Chapter 8 - Behind Closed Doors
The interrogation room at the federal building downtown smelled of stale coffee, industrial floor wax, and decades of desperate secrets.
The room was painfully small, dominated by a heavy metal table bolted to the floor and a towering, floor-to-ceiling mirror of one-way glass on the far wall. Marin sat on one side of the table, her hands wrapped around a paper cup of lukewarm water that someone had handed her an hour ago. Across from her sat Agent Miller, flipping slowly through a thick manila folder filled with financial printouts, shipping manifests, and grainy black-and-white photographs of the Vain estate.
"Let's not make this difficult, Miss Holloway," Miller said, his tone conversational but laced with a quiet, unrelenting pressure. "You’ve been living in a fortress on the North Shore for three weeks. You cook meals for a man the FBI has spent a decade trying to pin behind bars. You were sitting in the getaway vehicle when he confronted Victor Vance at the docks."
"I am a chef," Marin said, her voice even, though her fingers trembled slightly against the paper cup. "I manage meal planning and assist an elderly woman with early-stage dementia. I don't know anything about RICO violations, and I don't know anything about shipping manifests."
Miller leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. He slid a single photograph across the metal surface toward her.
It was a picture taken from outside the Vain mansion kitchen window—a clear, high-resolution shot of Marin standing beside Cassius while he sat at the kitchen island, both of them laughing at something private.
"That doesn't look like a nurse and a patient, Marin," Miller said softly. "That looks like an accomplice. Cassius Vain hasn't trusted a living soul since his brother died eleven years ago. Yet within three weeks of your arrival, he starts eating again, he leaves his estate for the first time in two years, and he walks right into a public shootout."
"He didn't start eating because of a conspiracy, Agent Miller," Marin snapped, her green eyes flashing with sudden heat. "He started eating because for two years, everyone around him was terrified of what he was, instead of treating him like a human being. He was starving—not just for food, but for something real in a house full of ghosts."
Miller stared at her for a long, silent moment, weighing her words. Before he could respond, the heavy steel door of the interrogation room clicked open.
A federal prosecutor in a sharp charcoal suit stepped inside, whispering something urgently into Miller’s ear. The agent's expression shifted from calculated skepticism to genuine, unmasked surprise.
"Well," Miller murmured, leaning back in his chair and closing the manila folder with a sharp snap. "It appears your employer has a habit of changing the rules mid-game."
"What are you talking about?" Marin asked, her heart skipping a beat.
"Ten minutes ago, Cassius Vain's legal team filed an emergency motion backed by an ironclad federal cooperation agreement signed by the U.S. Attorney General's office," Miller said, standing up and reaching for a pair of heavy brass keys on his belt. "In exchange for handing over the encrypted offshore ledgers belonging to Victor Vance and three corrupt city councilmen, all charges against Cassius Vain related to the West Loop fire have been dismissed due to lack of physical jurisdiction and expired statute limitations."
Marin blinked, stunned. "Dismissed? Just like that?"
"Not quite 'just like that,'" Miller corrected, unlocking the metal cuffs that secured her chair. "He traded his entire criminal archive to wipe the slate clean. Which means, Miss Holloway, you are free to go."
"And Cassius?"
May you like
Miller walked toward the door, pausing with his hand on the brass handle. "He's being discharged from federal custody as we speak. But I'll give you a piece of advice, young lady: men like Cassius Vain don't change their stripes just because they sign a plea deal. When you walk out of here and back into that North Shore mansion, you're stepping back into a cage with a tiger that just learned how to hunt again."
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