Page 101 of Marcus

For him, she stayed.

She had things to say to him, and she was mad, yes. Because clearly there had been a lot of things going on in the business side of his life that he hadn’t at least given her a forewarning about, so she could make her own choices, none of that mattered. She loved Marcus, and so she stayed through her fear and her pain because this was where she needed to be.

Even if this hurt her, too.

“Hello, what’s your name?”

“Tiffany Gagnon-Marcello.”

Cella blinked out of her stupor to find a woman—one she didn’t recognize—had come to sit in the chair next to Tiffany’s. Cara had brought the girl a sandwich and juice from the cafeteria on the second floor, but where the rest of the Guzzis had disappeared to, Cella wasn’t sure. A quick glance around the waiting room let her know they must have slipped out for a moment because the only people left were faces she didn’t recognize filling the chairs around her.

Including the woman talking to her daughter.

“And how are you doing today, Miss Tiffany?” the woman asked.

Her daughter frowned. “Well, I’d be a lot better if I could see Marcus.”

“I bet. Do you remember what happened today?”

Always polite, her daughter seemed far too willing to talk to woman and answer her questions. Had that been a man, Cella bet Tiffany would have kept her lips tightly shut. Before her daughter said another thing to the woman dressed in a cheap-looking pantsuit, she spoke up to find out just what this person wanted and who they were.

“I’m sorry, who are you?” Cella asked.

She didn’t even try to tamper her tone.

The woman with brown eyes that seemed warm looked to Cella with a smile that was just as welcoming as her stare. “Emilia Denesry, but most people just call me Constable—”

A cop.

That was all Cella needed to hear. In a heartbeat, she reached into the next chair and pulled her daughter right out of it and slightly further away from the woman sitting too close to her. Tiffany looked up at her mother, eyes wide with confusion, but Cella just held tight and didn’t bother to hide the glare she leveled on the cop who rolled her eyes.

“They thought it would be better for me to get your statement, and one from your daughter, Ms. Marcello. It’s Cella, right?”

“What task force are you on?” Cella demanded.

The woman just smiled. “No one said anything about a task force.”

“Right, but I bet you’re on something. Something specific to watching the Guzzi family, and since you’re looking at me as though you know who I am, you should already know what’s going to be said to you. We saw nothing at the farm. My daughter was in the play equipment when the fire started, and we were too focused on getting her out to see anything else.”

“Ma,” Tiffany started.

“Quiet, baby.”

She kept her tone happy for Tiffany.

Not so happy for the cop.

“You should understand, Cella, that being you’re an American on Canadian soil, if you choose not to cooperate with the investigation here, we can take action against you to have you removed back to your country. All it takes is the filing of some paperwork and a couple of calls. Are you involved with Marcus Guzzi in some way? Is that why you want to protect him here?”

“He was a victim of today,” Cella replied.

“Or an instigator,” the woman said back.

Cella’s jaw ached from clenching her teeth so hard.

Then, the woman’s eyes turned on Tiffany. “As for her … well, if we have reason to believe your daughter is a valuable witness to this investigation—”

“She didn’t see anything.”