Izzy acts as if people getting arrested is a daily occurrence and Gray seems amused by her as he kisses her cheek. “We won’t be gone long dear.”
“Hold on just a minute. I’m coming, too.” Blake’s face is too earnest and sweet.
I can’t bear to watch it change when they cuff me so I shake my head, no. “I’ll be home in a couple hours. Promise.”
Later, in the car to the police station, Grayson growls at me after he slides behind the wheel. “You shouldn’t promise what you can’t deliver.”
“What? You not posting bail?” I glance up at the yellow faded shades in the window, hoping to see her face yet knowing Lucky will keep her safely tucked behind the thick walls.
“First, they’ll need to arrest you. I’m not sure how long they’ll hold you for questioning. Don’t say a peep until Andy arrives. Understand?” My boss eases into traffic then drives us through posh downtown Georgetown where lush poinsettias grace almost every entranceway and real pine garlands drape over the street.
He drives for a few miles in silence, his neck pulsing from his clenching jaw.
I happen to take offense because I didn’t do jack shit, no pun intended. “What’s with the ’tude?”
“I got anattitudebecause you didn’t go straight back to the safehouse like I asked.”
“Yeah? What if it were Izzy who got kidnapped. You wouldn’t spend your last dime searching for the guys who did it?”
He turns onto the thruway away from the direction of the police station. “I sure as hell wouldn’t’ve got caught.”
“Well, you have a lot more money than me. You could make sure it wouldn’t happen… Isn’t the police station that way?” I point back toward the thruway entrance he just drove by.
“Guess who came to dinner last night at McAlister’s party? If you guessed the FBI Deputy Director, you were spot on. He wants to take you down. You made him look bad.”
Fuck.I haven’t been photographed, fingerprinted, and stuck in a small cell since I was sixteen.
While Grayson drives through heavy traffic, my mind wanders to a day in a small town, somewhere in the middle of the Arizona desert.
“What’s your name, son?” Dressed in a khaki uniform, the policeman resembles a sheriff from the sixties. He’s got me sitting on the floor in the back room of a supermarket where this incredible smell wafts from the bakery.
When my stomach growls, I moan. “Can I go?”
“How about we talk?” The guy takes off his hat, squats on his sneakers, and rakes a hand over his chin.
I’ll give him credit for looking concerned. He’s real good at it. However, after being dragged from town to town for years, I’m pretty fucking jaded. No one ever gives a shit except when I’m caught stealing. Then, suddenly everyone has a social conscience until my mom leaves town. After, everyone heaves a sigh of relief and life for me, goes on the same as usual.
“I got nothing to say.”
“You got a first name, a last?”
“Does it matter? How about Harvey Wallbanger? Okay? I got to be going.” I try to stand but the guy pushes down on my shoulders.
“Hold on, there’s a small matter of stealing.”
“Are you shittin’ me? I wasn’t stealing. That stuff was going to be thrown away. Did you see what I took?”
He throws a hand to his mouth to keep from grinning. “Still, it wasn’t yours to take. You should’ve asked.”
Maybe my punishment won’t be so bad, after all. “Fine. Arrest me. At least I’ll get three meals a day.”
I’ve used that line in the past and it usually generates the sympathy I need to keep me out of jail but this guy’s eyes don’t get soft. If anything, they narrow and his mouth grows tight. “I never seen you around here before, where do you live?”
I raise my brows, cross my arms, and lean back in the chair, and tell him the God’s honest truth. “Nowhere.”
Maybe he’s one of those human lie detectors because he changes up the question real fast. ‘Okay. Where’ve you been staying?”
“I want a lawyer.”I hate abandoned cars but they’re better than foster care.
