CHAPTER 291: THE SMILE THAT STAYED

The fluorescent lights buzzed low and constant above us, casting a flat, sterile sheen across the interrogation room. Everything in here was either gray, white, or peeling slightly at the corners—like even the furniture was tired of pretending to be neutral.

I didn’t sit right away.

Just watched her.

Mary Steward. Fifteen years old, give or take a hard year. Shoulder-length hair, unevenly cut like she’d done it herself in a bathroom mirror. Red sneakers that were too clean to be worn often. One fingernail on her left hand chipped down the center. Her hoodie sleeves stretched past her wrists, swallowing her hands like armor she didn’t know how to remove.

She looked calm.

But not peaceful.

It was the sort of calm that came from learning how to lock the doors inside your own head. A rehearsed stillness, built over time. Not the kind that comes naturally.

She stared back at me with that same unsettling quiet. No smirk. No defiance. Just... unreadable.

I could almost hear the clock ticking above the door—though I knew it wasn’t ticking. Just the faint hum of the lights. Or maybe that was the pulse behind my temple, pressing harder with each second that passed.

Eventually, I stepped forward and pulled out the chair.

It scraped faintly against the linoleum.

Then I sat.

No file.

No recorder.

No notes.

Just me, still half-coated in dried pink paint, and the pressure of too many open questions crowding my skull.

This wasn’t going to be a checklist interrogation.

This was going to be a minefield.

Every word mattered. Every hesitation. Every question I asked had the potential to lock her down or crack her open.

So I waited.

Watched her posture.

Her breath.

The way her fingers tapped once—just once—against her knee.

I needed to choose the right entry point. I could go straight for the footage. Ask about the school. The man that was inside of Jacob’s attic. The smile. Her so-called disappearance. Any of them could’ve been the opening move.

But timing was everything.

Too soon, and she’d clam up. Too aggressive, and she’d play dumb. Too soft, and she’d treat this like a joke.

Five minutes passed in silence.

At least, I think it was five. Long enough for the hum of the lights to become part of my heartbeat.

She didn’t look away once.

Neither did I.

Eventually, the question surfaced. Simple. Direct. Tied to the present moment. No time for deflection or revision.

I leaned forward just slightly. Let my hands rest on the table. Not threatening. Just steady.

"Why did you attack me?"

Her eyes narrowed.

And then, with the kind of dry deflection you only hear from teenagers who think the truth is just another negotiation:

"I didn’t."

I raised my eyebrows, then slowly spread my arms.

Paint crackled as the dried streaks flaked off my coat like colored bark. "Right. This is just how I do laundry now."

Silence.

She didn’t meet my eyes.

Just stared at the table like it had something more interesting to say. Chin tilted slightly downward, lashes still. Not even a blink. As if silence itself could form a defense.

I let it hang.

Interrogation 101: silence is pressure. Most people can’t stand it. It worms into the cracks of their composure, makes them fill the air with excuses, deflections—anything to escape the weight of nothing.

But she didn’t move.

Didn’t twitch.

Didn’t speak.

So I shifted in my chair, slow and deliberate, the legs scraping faintly beneath me, and took another path.

"You reacted when I mentioned the school footage," I said evenly. "Back at the bus stop."

Still nothing. No denial. No sarcasm this time.

But I wasn’t relying on her words.

Observation kicked in like a well-trained reflex. Her left eye twitched—just slightly. A sharp blink and a micro-flinch at the outer corner. Her throat flexed but didn’t follow through with a swallow. Controlled stillness. A pause on purpose.

She was fighting the impulse to respond.

That was all I needed.

She knew how to play this game.

But so did I.

I leaned back slightly in my chair, loosening my posture, making the moment feel casual—like this was all background noise to me now.

"There was never supposed to be a second suspect," I said, almost conversational. "The witness described someone very specific. Thin. Lanky. Pale skin. Smiled too much. Creepy smile, actually."

I watched her jaw tighten.

Barely.

Just a flicker under the skin. The kind of tension that showed up in fighters before a swing. Or in liars before a fold.

Psychological Insight prickled at the back of my mind.

It wasn’t fear. Not exactly.

There was guilt. The slow and creeping kind as if you realized that you caused someone that you cared about trouble.

But that wasn’t all.

There was something else tangled in it.

Annoyance?

No—worse.

Resentment.

She didn’t like that I’d called the smile creepy.

That was the sore spot.

So I pressed, my tone sharpening just a hair.

"That smile, by the way. That’s what stood out. Creeped the girl out. Honestly?" I tilted my head, eyes locked on her. "It creeped me out too."

That landed.

Her eyes looked at me as her eyebrows furrowed ever so slightly.

And I leaned in.

Not to intimidate.

To agitate.

Still no reply.

Just stone silence.

So I leaned in.

"Tell me, Mary," I said, voice low but clear. "Did you always have it? That smile? Or did it start after you ran away from home?"

Her knuckles pressed tighter to the tabletop. Not a full clench—just enough to show restraint. The kind of tension that suggested muscle memory. Like someone who’d learned how to hold back only after being punished for showing too much.

Psychological Insight surged behind my eyes.

That wasn’t detachment.

That was pain, curled into itself like a burned wire. Guilt tangled with something far messier—pride. Like she had been given that smile, or claimed it, and now couldn’t imagine being seen without it. It wasn’t just an expression to her. It was armor.

A fractured kind of identity.

"Because it’s not just a smile, is it?" I continued. "It’s too sharp. Too careful. Like someone painted it on and forgot to blend the edges. Crooked. Forced."

She shifted now.

Not much—but enough.

A slow roll of the shoulder. A subtle drag of her sleeve as she adjusted her arm, as if the table had gotten colder. Or maybe I had.

Lie Detection stayed dormant.

Because she wasn’t lying.

She was refusing to speak at all.

Which, in a way, told me more than a lie ever could.

"You know what it reminds me of?" I said, gentler this time. Almost offhand. "People who grin in yearbook photos even though they were crying five minutes before. Like they were told to smile for the camera or else."

She didn’t blink.

But I saw the change.

Observation tracked it—tiny lines at the corners of her eyes pulling tighter. A micro-tremor in her left thumb. Her breathing hitched—not visibly, not enough for most people to catch, but I wasn’t most people.

I leaned in, just enough for the words to find their mark.

"And it’s creepy."

The word landed like a pin dropped on glass.

She flinched.

Not dramatically. Not a flailing reaction.

But her shoulders twitched—sharp, involuntary—like I’d grazed a live nerve. The kind of reaction a soldier has when someone touches a scar they forgot was visible.

"Creepy," I repeated, slower this time. "Unnatural. Off. Like something pretending to be human."

"Stop."

The word barely made it across the table. A whisper, fragile and fraying at the edge.

But I didn’t stop.

Couldn’t.

I had a thread, taut and trembling, and I intended to pull it until something snapped or unraveled.

"You know it’s true. That’s why you flinched. You don’t like people calling it creepy—not because it’s wrong, but because it’s close. Because it’s not just a smile, is it? It’s a memory. Or worse."

Her hands slid to the sides of the chair now.

Gripping.

Still silent. Still staring.

Observation

registered the way her shoulders rose—slowly, subtly, like the weight of everything she wasn’t saying was starting to crack her posture.

I dropped my voice to a near-murmur, tone gentle but razor-sharp.

"There are pictures, Mary. Before you vanished. No smile. Just a kid with tired eyes and an oversized hoodie. Then you come back, and it’s there. Every photo, every time. Pinned to your face like a badge. So tell me..."

A pause.

A breath.

"Where did you get it?"

Her knuckles flexed. Shoulders taut.

"Shut up."

Barely audible again. Like it hurt to say.

But it wasn’t enough.

"Did he give it to you?" I asked, leaning forward just slightly. "Whoever he is. Did he make you smile like that? Stand in front of a mirror until it stuck? Until it felt more real than your real one?"

"Shut up."

Quieter still, but the air had changed. Thicker. Warmer.

Claustrophobic.

Psychological Insight buzzed under my skin—an emotional fuse burning down fast.

"You know it looks wrong. You know people stare. Even the girl who saw him—Lea—she didn’t describe you. She described him. But you’re the one walking around with that same expression. That same grin like something out of a cracked window at midnight."

Her fingers dug into the edge of the chair, nails turning bone-white. Jaw clenched so tight it looked painful. Her breathing was shallow now, sharp at the exhale like a dam trying to hold back a flood.

I didn’t let up.

"Tell me who he is," I said, voice soft but unrelenting. "Tell me who gave you the smile."

And then—

Crack.

Not in her voice.

In everything else.

She slammed both hands on the table so hard the metal legs shrieked against the tile. The chair scraped backward. Her eyes—once quiet, once mocking—now burned with something feral.

"The smile isn’t creepy!" she screamed. "It’s not—it’s not creepy, okay?! He—"

The sound of her voice shattered against the word.

He.

She choked on it like it burned going up.

Cut herself off.

Silence again.

But this time it wasn’t empty.

It was heavy.

Her hands trembled where they’d slammed down. She didn’t sit back down. She didn’t look at me.

Just stood there.

Breathing hard.

Backlit by the sterile fluorescence overhead, casting long shadows over the table between us.

And now I knew one thing for sure.

There was a he.

And it was likely the same he that was in Lea’s room.

I didn’t move.

Didn’t speak.

Just watched her eyes shift, frantic, like she was trying to shove the words back in her mouth before they formed.

My own voice was steady when I finally broke the stillness.

"Who’s he?"

No answer.

I didn’t move. Just let the question settle between us like dust.

Then I leaned forward—slowly, carefully—like the air itself might shatter if I got too close too fast.

"Mary," I said, voice low, measured. "Who is he?"

She looked down.

Then away.

Eyes tracing the grain of the table like it could save her.

Then—after a heartbeat too long—she looked back at me.

And said, quiet as glass breaking:

"It’s my father."

I froze.

Not metaphorically.

Not internally.

I froze.

Because that wasn’t what I expected.

Not even close.

Deduction fired instantly—like a steel trap snapping shut. I’d reviewed her files. Every social report, ID document, custody record, school application, and news report. I had practically memorized the Steward household timeline mere minutes before I stepped into this room.

Her father—Jonathan Steward.

Taxi driver. C-Rank with the potential of becoming B-Rank.

Public records consistent across three institutions.

Stocky build. Tanned complexion. Mid-forties. A man who once took part in a chili cook-off fundraiser and smiled like he didn’t know what a frown was.

Grilled on weekends.

No criminal record.

No warning flags.

He was not pale.

He was not thin.

And he certainly wasn’t the figure Lea described peering at her through the shadows of her bedroom window. He wasn’t the thing I’d seen trailing behind the evidence. The presence that didn’t make sense.

So either—

"...What do you mean?" I asked carefully.

She didn’t answer.

Didn’t even blink.

Just sat back down, slow and steady, folding her hands with a precision that didn’t belong in a fifteen-year-old.

Like nothing had happened.

Like she hadn’t just dropped a live grenade onto the center of the room and then quietly resumed tea service.

My fingers curled against the edge of the table.

I stared at her.

Not angry.

Not confused.

Just—focused.

The pieces didn’t fit. Not in any way that followed logical structure.

Unless—

Unless the man she called "father" wasn’t the same man listed on paper.

Or—worse—he used to be.

And he wasn’t anymore.

A swap.

A replacement.

A rewrite.

My Instinct didn’t scream.

But it didn’t sit still either.

It coiled. Tensed. Like something just outside my reach was watching this conversation too.

I didn’t speak for a long moment.

Neither did she.

We just... sat there.

Across from one another.

Two fixed points in a room that suddenly felt too small for its walls.

But the silence between us wasn’t empty anymore.

It was loaded.

Dense with weight I couldn’t measure yet. Meaning I couldn’t name. Like standing in a hallway you didn’t realize was lined with glass until something cracked under your foot.

And I could hear it now.

Faint.

The first fracture running down the middle of whatever truth she was trying to hold together.

And it was only a matter of time before it shattered.