Jon sat in the interview room tapping the eraser end of his pencil against the metal table. Darcy sat in the same chair over in the corner that she had been in the first time they had interviewed Aimee.
This time was just as awkward and uncomfortable as the first time had been.
"So you believe me now, right?" Aimee asked Jon, although her eyes strayed over to Darcy several times for support. "You believe I'm not a killer?"
"You should have come to see me when you first came to Misty Hollow," Jon said to her, not exactly answering her question. "Things might have gone very differently."
Aimee sneered at him. "You would have arrested me as soon as you saw me."
He didn't argue the point. Instead he opened up the beige manila folder at his left hand and took out a single sheet of paper. Turning it around on the tabletop, he pushed it across to her.
"What's this?" she asked.
"It's the statement of your bank account. Your off shore bank account, as Darcy pointed out to me. I'm guessing you printed it off from Vivica Chartrand's computer once you settled in there?" He took her surprised look for an answer. "Right. So. It says here that you have five thousand, three hundred and sixty-two dollars in your bank account."
He pointed with the pencil, circling the number.
"So?" Aimee asked him. "What does this have to do with anything?"
Darcy could hear the defensive tone in Aimee's voice. She had argued with Jon that they should just confront his sister with the lie she had told Darcy, but Jon had said this would be better. Approaching her indirectly, one step at a time, was how he wanted to play it.
It looked like he was right.
"That's a lot of money for a girl who's been on the run for years," Jon pointed out to her. "I'd like to know where you got it."
Aimee pushed the paper away. Her hands were still in handcuffs, but she managed to look down her nose at Jon anyway. "Don't you have to read me my rights before you can ask me any questions?"
"You want me to treat you like a criminal, sis?"
"Isn't that exactly how you treat me?" she asked him with a hard look. "How you always treated me? Me and dad both?"
Darcy saw the little twitch of Jon's left eye. His shoulders slumped, a motion that was only just noticeable, but Darcy knew Jon's moods better than most. What she saw now surprised her. Jon was upset. He had started to believe his sister might not be a criminal, thanks to Darcy. Then she had gone and pulled that rug out from under him again. He had dared to have hope for Aimee. Now, his defenses were coming back up to wall off his emotions so it wouldn't hurt so much.
She almost reached out to hold his hand, but she didn't know how he would respond to that gesture.
"You were read your rights the last time we interviewed you," Jon reminded Aimee. "You still have all those rights. You need me to read them to you again or do you want to just answer my question?"
"How's it feel, big brother," Aimee asked him, "to be all high and mighty like you are? Wish I could be that awesome."
He didn't rise to her bait. "Tell me where you got the money, Aimee."
"I've been running from this for six years." Aimee twirled her fingers in the air. "You think I haven't had a few jobs to make some money?"
"No," he told her. "I don't. Like I told you, people don't change and you're still the same selfish and lazy girl you were when you ran away from home. I wanted to believe you had turned your life around. That you had become a better person." He looked over at Darcy, for just a tiny moment, and then turned back to Aimee. "But I was wrong. You haven't changed. So. Where'd this money come from?"
"I don't want to tell you." She sat back, folding her hands in her lap and glaring at him.
"Let me remind you, Chief Daleson already called the State Police to come and pick you up. This is your last chance to talk to anyone." He hesitated for a split second before he added, "It's your last chance to talk to me."
Aimee's eyes softened. They were the same blue color as Jon's. Darcy could see the resemblance between them strongly now, here in this room.
"Jon, just let it go," Aimee said quietly to him. "You never had any faith in me anyway."
"Whether I had faith in you or not has nothing to do with where that money came from," he told her, pointing to the paper she had tossed aside. "Let me take a stab at this. This is money left over from what you stole from Mario Elustro. Money you stole when you killed him."
"You can't access offshore accounts, big brother," Aimee said in a smug tone. "Guess you'll never know."
"It's true," he admitted with a nod, "that it's hard to get bank records from other countries. Especially ones like where this account of yours is. But it isn't impossible. It just takes time and patience and knowing the right person in the Attorney General's Office. Like I do."
Aimee looked over at Darcy, panic creeping into her eyes. "You know I didn't do it. You told everyone I didn't do it. I have an alibi, remember?"
"A very convenient alibi," Jon said, answering for Darcy. They had finally led up to this part, and this was Jon's show. "It covers the time of death very nicely. Problem is, no one knew the time of Mario Elustro's death except the police investigating the crime, and the killer. Which are you?"
Darcy winced at the sarcasm in Jon's voice. Aimee didn't react to it at all, other than to go perfectly, unnaturally still.
"Nothing to say?" Jon pressed. Darcy saw her swallow a few times as if she wanted to tell them something, but still she sat there, immovable as a statue. Jon nodded when Aimee remained silent.
Jon nodded as if he'd expected that from Aimee. "Then let me say it for you. You killed your boss. You stole money from the company and then you ran. Even after you knew there was a warrant for your arrest, even after you knew what it was doing to mom, you ran. You hid out for as long as you could, but this money's getting low, isn't it? That much won't last more than a few months, or a year at most, before you had to come running to someone. That's where I came in. You thought you'd come here and try to con me into helping you. Too bad for you that Vivica Chartrand got herself killed before you could spring your con job on me."
She looked at him then, her eyes wet.
Jon collected everything back into the folder and went to stand up. "You're just like dad," he growled at her. "You don't care about anyone but yourself. Come on, Darcy. We're done here."
"You don't know what it was like!" Aimee was suddenly yelling. "Mario wasn't paying me half of what I was worth! I had bills, and no money to cover them. So yeah, big brother, I went to the company meaning to steal some money. Transfer it to an offshore account where no one would even notice it was gone. I was going to pay him back, I swear it!"
Jon paused at the door out of the room, his reflection in the one-way mirror sad and weary.
"I didn't mean to kill him!" Aimee blurted. "He came into the building late when he wasn't supposed to be there and then…and then…"
She stopped, realizing what she had just said. She'd just confessed to a murder.
"The State Police will be here soon," he repeated to her, holding the door open for Darcy. "Goodbye, Aimee."