Carla took a long drag on her cigarette, holding the smoke in her lungs for as long as she could. It did nothing to calm her nerves; she felt all the eyes in the small room, seen and unseen, focus on the slight tremor in her hand when she raised it to her mouth.
"Like I told your people already, multiple times—I have no idea what it is you think he's taken. I had nothing to do with it."
The man across the table wasn't the first to question her today, but he was by far the most irritating. Smug and supercilious and wearing a suit and tie too expensive for the FBI agent he claimed to be, he acted like he knew everything there was to know about her just by looking at her.
"You seem nervous, Mrs. Reddington."
Carla let out a humorless laugh.
"You effectively kidnap me and my daughter in the middle of the night, take us to a strange place, and interrogate me for hours without letting me see her." She shook her head and took another shaky drag. "You tell me all sorts of horrible things about my husband, saying he's a criminal and treating me like you think we're in cahoots with each other… Of course I'm nervous. If I was fine with this, that's when you should worry."
Furiously, she stamped out her cigarette, adding to the growing pile in the ashtray on the worn table. "That was my last one. Do you have another?"
Mr. Sanctimonious motioned to someone through the one-way glass and another officer came in with a fresh pack of cigarettes. He slid them across the table to her like he was doing her a great kindness.
"I hear what you're saying, Mrs. Reddington, believe me, I do. I just find it hard to believe that such a… loving and dedicated couple wouldn't share important things with each other."
"If you were as much of an expert on Raymond Reddington as you say you are, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. It's hilarious that you think he actually tells me anything."
Carla looked up as the interrogation door opened and bit her tongue, quite literally, to stop herself from screaming in frustration when it was Mr. Sanctimonious who walked in. She'd been hoping for another changing of the guard, to no avail.
"Look. We've been doing this for hours and hours. I'm not even going to go through the motions at this point unless you let me see my daughter."
The man wouldn't look at Carla, just moved swiftly around the table and unlocked her cuffs. "You're free to go," he said, quietly. He seemed… defeated, humbled somehow.
"I don't understand. Half an hour ago, I was public enemy number two. What changed?"
"Well, somebody showed up to talk some sense into him, that's what changed," came a familiar voice from the doorway.
"Alan!"
Carla's relief at seeing Alan Fitch's face, careworn but handsome, was short-lived. She and Jennifer were to be put in witness protection, he explained, effective immediately. Her life as she knew it was over.
"He'll try to find us," she said, half in a daze.
Alan shook his head, tried to reassure her that she and her daughter would be safe and unreachable—Raymond wouldn't even try to look for them after the scene he'd find when he went home. His voice was emotionless and perfunctory when he told her about the blood.
Carla was horrified. The only way she avoided being paralyzed by guilt was to blame everything on Raymond. If he hadn't done whatever it was he did, if he could've just kept his head down and done his job like he was supposed to, none of this ever would have happened.
Carla would be Naomi for over twenty years before they'd cross paths again.