O'Grady frowned, stepping in front of Cynthia, placing his body between her and the doorway as if he could block the intrusion by standing in its way. "Who the hell are you?" he demanded. "You can't just barge in here."
Carter didn't look at O'Grady. His eyes bypassed the dirty cop entirely, as if O'Grady were furniture that had been left in the wrong place, and landed on Cynthia, who was sitting at the table, still in her wrinkled blazer, an unreadable expression on her face. For a moment, the room seemed to hold its breath. Carter's gaze softened, just a fraction, in a way that only someone who knew him well would notice, and then it steadied again.
"Are you all right?" Carter asked her, his voice a deep, resonant baritone that seemed too large for the small green room.
"I'm perfectly fine, Jim," Cynthia replied. She said it simply, and she meant it, and the calm in her voice did something to the room that O'Grady's shouting had not been able to do. It reset the balance of power.
"Hey!" O'Grady shouted, stepping into Carter's personal space, close enough that Carter could smell the same stale coffee and tobacco that Cynthia had smelled in her car. "I asked you a question, pal. Who are you?"
Carter slowly turned his gaze to O'Grady. He looked at the officer with the kind of disdain usually reserved for something scraped off the bottom of a shoe, not with anger, not with heat, but with a cold, complete assessment that seemed to take in the damp uniform, the flushed face, the hand still hovering near his belt, and find all of it wanting.
"I am her legal counsel," Carter said smoothly. "And as of this moment, this interrogation is over."
"Oh, it's over, all right," O'Grady sneered, recovering some of his swagger now that he had an audience for it. "Your client just refused to cooperate. She's getting booked into county lockup. She's looking at a ten-year mandatory minimum."
"Is that so?" Carter asked, pulling a sleek leather briefcase from one of the men flanking him. He set it on the steel table next to Cynthia and snapped the latches open with a crisp, deliberate sound. The briefcase was not large, but it seemed to change the room, as if it contained something heavier than paper.
Captain Miller suddenly appeared in the doorway, pushing past Carter's security detail, his face already reddening, his captain's bars catching the fluorescent light. "What the hell is going on in here?" he demanded. "O'Grady, who are these people?"
"Her lawyers, Captain," O'Grady said defensively, stepping back slightly now that his superior was present, as if Miller's arrival would restore the order he had lost. "They just barged into a restricted area."
"I didn't barge," Carter said, looking at Captain Miller for the first time, his voice even. "Your front desk was quite accommodating once I showed them my credentials."
"I don't care what firm you're from," Miller barked, his voice echoing in the small concrete room. "Your client is in police custody. You have five minutes with her, and then she is being transferred to county."
Carter pulled a sleek silver tablet from his briefcase. He tapped the screen twice, and the tablet woke with a soft glow. He held it loosely in one hand, as if it were nothing more than a notepad, and he looked at Miller with an expression that was neither defiant nor pleading. It was patient, and patience, in that room, felt more dangerous than anger.
"She won't be going to county, Captain Miller," Carter said, his voice dropping into a register that sent a sudden, inexplicable chill through the room. "In fact, she won't be going anywhere. But I strongly suggest you and Officer O'Grady take a seat. We have a short film to watch."
O'Grady looked at Doyle. Doyle looked at Miller. Miller looked at Carter, and then at Cynthia, and then at the tablet, as if trying to decide which of these things was the threat and which was the bluff. Cynthia Holloway finally smiled. It was not a warm smile. It was the smile of a woman who had waited, who had listened, who had let a man dig his own hole word by word, and who was now ready to show him the depth of it.
"You really should sit down, Officer O'Grady," Cynthia said. The facade of the frightened victim vanished completely, not with a shout but with a shift in her posture, in her voice, in the way she squared her shoulders and looked directly at him. "You're about to be the star of the show."
Captain Miller's face flushed with anger. It was not the quick flush of embarrassment that had colored O'Grady's cheeks. It was deeper, slower, the flush of a man who was not used to being given orders in his own precinct, let alone by a man in a bespoke suit who refused to identify his firm and who had just told him, in his own interrogation room, to sit down and watch a film. Miller was a captain, and captains in buildings like this one were accustomed to doors opening when they approached, to voices lowering when they spoke, to paperwork bending, just slightly, in the direction they wanted it to bend. He was not accustomed to being told that a woman he had already decided was a statistic would not be going to county, that she would not be going anywhere, that the next thing to happen in his building would happen on someone else's schedule.
He stepped fully into the room, pushing past the two men in dark suits as if their presence were an inconvenience he could shoulder aside. The room, which had felt small with three people in it, now felt crowded, almost airless, with six people standing and sitting around a steel table that had been built for far fewer. Miller planted his feet and pointed a finger at Carter, not at Cynthia, not at the tablet, but at the man who had dared to speak to him as an equal.