“Trevor! I…”
“Not a word, Dani. Not one word. How could you?”
“Get a move on,” one of the officers says to Trevor and prods him in the back.
“I didn’t—“
Trevor cuts me off, his voice hoarse, and anguish written all over his face. “I don’t want to hear it.” And then he’s gone, and I’m being guided into the bedroom that smells of us. The lump in my throat feels like it’s the size of a baseball, and the rest of me is numb as I direct the officers to my backpack. At least I put on panties after the last time we made love, so they don’t have to dig too deep to find my pants and shoes.
While I dress, they read me my rights, and when I’m cuffed again and we’re on our way to the elevator, I look from one cop to the other.
“I want a lawyer.”
Chapter Sixteen
Trevor
It’scold in the back of the squad car, and despite the cops’generosityin letting me get dressed, I don’t have socks or a jacket to keep me warm.
Or Dani, apparently. Knowing she published the story after I asked her not to crushes the hope that I’d finally found someone who would stick. Who’d stand by me no matter what.
The same sinking feeling I got every time a caseworker came to move me to another foster home chokes me, and it’s hard to keep breathing.
It was always going to happen. You’re not someone’s forever.
If I could drive a blade through my inner voice’s throat, I would. Too bad the asshole’s all in my head.
The cops don’t bother to hide their disdain for me, and they’re gossiping about the story in the Washington Post.
“This guy pissed off someone big down there in Venezuela,” the driver, Paverelli, says as he glances back at me in the rearview mirror. “Didn’t take more than an hour after the story broke for the warrants to come down.”
His partner, a younger kid named Doyle, pulls out his phone and taps the screen a few times. I sit up a little straighter, but I don’t have to. He starts reading out loud.
“The interview with Luis Rojas was cut short when he started talking about his family,” Doyle says. “Then there’s an editor’s note at the end of the article. ‘Two members of the national police attacked the Post’s reporter in her hotel room. She only escaped after a heroic effort by her bodyguard, a former intelligence officer with knowledge of the local area.’” Doyle tosses a gaze over his shoulder. “That’d be you, igit.”
The Boston slang for idiot ratchets my anger up another half a dozen notches, and I clench my jaw hard enough my molars start to ache. Venezuela is one of a handful of countries allowed to extradite suspects in capital crimes from the United States. I’m fucked if I can’t get in touch with Dax or Pritchard.
Dani might be okay. She’s only a “person of interest.”
Why do you care?
This time, I imagine kicking my inner voice in the balls. I can’t stop loving her no matter how angry I might be. Worry twists in my gut. She couldn’t have known how bad it would be. For either of us. But how could she put her career ahead of whatever we were building together?
I stare out the steel mesh-covered window at the early morning traffic. This city is my home. It’s where I found a family again. Where I made love to Dani for the first time and invitedherinto my family as well.
If I don’t play this exactly right, I’ll be on a plane by nightfall, and my family? Everyone at Second Sight? Dani? They’ll never see me again.
* * *
Two hours later,I’ve been strip searched, photographed, fingerprinted, and processed. The dark red jumpsuit marks me as an extremely dangerous offender, and I sit in a solitary holding cell in leg irons with my hands cuffed in front of me and attached to a chain around my waist.
Fuckers even decided they had to secure a cover to the handcuff locks. I have no idea why since the cavity search guaranteed I don’t have anything on my person I could use to pick the damn things.
Every time someone speaks to me, I demand my phone call. But so far, all my requests have been denied. I’m not surprised. If Farías has friends—or worse, spies—in the United States government, I’ll be on a rendition flight before dinnertime.
A uniformed guard passes by the small cell, and I push to my feet. “Hey. I still haven’t gotten my phone call.”
He stops, arches a brow, and snorts. “The van to take you to the airport is already on its way. I don’t know who you killed, Moana, but they have some powerful friends. There’s no phone call for you.”
