CHAPTER 24

Naomi woke to pounding on her door. It was the first time, since she had moved in, that anyone had knocked or come to her door at all. The sound confused her, and she opened her eyes slowly, not sure at first what was happening. Memory came in a rush, and her first thought was that Brandon was here, trying to get in and finish what he had started.

She stood up hesitantly, her head pounding as if she had a hangover, though she’d had nothing to drink. On the tiny table, the claw hammer lay where she’d dropped it the night before, a small dark something crusted on the round end. Was that blood?

She looked through the peephole and saw a middle-aged woman she didn’t recognize and two uniformed police officers. A sudden horrible thought occurred to her: Had she killed Brandon? He’d shouted after her as she ran down the hall, but as far she knew, he hadn’t pursued her. Had she left him there with a brain hemorrhage, dying on the floor without help? Was that why the police were here?

“Naomi Sumner?” the woman called through the door. “This is metro PD. We need to ask you a few questions.”

Naomi took a deep breath and opened the door.

“Are you Naomi Sumner?” The woman reminded Naomi of her seventh grade art teacher, gaunt and with a perpetually stern expression on her face. When Naomi nodded, she said, “I’m Detective magda Schneider. May we come in?”

Naomi thought of the hammer on her table and shook her head. “This isn’t a good time.”

“You can let us in, or you can come downtown and chat in an interrogation room,” Schneider said. “It’s up to you. I thought here would be more comfortable.”

“What is this about?”

“We’re investigating the death of your coworker, Min-seo Cho. We just have a few questions.”

“I already answered them. The police came by the office just after she died.”

“I’m afraid we’ve uncovered some more evidence since then. We’re going to need a sample of your DNA. If you’re innocent, you should have nothing to hide.”

“I thought you just had a few questions.”

“Ms. Sumner, it would be easier for all of us if you came willingly. You don’t want to leave here in handcuffs, do you? Or spend the night in jail?”

As she said it, one of the uniformed cops unclipped his handcuffs from his belt, and the other rested his hand on his sidearm. Naomi was pretty sure those were idle threats—if they could have arrested her, they would have done it already without all the small talk—but even so, it was pretty intimidating. She found herself wanting to agree, wanting to go with them.

“I don’t think so,” she said. She started to close the door.

“Hey, maggie, look at her sleeve,” one of the cops said.

Naomi looked at her own sleeve just as the detective did and saw the blood there. She was still wearing the same sweatshirt she had worn the night before; she had curled into bed without changing it, unaware of the blood. It had to be Brandon’s.

They moved toward her, and she tried to push the door closed on them. Schneider put her foot in, blocking it, and Naomi turned and ran back into the apartment. She snatched the hammer off the table with the desperate idea of hiding it, though where she could have hid it in her bare, closet-sized apartment she had no idea. A cop pushed through the door, and when he saw the hammer, raised his pistol and shouted for her to drop it.

She let go of it immediately, terrified, adrenaline streaking through her body likes bolts of lightning. The cop grabbed her shoulders as the other two pushed through the door. He threw her facedown on her own bed and forced her arms behind her back, roughly cuffing them and holding her down. To her left, she saw Detective Schneider taking pictures of the fallen hammer.

“Looks like he was telling the truth,” one of the cops said.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Schneider said. “When a woman attacks a man with a weapon, there’s almost always more to the story.”

“He attacked me,” Naomi said. “He tried to rape me.”

Schneider gave her a calculating look. “And Min-seo? What happened to her?”

Naomi returned the gaze as best she could from her cuffed position on the bed. “I don’t know.”

“We’ll see about that.” Schneider looked disappointed. “Despite what you may hear about the police department, I really am interested in the truth.”

They left her in a featureless interview room for what felt like hours, presumably to wear her down before they started questioning her. She welcomed the time to think. The question was, what to tell them? She had no compunction about describing the confrontation with Brandon the night before. She had used the hammer in self-defense, and if he had told them otherwise, she would be glad to set the record straight. She couldn’t control whether they would believe her, but there was no reason to hide.

With Min-seo’s death, however, there was plenty to hide. She didn’t care about protecting the company, exactly, but she did care about protecting the Mikes. If the company went out of business, or its assets were seized, the Mikes’ world would be shut down, and they would all be killed. She had to prevent that. Which meant lying to the police. But how could she lie convincingly, when she didn’t know what evidence they had?

Obviously something new had turned up. Previously, the only tie to Naomi and Brandon had been that Min-seo was an employee of their company. She hadn’t been killed on company property, or while on the job, and so there was no reason to suspect they had anything to do with it. Now they had new evidence. And where did they get that? Brandon had apparently told them she had attacked him, which meant he had probably told them she had killed Min-seo, too. He might have given them the car, with her fingerprints and hair on it. It was his way of taking revenge.

But could he really have been so stupid? How did he expect to run the company if she was arrested? Probably he thought he could hire someone else like Min-seo, or ten such people, and they could do her job. He didn’t know about the Mikes, or how Min-seo had culled them, or why she’d ended up dead. He thought it was some malfunction or code error. He had no idea.

Finally, Detective Schneider came into the room and shut the door behind her. She sat in the chair across the table from Naomi, her face as thin and stern as it had been in her apartment. “You need to start telling us the truth,” she said.

The time to think had convinced Naomi that there was nothing to be gained by talking. The truth was not believable, and any lie would only harm her when it was found out. She needed time to come up with a strategy, and she probably needed a lawyer. So Naomi did what came most naturally: she stayed quiet.

Schneider urged her to talk, told her she couldn’t help her if she didn’t tell her side of the story. She told her that silence made her look guilty, and if she had nothing to hide, she might as well set the record straight. Finally, she slammed her palms on the table and leaned into Naomi’s face, threatening the worst that prison had to offer. Naomi didn’t answer.

Schneider sat, apparently defeated, and gave her a compassionate look. “I’ve got your fingerprints on the car that killed Min-seo Cho. You’re sure you don’t want to tell us how they got there? Because I’m pretty sure a jury’s going to assume it was from running her down and then backing over her again to make sure she was really dead.”

Naomi shook her head.

“And what about your boss? Want to tell me what happened there?”

She answered softly. “He attacked me.”

“I can see the bruising on your throat,” she said. “Did he rape you?”

“He hurt me,” Naomi said. “He might have done more.”

“But you hit him with the hammer before he could.”

Naomi fell silent again. She thought Schneider might really be sympathetic, at least with this part of the story, but there was nothing to be gained by making a confession.

“Was Mr. Kincannon in the car with you, when Ms. Cho died? Was he at the wheel? If you’re afraid of him, we can protect you.”

“I’d like a lawyer, please.”

“Fine,” Schneider said. “Have it your way.” She stood. “Naomi Sumner, you’re under arrest for the murder of Min-seo Cho. You have the right to remain silent . . .”