Page 136 of Jonesing for a Spy

“Brody, dear. How are you?”

Maybe Scooter isn’t so bad when she calls my boss “dear.”

Strider

In the movies and on television, there’s always the pounding on the desk and the good-cop, bad-cop routine. In real life, this shit is boring. Mind-numbingly boring.

I don’t think I was actually arrested. They didn’t take my fingerprints. There was no mugshot. I didn’t even get my Mirandas… Not that I want my face with a number held under my chin making its way around the internet, but it’s a bit of a bummer. Sort of.

I’ve sat in an office, restrained in some way, or a cell or a holding room, for most of the afternoon and into what I assume is the evening.

They ask me the same question over and over again, and I answer the same way each time.

“Mr. Anderson, were you part of a plot to take down our power grid?”

“No, Sir. My fiancée, Mirren, is an operative of a federal agency and has been working to take down those plotting.”

Sometimes I say insurgents, sometimes terrorists, sometimes plotters. It doesn’t matter. It’s as if they want to find me lying.

And I don’t lie. Not to mention I don’t know shit. Truly.

“I own an electrical contracting firm in Peoria, Illinois. One of the men out there is my employee. He will be fired—” I look around the room for a clock but find none. The fluorescent lights are fake and bright and don’t help at all with gauging the time. “What time is it?”

The man across from me looks to his watch. His speech conveys his boredom. “Eight fifteen.”

Eesh. It’s been a long day.

“Tomorrow morning, assuming I’m free to call my human resources department and begin the paperwork. The rest are family. Ish.”

“Ish?” His brow rises as if I piqued his interest.

“My fiancée, her mom, and her brother.”

“And Sal Smith?”

Well, how do I explain this shit? I already know too much, and he knows I know too much, but having Freckles on the bad side of federal agencies, especially those with the power hers has, is not what I want. “He was employed by me, under an alias. I fired him the day before Thanksgiving.”

“So you employed two people with terrorist behaviors? Why shouldn’t we assume this is accepted or encouraged by your company?”

“I’d assume a man in your position doesn’t work off of assumptions, but on facts. That’s what I’m providing you.”

“And how did you end up outside of Bastrop for this mission?” He barely lifts his hands when he makes air quotes with his fat fingers.

“I received a phone call from June, asking me to come.” There it is—the truth, only sanitized.

“And you just jumped on a plane to do her bidding?”

“Not trying to get on the wrong side of my soon-to-be mother-in-law. I’m not crazy.”

He lifts his brows. “Yeah. She’s something else.”

That’s one way to put it.

“So what role did you play in trying to take down our power grid?”

“None. My only role was getting Mirren off the ground and away from the blast radius. You can ask me again until you’re blue in the face. My answer won’t change.”

“Maybe if you wait a bit longer, your memory will become clearer.”