?"

I looked at the city skyline. At the cranes rebuilding the world Julian had tried to destroy.

"Now," I said, "we disappear."

We drove to the airport. I bought a ticket with cash I had stashed in my boot.

One way. To Lisbon.

I sat in the terminal, watching the planes take off. Giant metal birds carrying people away from their lives.

I thought about Julian. About the look in his eyes when he fell.

*You can't delete me.*

He was wrong. I had deleted him. I had erased him from the narrative.

But ghosts don't need code to haunt you.

I boarded the plane. I sat in a window seat. I watched the ground fall away as we climbed into the clouds.

I closed my eyes.

And for the first time in months, I didn't see his face.

Six months later.

The cafe in Lisbon was small, tucked away in a narrow cobblestone street in the Alfama district. It smelled of coffee and old stone.

I sat at a table by the window, sketching.

Not a house. A garden.

Wild. Overgrown. Uncontained.

My phone buzzed on the table.

I ignored it. I always ignored it.

It buzzed again.

And again.

I sighed. I put down my pen.

I picked up the phone.

Unknown Number.

My heart skipped a beat.

It couldn't be.

He was dead. The DNA match was conclusive. The body in the helicopter was him.

I opened the message.

It wasn't a text.

It was a link.

I hesitated. My thumb hovered over the screen.

*Don't do it,* a voice in my head whispered. *It's a trap.*

But curiosity is a disease. And I was terminal.

I tapped the link.

It opened a video stream.

Live.

It was dark. Grainy.

It looked like... a cell.

A prison cell.

But not a normal prison. The walls were glass.

Julian was sitting on a cot. He was wearing an orange jumpsuit.

He was looking at the camera.

He smiled.

*"Hello, wife,"* he whispered.

I dropped the phone. It clattered onto the table, the screen cracking.

I stared at it. The video kept playing.

Julian held up a piece of paper.

On it was a drawing.

A door.

An open door.

He pointed to the back of the cell.

The shadows moved.

A figure stepped out of the darkness.

Wearing a guard's uniform.

But it wasn't a guard.

It was Sarah.

She was holding a set of keys.

She unlocked the cell door.

Julian stood up. He walked out.

He turned back to the camera.

*"The villain always has an escape plan,"* he said.

Then he winked.

The feed cut to black.

I sat there, frozen. The noise of the cafe faded away. The clinking of cups, the chatter of tourists, the rain on the awning... it all disappeared.

He was out.

He was free.

And he was with Sarah.

They were working together.

Again.

Or maybe... they always had been.

Maybe the rescue was part of the script. Maybe Sarah's "betrayal" of him was just another act. A way to get me to lower my guard. A way to get me to destroy the evidence myself.

I felt sick.

I stood up. I grabbed my bag.

I ran out of the cafe.

I ran through the rain-slicked streets of Lisbon. I didn't know where I was going. I just knew I had to move.

I ran until I reached the river. The Tagus.

I stopped at the railing, gasping for air.

I looked down at the dark water.

My phone buzzed again.

I pulled it out.

A text.

From Julian.

*Did you miss me?*

I looked around.

Across the street.

A figure was standing under a streetlamp.

A man in a coat. Holding an umbrella.

He raised a hand.

And he waved.

I froze.

It was him.

He was here.

In Lisbon.

How? The video... the prison... it must have been pre-recorded. A fake. To distract me while he traveled.

He started walking toward me.

I looked for a way out.

The street was empty. Just me and him. And the river.

I backed away.

He kept coming. Slow. Steady. Like a tide.

"Elena," he called out. His voice carried over the sound of the rain. "Don't run."

I didn't run.

I stopped.

I reached into my bag.

I pulled out the gun.

Not Julian's gun. Not Thorne's gun.

My gun.

The one I had bought on the black market in Marseille three months ago. A snub-nosed revolver. Ugly. Lethal.

I raised it.

Julian stopped.

He smiled.

"You won't shoot," he said. "You're not a killer."

"I am now," I said.

I aimed at his chest.

"This is the end of the story, Julian."

"Is it?" he asked. "Or is it just the cliffhanger?"

He took a step.

I pulled the trigger.

*Click.*

Nothing happened.

I pulled it again.

*Click.*

Misfire.

Julian laughed.

"Did you really think I wouldn't check the props?" he asked.

He was close now. Too close.

"Who sold you the gun, Elena? A nice man in Marseille? With a scar on his cheek?"

I stared at him.

"He works for me," Julian whispered.

He reached out. He took the gun from my shaking hand.

He tossed it into the river.

*Splash.*

"Now," he said, taking my arm. "Let's go home."

"I don't have a home," I said.

"We'll build one," he said. "Together."

He pulled me close.

"A better one. Stronger. Safer."

He kissed my forehead.

"No more glass," he whispered. "This time... we use steel."

I looked over his shoulder.

At the river. At the dark water churning below.

I could jump. I could end it.

But his grip was iron.

He led me away. Into the dark streets of Lisbon.

And as we walked, I heard a sound.

A whistle.

*Hush, little baby, don't say a word