Chapter 6 - The Interrogation
Leaving my mother safely guarded in her hospital room, I rode with Agent Miller to the federal holding facility where Marcus had been transported.
He wasn't in a comfortable local precinct chair; he was in a sterile, stainless-steel federal interrogation room, wearing an orange jumpsuit, looking completely stripped of his fake authority.
I walked into the room and sat across from him. Agent Miller stood silently by the door, a heavy, intimidating presence.
Marcus looked up, his eyes darting nervously. The bravado was entirely gone, replaced by the cornered panic of an animal. “Evelyn... Admiral... please. You have to tell them to let me go. This is a misunderstanding. I was just trying to protect the house! You were using weird equipment, I thought—”
“You thought you could assert dominance over me the way you do to my mother,” I interrupted, my voice perfectly level. “You thought because I didn't brag about my job, I was weak.”
“I’m a cop!” he pleaded, leaning forward against his handcuffs. “If you put me in federal prison, the inmates will kill me! You know what they do to cops on the inside!”
“You aren't a cop, Marcus. You’re a domestic terrorist who operated inside a house instead of a warzone,” I said coldly.
I opened a manila folder I had brought with me and slid three photographs across the metal table. They were hospital photos of my mother’s previous injuries—a fractured collarbone, a bruised orbital bone, a cracked rib.
“Every single one of these was an 'accident,'” I said. “She fell down the stairs. She walked into a door. She tripped on the porch. For ten years, you tortured her, and you used your badge to make sure she had nowhere to run.”
Marcus stared at the photos, swallowing hard. “It was stress. The job is hard, Evelyn. You don't understand the pressure.”
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“I command forty thousand sailors and a fleet of nuclear submarines,” I replied, staring directly into his soul. “I know a little bit about pressure, Marcus. I have never once raised my hand to someone who couldn't fight back. You aren't stressed. You’re a monster.”
I stood up, closing the folder. “The federal prosecutor is charging you with assaulting a military officer, espionage for interfering with a secure transmission, and felony domestic abuse. You will never see the outside of a cell again.”
