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Speaking of the information, I pulled out the paper and studied it in more detail. “I’m not sure how helpful this is going to be.”
Emerson grunted. He seemed to do that a lot. “Why?”
“The discussion panel is an open forum. Anyone can get on it, and anyone can post. I don’t think we can trace our thief through this.”
Emerson was silent while his mind sorted through our options. “If nothing else, we can use it to lure him out. We need to think about it.”
He was right. I gave him another cautious look, but he seemed to have settled a little. I looked back out the windshield. “Are we heading back to the ship?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” We would regroup and see if Julia had come up with anything from her interrogations. I hoped she had.
The car sped up, and I glanced at Emerson again. Maybe he wasn’t as calmed down as I had thought. I gripped the handle on the door and tried not to panic as we zoomed manually through air traffic and narrowly missed a traffic signal pole.
“It won’t do us any good if you kill us before we get back.”
Emerson’s jaw ticked, but he eased off the gas a little. “I’m not in a good mood now. And if anyone on my crew is part of this, my mood is going to get a lot worse.”
I flinched.Maybe it would be best if Julia didn’t find anything.Hopefully the crew would be squeaky clean, but, with our current streak of luck, I wasn’t going to hold out hope.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Julia
I never thought I would hate interrogations so much. Normally, I looked forward to interrogating suspects because usually I had some idea of their guilt. But in this case, all these people were guilty, and we were trying to narrow down their crimes to something specific, which was a lot harder. Especially since I couldn’t ask the questions I wanted to. I had to rely on Steel to do that.
Working next to an assassin was uncomfortable to say the least, although he didn’t seem to mind working with an IPF agent. He was perfectly relaxed as we set up a makeshift interrogation room. My presence didn’t seem to bother him like his bothered me. I watched him in silence, not thrilled with the circumstances.
Once everything was set, I knew I couldn’t put off talking to him any longer. Even though I didn’t want him around, I didn’t have a choice. There had been plenty of other cops I’d been forced to work with in the past, and I had figured it out.This won’t be any different.
I faced him and took a deep breath. “I need you to be specific with your questions and vary the topics. I need a baseline with which to work.”
He gave me a dry look. “I know how deception detection works. I have experience with it from when I was in the military.”
Both my eyebrows shot up, but it wasn’t the information that surprised me. I was surprised he had told me. He didn’t seem like the kind of person to offer up information about himself. “You do?”
Steel nodded but didn’t elaborate. “But we do need signals. If you think he’s hiding something, cross your legs. If you think he’s innocent and we should turn him loose, cross your ankles.”
I rolled my eyes, but he had a point. We would need a way to communicate nonverbally. “If I scratch my jaw, I want you to press on with whatever line of questioning you’re on. Okay?”
“Sounds good to me.” He glanced around the room one more time before stepping into the hallway. He tapped on a com link I hadn’t seen him acquire. “Reuben.”
After a few seconds, Reuben answered. “What?”
“We’re ready.”
“Where are you?”
“Across the hall from medical bay.”
Within a few minutes, Reuben appeared. He still looked to be in a foul mood when he shoved a tablet into my hands. “There’s the manifest. I already called Jack down so you can start with him.”
Steel lifted an eyebrow at him. “Why start with Jack? We aren’t going alphabetically?”
Reuben glowered at him. “I need Jack to get back to work as soon as possible. Make it quick. He’s working on repairs. He’s not part of this. If he is, I’ll put on women’s clothing and do a strip tease.”
I blinked, trying to get that image out of my head. My eyes scanned the list. It was long. “Let’s get started, then.”
