“I’ll call who I want!” Alvin shouts back. “I’m not under arrest.”
The agents glower at him, their weapons out.
“Do not shoot my superintendent. I will take that shit personally.”
They swivel and glare at me, which works. I want their attention on me.
From the corner of my eye I watch Alvin’s fingers fly furiously over his phone.
On the sidewalk, the whole neighborhood’s come out to watch. There are about ten camera phones recording the scene until a slow look from me makes people lower them.
Laurelyn’s in the back of a town car with her bare nipples clearly visible through the thin t-shirt. Those nips shouldn’t be on public display.
Forcing my expression to go blank, I try not to let my anger show. My voice is deceptively light when I speak, poking the bear again. “There’s no FBI office in Coynston. Are you taking me to Boston? Or using the local PD for this arrest?”
They ignore me.
“I ask because I want a cup of coffee, and the CPD coffee sucks. If we’re headed there, let’s hit Java Jay first. Two blocks east.”
“The fucking stones,” one of the agents spits out in a Southie accent. “Shut the hell up.”
I let them lead me past the car holding Laurel. I stare at her through the glass for a second, then wink. She looks startled. All the agents catch it.
In the back of another town car, I lean back and stretch my legs out, putting on a show of getting comfortable, though I’m not.
I hear her voice in my head.It’s not a game.
Everything’s a game,I think again.
* * *
Laurel
The FBI isawfulto me.
Trick was kinder when he was slamming that paddle against my ass.
It starts gently enough at first when they try to take me to the local emergency room for a rape exam. I refuse that oranyexamination, and the mood changes immediately.
Milt tells me at least a dozen times on the drive to Boston that I’m going for a rape kit when we reach the city. I stop refusing because I stop talking.
He actually takes me to a second emergency room and forces me to speak to a forensic nurse. I’m afraid for a moment that he might get agents to hold me down while evidence is collected. It’s only when a tall emergency doctor with mocha-colored skin pushes back by telling them to back off and that I don’t have to have any exam I don’t want, that I let myself cry.
Milt even tries to usethatas leverage, saying I’ve been traumatized and the evidence needs to be collected immediately or I’ll regret it later when the case can’t be prosecuted. He says over and over that I’ve been kidnapped and raped, like if he says it often enough it’ll get Trick a life sentence without a trial.
The more they try to pressure and manipulate me, the more I resent it, my helpless frustration mixed with fury.
Milt’s outrage at Trick incenses me in particular. Where was that outrage when he left me overnight in Trick’s apartment?
After the hospital, I’m taken to the FBI offices and put in an interrogation room. I can’t stay sitting, which Milt and another male agent notice and ask about repeatedly. The other source of fascination is my sliced-up dress. What did he use to cut off my clothes? A knife? Scissors? A razor blade? Did he threaten to cut me with it? What exactly did he do? Was I raped? Sodomized? Choked? Punched?
I ask for socks or something to cover my cold feet, but they don’t provide any. I’m told some are on the way, but when they don’t materialize for hours I suspect they want me vulnerable. My discomfort and the way they fire their questions in increasingly frustrated voices almost makes me want to cave in, just so I can get away from them. But I’m too angry. They asked for my help and I agreed, risking terrible consequences. And I didn’t do it for personal gain. I did it to protect my little sister and other young women. Why the hell are they treating me like a criminal, especially if they think Trick victimized me?
And what about Trick? I know he’s the king of bad behavior, but he’s the one who woke me so I could get dressed before a slew of men tore into the apartment. And Trick blocked the bedroom door to keep them out until I was finished dressing. Honestly, today he’s taking better care of me than they are.
The words they want to hear are that Scott Patrick kidnapped and assaulted me. They tell me they’ve taken the restraints, the sex toys, and the paddle from his apartment and that they’ll be testing them for my DNA. I can’t control the furious blush that spreads from my face to my neck, but I can control my silence.
The FBI pretends they want to do me a favor, telling me that if I give a statement, they’ll take care of everything else. But that’s no favor to me. I don’t say anything about Trick, not even his name.
