“Attack me?” William couldn’t believe it. On his phone’s calendar he found the date. Then he went back to his monitor screen and plugged in that date and time and reviewed the footage. He did a fast-forward to the point when he, Sloane and Bobby stepped off of the elevator to head out the back way. Andthat was when he moved to a different monitor where he saw a young lady, just barely in the frame, calling his name. It was obvious he didn’t hear her, that was why he kept walking. But he remembered hearing that commotion.
He went to another camera angle. And that was when he got a full view of the young lady. And there was no doubt it was her. His heart dropped.
Then he saw Sloane drop her pen and look at Joynetta after she stopped to pick it up. Then Sloane left the frame. But Joynetta was completely visible. That was when he saw one of Max’s security guards slam her to the floor so hard that William winced just looking at it, and then the guard put his knee on her back as a cop handcuffed her. His heart dropped to his stomach.
“Where is she now?” William asked urgently. “Has she been released?”
“I have no idea,” Sloane asked and Bobby shook his head too. Neither one of them understood why he would care.
William looked anxiously at Max. But even Max had no idea either. “If it’s not a major situation,” he said, “it won’t cross my desk.”
William was beside himself as he quickly got his chief counsel for all of Skeffington’s affairs on the phone. “I need you to contact the DA and find out what happened to Joynetta Johnson’s case.”
Everybody in the car was surprised that William would know her name.
“Get on it immediately,” William said over the phone. “Not tomorrow. Tonight. I expect a call back within the next ten minutes.”
“Yes sir,” his attorney said over the phone, and William ended the call.
“You know her, sir?” Max asked him.
But William wasn’t trying to answer anybody’s questions. He had too many of his own.
“Pull up the day in question,” Wiliam said to Max. “Fire every asshole that touched Joynetta Johnson that day.”
Max was floored, but he kept his composure. “Yes, sir,” he said.Who is this girl? he wanted to say.
“And then contact that police department. Tell the commissioner to fire that cop that arrested her. He took a bribe from one of your guys.”
Max turned around. “He did?”
“It’s on camera,” William said. “You got a problem with that?”
All of them had problems with the entire situation. Specifically, they all wanted to know who was this girl. But nobody dared to ask.
“I have no problem with it whatsoever, sir,” Max said, and quickly turned back around.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Joy was in the dayroom at the pretrial detention center with a large group of other female arrestees. Most of them were prostitutes or other petty criminals, but some were very violent criminals too. She and the group she hung with, mainly the prostitutes, kept away from the violent bunch as they all waited together for their day in court.
Although many of her “friends” insisted they were all like family now, Joy would never go that far. She wanted nothing to do with that life. She had no business being there. She didn’t want to be there. And she wasn’t about to normalize something so wrong.
But she was their ringleader whether she wanted to be or not. They all clung to her. They all wanted to be around her. Her happiness became contagious and they loved her energy. Some even fell in love with her!
“You don’t belong here,” many of them kept saying to her. And their faith in her, despite the fact that the justice system didn’t believe a word she said, kept her going.
Although it was a shock to Joy, it was no surprise to any of her cellmates, when her name was called long before her trial date.
“Joynetta Johnson?”
When she heard her name, she quickly stood up. “Sir?”
“Let’s go,” the jailer said.
Joy wanted to ask go where, but she learned long ago to never question the authorities.
“What about me?” the other inmates were jokingly asking. “I wanna go too!” And they all laughed. But Joy couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
