Chapter 2 - The Impossible Detail

The tires of Blair’s sedan screeched against the wet pavement outside the Fairfax County Precinct.

She didn't turn off the engine right away.

She sat in the darkness, staring at the fluorescent lights glowing behind the glass doors.

Her uniform was crisp, her medals glinting softly under the streetlight, but inside, her heart was pounding a erratic, furious rhythm.

When she walked through the doors, the atmosphere was thick with the smell of stale coffee and damp paper.

Nolan Vickers was sitting on a plastic chair in the waiting corridor.

He looked small, disheveled, and pale.

His expensive designer shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, a scratch running down his neck, and his head was buried in his hands.

Beside him stood Detective Miller, a tired-looking investigator holding a clipboard.

"Blair," Nolan stammered, standing up the moment he saw her. His voice was filled with a trembling, helpless worry that had convinced half the neighborhood he was a saint. "Thank God you’re here. She... she lost her mind, Blair. I tried to calm her down, but she wouldn't stop."

Blair didn't touch him. She didn't look into his wide, pleading eyes.

"Where is my mother?" she asked, her voice dropping into a register that made the detective sit up straight.

"She’s in holding, Lieutenant Colonel," Detective Miller said, stepping between them. "Mr. Vickers filed a formal statement. He says your mother had a sudden psychological episode. He claims she lunged at him with a heavy brass fireplace poker, and he had to push her away in self-defense."

Blair stopped.

The entire precinct seemed to drop into absolute silence.

She turned her head slowly, her amber eyes fixing on Nolan with an intensity that made him involuntarily take a step backward.

"A fireplace poker?" Blair asked.

"Yes," Nolan insisted, wiping a hand across his forehead, forcing a desperate tear to form in the corner of his eye. "I was terrified, Blair. It was right beside the mantle in her living room. She picked it up and came at me!"

"Nolan," Blair said, her voice dropping into an icy, measured whisper that cut through the noisy room like a scalpel.

"My mother built that house thirty-two years ago."

"It has central heating."

"It has custom hardwood floors."

"It has three sunrooms, two bay windows, and zero brick chimneys."