CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Paige looked through the one way glass of the interrogation room at their suspect, trying to read what she could from Mark Zint’s body language while she and Christopher waited for him to sober up. Was he worried that they were going to find him out? Were there flashes of guilt as he thought about what he’d done?
Mostly, he just looked angry and frustrated, like he couldn’t quite believe that he was there.
Christopher and Detective Sanchez were standing there with Paige, both looking on as if waiting for the perfect moment to go in and speak to Zint.
“So you actually arrested Mark Zint?” Detective Sanchez said. “Please tell me that you have something on him. A rich guy like him will just love making trouble if you don’t.”
“Plenty of circumstantial things that make him a good suspect,” Christopher said. “He made threats towards Sienna Niven after trying to hit on her. He has a past history of sexually harassing women. He’s a noted magician, so he has a link to that side of the case. He even keeps fish. Then there’s the part where he did his best to avoid answering any questions about the case. He certainly avoided providing an alibi. It was enough to bring him in.”
“I guess so,” Sanchez said. “I’m the one who will have to live with the repercussions of all of this if you’re wrong about him, though. His lawyers are already on the way.”
She was obviously thinking that finding herself as the unofficial liaison to the FBI agents on the case wasn’t working out quite the way she’d hoped. Paige imagined that she would feel a lot better about it once Paige and Christopher finally cracked the case.
The place to start with that, as far as Paige could see, was by trying to get a confession out of Mark Zint.
“Has he sobered up enough to take a run at, do you think?” Paige asked.
Christopher shrugged. “I don’t think he was that drunk to begin with. He’s just an asshole when he’s sober.”
“Ok,” Paige said. “Then let me go in there. We might as well try to get something from him before he asks for a lawyer.”
“Alone?” Christopher looked a little surprised by that. “Do you think that’s a good idea, Paige? It’s not as if he showed you much respect back at his place.”
This wasn’t about respect, though. It was about getting answers.
“Maybe that can play into my hands,” Paige said. “It’s obvious that he thinks he’s superior to me. Maybe I can use that to get him to start talking, if he feels he has to prove something to me. At the very least, he doesn’t think I’m a threat.”
Christopher didn’t look entirely happy about it, almost as if he didn’t want her going into a room with a potentially dangerous criminal alone, but he nodded.
“All right,” Christopher said. “But we’ll both be watching from out here. If he gets out of line, then I’ll be straight in there.”
Paige was grateful for the concern, but also didn’t want it to come to that. She wanted to prove to Christopher that she could handle herself, and deal with this kind of thing without him having to step in to save her.
Paige walked into the interrogation room, taking a seat opposite Mark Zint and starting a recording device.
“Are you ready to talk to us yet, Mark?” Paige asked.
“You think you’re clever, dragging me here?” Zint countered. “My lawyers will have me out of here in an instant. They’ll make all of this disappear!”
“The way they did with the allegations that Sienna Niven made against you?” Paige asked. “She was one of the women, wasn’t she, Mark? You were stalking her. You were obsessed with her.”
“Obsessed with an ugly bitch with a big black mark on her face?” Zint said. He laughed, but the laugh came across as fake. She wanted me to be obsessed. She wanted to reel me in and tease me so that she could get to my money, but when I asked her to actually put out, she ran away pretty quick.”
“So you were trying to have a relationship with her?” Paige asked.
“Aren’t you listening?” Zint demanded. “She was the one who was trying to have a relationship. That’s all women do. They come onto you, tease you, and then try to take advantage. Like you.”
Paige raised an eyebrow. “Like me, Mr. Zint?”
“You think I didn’t notice you flirting with me back at my place?” Zint said. “The way you were looking at me, the way you were trying to spar with me verbally. What was offering to play cards with me? Something they taught you in FBI training? Get the guys into you, and they’ll answer all your questions?”
Paige would have laughed then if it hadn’t been so obvious that Zint was serious. Was this what he’d done with all the women who’d accused him of harassing them? Had he simply decided that they were into him? That they were somehow trying to get his attention? Was his own arrogance really that great?
“Let’s focus on Sienna,” Paige said. “You sent her a message saying that you were planning to kill her.”
“I didn’t mean it, obviously!” Zint said. “God, why are people so literal these days? Besides, she deserved it. She’d told her story to some online news site, making me look like some kind of creep.”