Catching Smoke: Ch. 38
Emmalee still doesn’t know where she is.
She can tell she’s in some sort of interrogation room, but why? Where? Nobody has come in to question her, so it’s starting to feel a lot more like a prison. She’s even handcuffed to the table.
Where’s Colin? Why isn’t he here with her?
What if this has all been a trap? It’s still a possibility. There’s been too many coincidences. What are the odds that her cover will be blown by both Colin’s mysterious agency and her father in the same year? After all this time being able to successfully hide from everyone and everything?
The door opens, and a man Emmalee doesn’t recognize steps into the room. He has grey hair and a beard, the posture and air of strength of a man who holds significant power. He takes the seat across from Emmalee, and gives her a kind smile that makes his brown eyes look warm.
“Hello, Emmalee Whittaker,” he says. “My name is Harlem. I’ll be your new boss from now on.”
“Where’s Colin?” she asks.
“Colin is no longer of your concern. You probably won’t hear from or speak to him again,” her disappointment must have registered on her face because he adds, “I didn’t think you two had gotten close.”
“Not really,” Emmalee says.
“I see. Well, if you don’t mind, I have some questions about your time together.”
“Go ahead.”
He asks her to tell the story: when she first met Colin, why she left for Brazil, and everything that happened up to this point.
“Did you have any reason to suspect your father would find you?” he asks.
“Not at all. I’ve been running for fifteen years. I thought…I didn’t even know for sure if he was alive.”
“I see,” he says. “And Lydia? She was the girl who tried to recruit you in Brazil four months ago?”
Emmalee nods.
“Thank you for your time. You’ll be released here shortly for some standard recruitment testing. It’s harmless, I promise. I do hope you’ll enjoy working for us,” Harlem says. “I’ll talk to you soon, Miss Whittaker.”
He leaves Emmalee in the room, still handcuffed to the table, her mind spinning with questions she wasn’t able to ask. Why won’t she be seeing Colin anymore? What’s going to happen exactly? To her? To Colin? To her father?
Will she ever know?
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