The Exchange

Thursday

Thursday

00.40 a.m.

Tina was led on deck 16 when it was already late night. Max had described to Chapel and Francks how he had identified Tina Larkin in the picture of a classmate of Cavendish's, a young brunette. She was very different from the Tina Larkin they were familiar with, it wasn't surprising they hadn't recognized her. She had always been a beautiful woman, but back then she had a more delicate kind of beauty, her dark hair worn short, thin lips, lower cheekbones. But those eyes were unquestionably the eyes of Tina Larkin.

It had taken two hours before Chapel's friend from the Australian police confirmed that Shannon Faber and Tina Larkin were the same person. Orphan of both parents, from the age of six to eighteen Shannon had lived at the Shaffner Institute. Till when, many years later, Shannon Faber had changed his name to Tina Larkin.

Before questioning the woman, Chapel had removed the paintings from the walls and cleaned the table from everything that was laid on it. He had left only two chairs and placed them on the corner of the table nearest the window, one on each side. Max had taken a folder from the office and had written Shannon Faber on it, then had put some white sheets of paper in the folder and placed the pictures taken from the yearbook on top of it. When Travis had informed them that Tina was in the briefing room, Max had told him to leave her waiting alone, where she remained for a good half an hour before Max and Chapel decided it was finally time to start the show.

When they finally entered the room, Tina stared at them unblinkingly. Max took the chair to her right, sat down and placed the folder on the table, while Chapel stood in front of the woman, with his back leaning against the wall.

Tina sat in silence, her eyes fixed on Max, waiting for one of the two men to make the first move.

"Do you want to tell us the truth, Tina, before the police step foot on the ship?" Max asked in a tone of voice that Chapel found strangely mild. "Because this was all a play to our use and consumption, was it not, Tina?"

The woman didn't answer.

"A very well-prepared play, though I guess you had to improvise to some extent. You did good, until you crossed the line. That tearful story of your soul mate dead from overdose sounded coming out from one of your movies. Not to mention that if you'd really grown up in Grady, you'd know it's in New Mexico and not in Texas."

Tina stared at him again, impassive.

"Okay, if you don't intend to tell us anything, I'll try to figure out how things went," Max said. "You were all in the same institute, you, Jimmy and Duncan. You were best friends, always together, but you were the leader, you had them both in your pocket. Three unfortunate lives, who years later finally find their redemption. Jimmy becomes a brilliant lawyer, Duncan a naval officer, while you, Tina, who could have imagined you would become a famous Hollywood actress?

"Of course Jimmy had it easier, his redemption came with a rich man who took him when he was still a kid, and never set foot again in the institute. While for you, things were tougher, no rich man came to save you. And you never forgave him that. But when your lives were eventually on the right track, the past returned to knock on your doors. Sometimes the past does come back, remember what you told me? So when Duncan made the ship crash because he was high on drugs, he called you begging for help and you couldn't back off. You were the leader of the three and you had to get him out of trouble. Friends of the past help each other, don't they, Tina? Especially when they have dirt to hide. A girl who, at the age of ten, sells drugs to another kid who ends up dying of overdose is not the kind of past that Hollywood producers love to pay a lot of money to.

"You were the one who called Cavendish and convinced him to help Duncan, because he owed him and it was time to pay off. You told him he had to get hired by the company in order to move suspects from Keane to someone else. And Cavendish did as you ordered. He contacted the detective he had got to know some time before, of whom he knew the obsession with drug smugglers, and convinced him that the culprit was a Filipino who worked on the ship, who was using the ship as a drug mule. Boyde fitted perfectly to your plan."