Con shot forward in her seat. “I didn’t.”
He waved her protestations away. “Relax, it’s not you I want. I understand why you thought you had no choice but to deal with Greer. But I am a much better friend to have than Levi Greer, especially where he’s going.”
“Listen to me, I don’t know where he went in his car today, but he wasn’t at the farm. I swear.”
“Well, who was?” Clarke demanded. “’Cause I’ve got a partial boot print that says you’re lying.”
“These men,” Con blurted out.
Clarke threw up his hands in disbelief. “Now there are men? What men?”
Reluctantly, Con described Pockmark and his associates to a thoroughly unimpressed Darius Clarke. He glanced up at the camera and gave it a can-you-believe-this-shit look. When she was finished, he rubbed the back of his tired head and cleared his throat.
“So let me get this straight. A team of paramilitary types ambushed you but then let you go because a drone scared them off?”
“Yeah,” she answered, aware of how ridiculous it all sounded.
“We’ve been talking for a while now. How come this is the first I’m hearing about it?”
“I didn’t think you’d believe me,” Con said.
“And you thought this would drive up your credibility? Come on, you’re starting to piss me off.”
“It’s the truth.”
He regarded her for a long time. “It’s a good time for a restroom break. Pause recording.” Clarke waited until the red light blinked off before he spoke again. “Look, clones can’t testify in Virginia court, so don’t worry about all that. But my captain believes that a witness statement from you would hold up in support of a warrant application. That’s all I need from you. A statement.”
“That Greer was at the farm?”
“That’s it,” Clarke said as if it were as inconsequential as a parking ticket. “I don’t know why you’re covering for him with this bullshit about some team of soldiers. Are you scared of him? Maybe he got you out there and attacked you? Didn’t know his wife had a clone and was looking to relive the kill. Two for one.”
“No, nothing like that.”
“Then help us secure a warrant for Greer’s house. I’m not looking to frame him up. If there’s nothing there, then there’s nothing there. But if there is, and I know there is, then you’ve helped us get a murderer off the streets. Either way, I’d be grateful and be in a position to expedite a death certificate. Get you on your way back to DC and a new life. Isn’t that what you want? What do you say?”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Con wondered later what she would have said next if there hadn’t been a knock at the door. Maybe it was because they’d been at it for hours and she was worn out, but she would have said just about anything to get out of that interrogation room. Including feeding Levi Greer to Detective Clarke. He’d seemed like a big, lost, sad puppy dog when they met, but she was starting to have her doubts about him. He had sure played mister innocent, no mention of a possible affair or that he and her original had been fighting. But then the knock at the door interrupted her, and she recoiled from what she was considering. Clarke glared, like a boxer robbed of a knockout by an untimely bell, at the square-jawed officer who stuck his head into the interrogation room door.
“Detective?” the officer said. “A minute?”
“What do you want? Can’t you see I’m in the middle of something here?”
“You’re going to want to see this.”
Something in his tone caught Clarke’s attention. Reluctantly, he told Con to sit tight and followed the officer out into the hall. He was only gone about a minute and returned looking concerned.
“Let’s go. We need to move you.” When she didn’t move quickly enough for his liking, he took her by the arm and led her out the door and to a bank of elevators.
“What’s going on?” she asked, resentful at being manhandled.
“Franklin Butler is here.”
Con’s mouth snapped shut. Whatever threat Darius Clarke might represent, it paled alongside Franklin Butler and his Children of Adam. She didn’t like to imagine what they would do should they get their hands on her. It would be open season. All Vernon Gaddis’s grim warnings about Virginia would become a reality.
“What does he want?” she asked.
He looked at her as if she were the slowest student in a remedial class. “The body of the murdered wife of a pro athlete was discovered by her clone. Two of the major media networks are already set up outside, and the others will be here soon. What do you think he wants?”