"You must be Erin Smith. Please, take a seat."
The woman gave her a cold, almost imperious, look as she took slow, measured, steps forward, closing the office door behind her as she stared Miranda down. If she hadn't perfected her own steely glare by that point in her life, she might have wilted beneath the weight of that look. Instead, she just straightened her back even more as she lifted her chin and eyebrow, gesturing towards the chair in front of her desk. Erin gave a tight nod as she elegantly sank down into the indicated chair, looking every inch a queen. "I thought that I made myself quite clear on the phone that I did not want to be featured in your magazine."
"You said that you did not want to give me an interview, which I clearly did not do with this spread. Instead, I used the pictures taken at the fashion show of your Emily collection, along with the pictures that I found of your Penelope collection, and pointed out the mystery that is you."
"Along with mentioning my connection to the FBI. The BAU, in particular."
There was a small crack in Erin's armor after she'd said that, and Miranda wondered what that was about. "Yes. It was clear from the research that we did into Penelope and Emily that the fact they were both attached to the Behavioral Analysis Unit was an important facet to why you were making these collections. Though I didn't mention it in the write up that I had accompany the pictures, there is a sense of melancholy to your shows, even though the Penelope collection is so colorful."
Erin let out a deep breath through her nostrils as she gripped the arms of her chair tightly, her knuckles turning a bright white, as if she was trying to control her emotions by holding them in. Miranda almost wanted to goad her into a breaking point, to see how she would react, but she knew that there would be a time for that later, if things didn't go the way that Miranda wanted them. "My handlers told me that they came to visit you, and that they were quite specific in telling you to stop digging into my past. They said that you understood the necessity of not revealing anything about my past to the general public."
"Handlers? You mean the Marshals that were here a few weeks ago?" Miranda suddenly started to feel like she had somehow entered a different world, one where she didn't know anything, which was a distinctly odd feeling. Miranda was accustomed to knowing everything about a situation before she dove into it, though Snowflake Designs had seemed like a particularly safe mystery, with a reclusive designer who didn't want to be known by the world, and Miranda was going to be the one to reveal her to the world at large. "Erin?"
The woman gave her an impossibly tired look as she allowed her shoulders to slump a little, some of the anger bleeding from her body as she fell silent. Miranda's instincts told her to wait for Erin to speak, that if she was to push the woman in this moment, she would never get any answers, and that was the thing that she wanted most, now that the mystery was deepening. It took five long minutes before Erin's gaze focused on her face once more, and Miranda leaned forward in order to take everything in. "There was an incident in my past that meant I needed to have protection following what happened in this city all those years ago."
Miranda's facile mind quickly started putting together the new puzzle pieces that Erin had offered her. "I could only find two incidents that tied to the women you've created collections for to this city. You don't speak with a British accent, which leads me to surmise that you're not Kate Joyner. Which means that the woman sitting in front of me is not truly dead. Is she, Section Chief Strauss?"
"Oh, you really do your homework. And that means I am fucked."
She was taken aback by Erin's crude language, and she cocked her head to one side almost imperceptibly while she tried to come up with a good follow up to that statement. "I fail to see why what I've put together is a bad thing for you."
"Because I'm in WitSec! Are you completely addlepated? There is a reason that I have handlers and have changed my name, even if it was just simply a small change to my last name. There is a reason why I gave up wearing contacts, because my hair wouldn't take dye, so I had to change my appearance in some small ways. There is a reason why I wished to remain anonymous as I created these love letters to the women in my life who made an impact on me, and now that that anonymity is threatened, I'm going to have to give up this outlet that I've grown to love, and know that I'm damn good at, and to see it torn away from me because you cannot take no for an answer, which makes me wish that I still had access to my gun."
Miranda felt her eyes widen at the threat in Erin's voice, and she knew that she couldn't control her reactions any longer when talking to the woman. "Would you care to explain a little more in depth? I'm afraid that I am out of my depth here."
"Oh, you were out of that long before now, Ms. Priestly. There are sometimes very good reasons for why a person wishes to remain anonymous, and my reason is the fact that I am supposed to be dead and they haven't found the man who tried to kill me. And now that he knows I'm still alive, still out here, I'm in danger. Which means I'll be moved and have to change names again, and give up this shining moment of happiness that I so recently caught."
Erin's voice cracked as she reached the end of her little speech, and that was what clued Miranda in to the fact that she may have very well destroyed this woman's life by being so inquisitive. She wasn't about to admit that aloud, as she didn't speak about her missteps to anyone. Clearing her throat, she went to say something to try and comfort the distressed woman, though she didn't know if anything she said would get through to Erin in that moment. Just as she was about to say something, she heard a commotion in her outer office, and Miranda frowned as she craned her head around Erin to try and see what was going on. There was no reason for there to be anything that would disturb the workday, and a deep frown marred her face as she began to rise to her feet, knowing that she needed to figure out what was going on.
Miranda had almost completely stood up when she heard a loud, sharp, crack ring through the air. That sound caused Erin to leap to her feet and reach for that gun she wished she had, which let Miranda know that things were much more serious than she could have ever possibly imagined, and the first shiver of true fear ran down her spine as she began to look for a way out.
