Twenty Three

CHAPTER 23

New York City Police Headquarters.

Alicia sat inside a two-by-two-meter enclosed room at the New York City police headquarters. Her eyes stared coldly at the wall in front of her, her gaze blank. Her hands were folded on a wooden table with a glass surface. This room contains only a table, a chair, and CCTV cameras in every corner. This was her death seat, even though Alicia was not necessarily guilty of the case she was facing.

Two policemen in full uniform approached Nicholas who was standing behind black glass. One of them, Michael, tapped Nicholas on the shoulder. "Detective?"

And Nicholas turned to the source of the voice. Michael was a police officer who usually conducted interrogations in the office. He was a tall man with a thick black mustache that attracted attention. Square glasses adorned his brown eyes. He looked at Nicholas curiously, before a smile finally lifted his grayish lips.

"Michael?"

"This is Peter, our new colleague in the office. He just came in today," Michael introduced. Peter shook Nicholas's hand, then nodded his head respectfully. "Peter will accompany me to examine the girl inside. By the way, is she a witness or a suspect in this case?"

Nicholas bit his lower lip in doubt, he looked at Alicia again through the protective glass. His mind went everywhere, but he tried to stay focused. He then looked at Michael and Peter in turn, before saying, "It looks like she is still a witness in this case. There is some evidence, but I still want to get to the bottom of it."

Michael raised one eyebrow and put one of his hands in his jacket pocket. "Is this why you don't want to interrogate her? You seem to have a pretty deep personal connection."

Michael's opinion was probably correct, because Nicholas had shown it. But Nicholas gave a short snort and patted his partner on the shoulder. "Our relationship is not that deep, he's still in high school."

Michael shrugged his shoulders. "Well, I'm not saying your relationship is a love affair," he teased, blinking one eye teasingly at Nicholas. "But the way you talk and talk about her, she must have something special, right?"

"Would you stop teasing me and just come inside, Officer Michael?"

Michael laughed in satisfaction, but he didn't hesitate at all because he knew the black glass was airtight. He patted Peter's shoulder who had been waiting and said, "We'd better go in before Detective Nicholas' cheeks turn red because of us."

Peter smiled politely and said, "I'd like permission to go in first, Detective."

"Very well. We'll discuss this later."

After finding Alicia's name on the list of cocaine and methamphetamine drug consumers on the deep web, Nicholas decided to immediately take her to the police station for further investigation into the matter. After all, Alicia had the right to testify and refute the allegations that she was involved in the trafficking network on the illicit website.

"Good morning, Miss. You look pale, are you sick?" Michael was trying to start a conversation when his butt landed on a chair. Peter followed him and sat next to Michael.

Michael took out the papers in the folder, then looked at Peter for a moment before turning back to Alicia and saying, "We'll start the investigation from here. I'm Michael, well if you want to know." Michael tapped Peter on the shoulder, then smiled a little. "And this young man is Peter. He's good-looking, but we need to be serious about your case. Okay?"

Alicia did not respond to Michael's words at all. She was not interested in the jokes made by the man who was much older than her. In Alicia's eyes, Michael was probably around fifty or sixty years old. Alicia thought he was really old to be doing those jokes.

"You have to tell us everything," said one of the policemen sitting across from Alicia.

But Alicia didn't move. She just sat, looked at the two policemen sitting next to each other and kept her mouth shut.

"How can a high school student like you access a dark website and make drug deals to your new school? This sounds so crazy and absurd," said the other policeman. "How could you?"

"If you think it's crazy and absurd, why do you believe it?" Alicia replied. "I won't talk to anyone else but Nicholas."

"You even call someone much older than you by name, that casually?"

The two policemen exchanged glances, they looked at each other with confused expressions. Even though Alicia was just a high school student, she could reply to the police officers' insistence casually without feeling the slightest guilt.

"I'll talk to Detective Nicholas. I'll only talk to him, not anyone else," Alicia added. Alicia's blue eyes looked at two of the policemen seriously, a menacing glint in them. She was very brave and seemed to be challenging the two of them.

One policeman stood up from his chair, tapped his colleague lightly on the shoulder and said, "We should just call Detective Nicholas. We're wasting time if we keep doing this."

Several times police officers entered the room and interrogated her, but Alicia kept her mouth shut and chose to wait for Nicholas to come to her. It wasn't long before her request was fulfilled by the young detective (of course, after the other officers had told Nicholas about it earlier).

At first, Nicholas thinks of transferring the case to someone else, given that he already likes Alicia personally. But seeing Alicia's persistence in keeping her mouth shut and only wanting to talk to him left Nicholas with no choice. He accepted the request of the previous two policemen and immediately began his work as a detective for the New York City Police Department.

Nicholas entered the room with a cold face and sat down opposite Alicia. The blue irises met the tanned black bead that was now squinting suspiciously. "I want something that will satisfy me, Miss Alicia," Nicholas began. "Not just to say you didn't do it."