"I can't use this.”
"Why not?”
"I don't have a warrant. I have no probable cause to tap either of their phones. I can't prove that Shane was with Mason when they attacked us.”
"I'm telling you that Mason and Shane work for Chad.”
"Hearsay. I need something to corroborate that.”
“How are you getting access to the call if you don’t have a warrant?”
She may have had an impulse control problem, but she was no dummy.
“That’s not important.”
"This totally sucks," she said.
I couldn’t disagree.
"So, what now?”
45
“You’re not serious, are you?” Nova said, annoyed by the situation.
“You tried to kill me, remember?” I said.
“I didn’t try to kill you.”
She said it with a straight face.
"Did you forget about the entire incident in the parking lot?"
"I wasn't really going to pull the trigger.”
I gave her a flat look.
"I don't know what I was going to do. I was emotional, and I overreacted, and I'm sorry.”
She looked at me with sad, adorable eyes, but I wasn't falling for that trick.
I'd handcuffed her to a rail on the bulkhead in a guest stateroom with extended cuffs. I put a few bottles of water on the nightstand by the bed. She had some room to move around.
"This is cruel and inhumane punishment.”
I laughed. "I'm more than happy to put you into the county lockup if you prefer. There's no telling what could happen in there, so we’d have to put you in solitary. You’d be in a 6x8 cell and have about the same amount of room to move around in. But I can tell you, it wouldn’t be nearly as nice, and you wouldn't have your own TV.”
She frowned at me but knew I was right. "I guess I can suffer through this for a little bit.”
"Are you hungry now? Do you need to use the restroom?”
Nova hesitated for a moment. "Yes, and yes."
I uncuffed her from the bulkhead.
She hurried into the restroom and took care of her business. There was no way she could escape, and even if she did, she wouldn’t be doing herself any favors. Helping us out was the best chance she had at breathing free air. Otherwise, she was looking at a stretch I didn't think she had the stomach to handle.
She returned a moment later, and I cuffed her back to the bulkhead.
