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“It’s the only chance we have,” I said.
She stared at me for a moment, then whirled around and stalked over to the window, wrapping her arms around herself as if the view suddenly made her cold. “I can’t ask you to do this,” she said at last.
“You don’t have to.” I said. “I’m volunteering.”
She turned and pinned me with a look. “Hailey, there’s not a shred of compassion or warmth in that man. If he suspects, even for a second, that you’re not Christina, he will kill you.”
I took a deep breath... and nodded.
Carrie pressed her lips tight together, deciding. Then she nodded. “Alright, then. We’ll get the operation organized. You get down to the detention area. She just arrived. You better start getting familiar with her.”
It was time to meet Christina.
8
Hailey
I DIDN’T GO IN right away. I stood in the room next door to the interrogation room, watching her through the one-way mirror. How was it possible for someone to look that serene? Christina was sitting on a metal chair at a metal table, both of them bolted to the floor, in a featureless underground room. She was facing serious prison time for the drug charges. And yet she sat with her legs elegantly crossed, her chin resting on her perfectly-manicured fingers. She looked as if she was posing for a lifestyle magazine photo in the lobby of some luxury hotel. I can never be like that. I couldn’t believe our bodies were even the same. If that was true, how come she could look so lithe and leggy, and I always felt so short and dumpy? And I was sure our breasts were different. Hers were small and pert and perfect, like some Hollywood actress’s. I’ve always been self-conscious about mine because they’re on the big side, for my frame.
My heart was hammering as I walked to the door that led into the interrogation room. I’d never interrogated anyone before. I understood why Carrie wanted me to do it: it was me who was going to have to impersonate her. Or maybe she was trying to make me see that I wasn’t cut out for this at all.
I gathered up all my confidence and marched into the room, trying to do it like Calahan would. I needed to get answers out of this woman.
But as I crossed the room, Christina looked at me. Just a glance out of the corner of her eye, as if I wasn’t worth turning her head for. Her eyes tracked up and down my body just once... and she gave a tiny sniff of disgust and looked away.
I faltered, mid-step, my face hot with shame. Suddenly, I was back in high school: the weird country kid who all the cool kids sneer at.
I steeled myself and walked over to the table. I couldn’t let her intimidate me. I was going to have to be her.
But as I started to sit down, she nodded towards the mirror and said, in a clipped, polished accent, “How long were you watching behind that mirror before you plucked up the courage to come in?”
My face went hot all over again. My mouth opened stupidly, but I couldn’t deny it. I’d completely lost all authority here. “My name is Hailey A—Akers. I need to ask you some questions about Konstantin.”
She grinned and put her feet on the table. Her shoes were scarlet, the straps covered with tiny, glittering jewels and her legs were flawlessly smooth. Her voice was really something: moneyed and cultured, a razor dipped in honey. “I already told the Italian police, I don’t know the details of his business.”
Calahan had once told me that, to get a suspect to tell you something, you should lean forward like you’re sharing a secret. I leaned in to her. “I want to know about your relationship with him.”
She pushed her face close to mine. “Do you?!” she gushed, loudly enough to make me jump. “Do you want to know about my relationship with him?” She studied me again: my dry, dull hair, my cheap suit, and my flat shoes. “Is that the closest you get to a man? Do you want to take notes about Konstantin’s big, thick cock plunging into me? Do you want to know how it feels when he’s pounding me from behind?”
I couldn’t look at her. I stared at the desk, my cheeks scarlet.
“Oh, look at you, that is it, isn’t it? God, have you been fantasizing about him?” She leaned even closer and whispered. “Does that get your poor little FBI pussy wet?”
I leapt up from my chair as if burned.
“He’s the most exciting thing to come your way in years, isn’t he?” asked Christina. She mock-cried. “Poor. Little. Haiiiiiiley. All she wants is a man and she can’t get one, so she rubs herself off thinking about what the big, bad mafia boss would do to her if he got his evil hands on her.”
