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Their suspect's eyes flickered to Amelia, an ember of anger glowing in their depths. "Harding is a vulture, picking over carcasses for profit. But murder?" His voice broke, something raw and unfiltered seeping through. "That's not my type of fight."
"Yet here you are after threatening him outside the hospital," Finn pointed out, the observation sharp as a knife blade. "Your hands aren't clean, Mr. Tanner."
"Clean hands in a dirty world?" Boris sneered, his bravado a brittle shell. "That’s a fairy tale, Detective Wright. You should know better."
Amelia's hand hovered above the recording device, a silent sentinel capturing every spoken truth and lie. Finn studied Boris, noting the way his eyes darted, the clench of his jaw. He was searching for cracks in the man's armor, and all it would take was patience—the sort that had been honed in darker times and lonelier places.
"The Richmonds' murder is no fairy tale, Mr. Tanner," Finn said quietly. "And neither will the hefty prison sentence be that follows it."
The interview room was a sterile box, the light too bright and the air tinged with the smell of industrial cleaner. Finn's gaze never left Boris Tanner, whose presence seemed to suck the warmth out of the space. Amelia sat across from Boris, her posture relaxed but her eyes sharp.
"Prison?" Boris's voice boomed suddenly, his fist crashing down on the table with enough force to make the water in the plastic cups ripple. "Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. I'm not going back, and that's why Iwouldn'tkill. But I will say this: It's Hemworth Castle, and it belongs to the community, not to some rich interlopers playing lord and lady!"
Amelia leaned forward, her tone even, yet probing, "Why does that incite such anger in you, Mr. Tanner?"
Boris's chest heaved, his breath coming out in short puffs as if the question had flicked something primal within him. "Angry? You don't know the half of it," he spat out, his eyes blazing with a fire that might have scorched the documents spread out before them. "They stripped the soul from those walls, turned history into a circus for their amusement."
"Would that anger push you towards violence? Towards... hurting the Richmonds?" Amelia's question hung in the air, pointed and heavy.
The realization struck Boris like a physical blow, the color draining from his face as he pieced together the true nature of their interest in him. "You think I killed them?" His voice was a mix of disbelief and indignation, a wildness creeping into his eyes. "I detest what they've done to Richmond, but again, murder? No." He shook his head, a mane of unkempt hair swaying with the motion. "That’s not me, and I they wouldn't be worth the time. I didn't do it, but they had it coming."
Finn watched the man carefully, weighing every gesture, every inflection. Boris was a tempest contained within human form, brimming with conviction and fury, but there was a line he claimed not to cross. Was it the truth or just another layer of self-deception?
"That's a lot of hate, my friend. And hate can lead to desperate acts, Mr. Tanner," Finn said calmly. "And desperation can turn even the staunchest moralist into something else entirely. And you don't seem to be the most moral."
"Desperate?" Boris's laugh was devoid of humor. "You think I don't know desperation? But I fight with words and presence, not knives in the dark."
"Words and presence," Finn echoed, letting the silence stretch between them, taut as a wire. He could almost hear the cogs turning in Boris's mind, the struggle to maintain an image of composed defiance.
"Sometimes," Amelia added softly, her eyes locked onto Boris's, "words are not enough for some people. Sometimes actions speak louder, and sometimes they scream."
Boris's hands clenched and unclenched in front of him on the table, the only sign of the turmoil that must be churning inside him. For a moment, Finn wondered just how close to the edge Boris Tanner truly was—and what it would take for him to leap over it.
The chill of the sterile interview room settled around them like a thin frost, seeping into the fibers of Finn's soul. He fixed his gaze on Boris Tanner, who sat rigid across the table, his knuckles pale from the grip he had on his own arms.
"Let's talk about how you happened to be outside that hospital, Boris," Finn began, his tone even but probing. "Quite the coincidence bumping into Gregory Harding there, wouldn't you say?"
The man across from him snorted, a defiant tilt to his head. "Coincidence? Perhaps it's fate. You ever think of that, Mr. Wright?"
"Can't say I've given much credence to fate lately," Finn replied, watching the man's eyes for that flicker of betrayal.
Amelia leaned forward slightly, her voice interjecting smoothly. "It seems more likely that you were following Mr. Harding, given your... interests in the castle's ownership."
"Following?" Boris scoffed, but there was an edge to his voice that danced with the possibility of truth. "I don't need to skulk around like some cheap detective. This is a small place, people cross paths all the time. The hospital is in the town center."
Finn felt the lie before Boris had finished speaking. It fluttered in the air, an unsteady note in the fabric of reality. He let a small pause hang in the room, the hum of the fluorescent lights above providing a subtle soundtrack to their theatrical dance.
"Eleven charges for trespassing, Boris," Finn said as he glanced down at the file sprawled open before him. The dossier on Boris Tanner was a map of confrontations and convictions—lines and contours that shaped the man's history. "And protests, too. It paints a picture, doesn't it? Harding mentioned in passing the idea that some of his critics were activists. Are you part of a group advocating for these historical sites?"
"Advocating?" Boris's brow creased, his lips twisting as if tasting something bitter. "I speak for those without voices, for the stones that have stood longer than any of us. They meant something to our ancestors, and so we should honor them."
"You speak of using your voice, yet here you are," Amelia pointed out, "remaining silent when asked a direct question."
Boris's jaw clenched, the muscle ticking like a clockwork warning of an impending storm. His silence was as loud as any proclamation, echoing off the walls.
"Silence is an answer of its own, Mr. Tanner," Finn added, his eyes never leaving Boris's face. "But not the one we're looking for."
The tension in the room tightened, a bowstring pulled back to its limit.
