INT. MARA AND JONAH'S KITCHEN - PRE-DAWN
Jonah reads from the timeline while Mara stands at the sink, correcting nothing. A wall clock marks less than two hours until her internal interview.
Jonah
You came home at eleven twelve. I was reading at the table. You complained the hall light was out.
Mara
The hall light works.
Jonah
Then you complained it was too bright. The complaint is texture, not evidence.
Mara
We are not writing texture.
Jonah
Professional Standards will ask what you did when you entered. 'Nothing' sounds rehearsed.
Mara
Because we are rehearsing it.
Jonah
We are remembering in advance.
Mara
That phrase alone could convict a person.
Jonah
Your car is on a traffic camera three blocks from North Freight at ten forty-seven. Calder is found dead there at midnight. They will make the distance disappear.
Mara
How do you know which camera saw me?
Jonah
Your union lawyer called the house.
Mara
She spoke to me. Upstairs.
Jonah
You pace when lawyers call. Sound travels.
Mara
The camera location was not said aloud.
Jonah
Then I guessed. Calder used the yard. You told me that months ago.
Mara
I told you he handled stolen freight. I never gave you an address.
Jonah
He gave me one. Along with photographs of invoices I signed when the firm was failing.
Mara
The invoices you said were an accounting error.
Jonah
They were. Then I let the error stand because correcting it would have closed the company. Calder bought the debt and called it fraud.
Jonah
Twice. Last night he asked for access to your case files instead. I went to tell him no.
Mara
And you thought I followed Calder.
Jonah
I saw your car. I thought you had found the messages and gone in before me.
Mara
So the home timeline is for my benefit.
Jonah
It is true enough. You were home before the rain started. Your coat was dry.
Mara
Rain began at ten thirty.
Jonah
Eleven thirty. I heard it against the kitchen window after you came in.
Mara
You heard it against the freight containers. The weather log says ten thirty-two.
Jonah
I am trying to keep your badge from becoming a reason to charge you.
Mara
Then stop offering details you cannot know from this kitchen.
Jonah
What are you asking me?
Mara
When I entered the south lot, the red gate was chained. I waited beside it for seven minutes.
Jonah
Blue gate. The south one is blue, and the chain was cut.
Mara
There was no red gate.
Mara
I suspected when you scrubbed mud from shoes you claim you did not wear, then moved them behind the boiler instead of putting them back by the door. I invented the red gate to see whether fear would correct me. Now I know.
Jonah
Calder was alive when I left. He had fallen against a pallet, but he was breathing and swearing at me.
Jonah
He grabbed my coat. I pushed him away. He fell. I panicked when I saw your car and took the east exit.
Mara
Why did you not call an ambulance?
Jonah
Because I thought my wife, the detective he was blackmailing me with, was coming through the other gate.
Mara
I never went through any gate. I stayed outside with the engine off, watching the east exit and telling myself that if you appeared alone I could still pretend I had followed the wrong car.
Mara
Outside. I put a tracker on your car after I found the second withdrawal. I followed you, waited, and watched you leave with one sleeve torn. Then I drove behind you instead of going in to see who you had left on the ground.
Jonah
You have been preparing to say you met Calder so they would stop looking for me.
Mara
I was preparing to say as little as possible until I knew whether you were inside. That is already more concealment than my oath permits.
Jonah
Then use the timeline. Let one lie keep the rest of our lives true.
Mara
An alibi is not shelter once both people know it is false. It is a room with one locked door.
Mara
You tell a lawyer when you arrived, where Calder stood, and how he was breathing. I tell mine why my car was outside and why I waited until now.
Mara folds the handwritten timeline in half and places it beneath the sealed badge. Jonah turns both coffee cups upright but does not refill them.
Mara
In the same building. Not the same story.