“Sir,” the older cop called out to my father, “I don’t know what in God’s green earth is going on here, but we got a call from the Haven Beach sheriff that something might be amiss.”
Haven Beach... I glanced at the other Wags. Jazmine’s father was good friends with the sheriff. Was this his doing? Jaz nodded once, and it made me feel a little better. Certainly wouldn’t stop them from siding with my father. But maybe there was some hope.
“So what am I looking at here? Do we have a domestic in progress?” the older officer asked. “Or is this a break-in? Someone start talking and enlighten me.”
Past the gate, my father’s eyes snapped to mine, and they weren’t filled with concern. They were furious. And that fury came with a sharp warning:Keep your mouth shut.
If he wanted any hope of that, he shouldn’t have called my nana a bitch.
“That man with the dog is Mr. Lee. He’s the homeowner. I came here to ask him to sign some paperwork for my college—”
“She goes to Harvard,” Seb interjected, as if that gave my testimony more gravitas. Maybe it did. I’d take any advantage I could against my father.
“Which he did, and then he locked me in a room for hours against my will and stole my phone so I couldn’t call for help,” I told the officers, praying they weren’t in my father’s back pocket.
Praying they weren’t as incompetent as the cops in my town.
“O-kay, uh-huh...” the cop mumbled slowly, eyeing my wet clothes. When my father tried to speak up, he said. “Wait your turn, sir. Go on, young lady...”
“My friends had to drive all the way from Haven Beach to come rescue me.” I gestured toward the Wags. “My boyfriend destroyed the door to the room I was locked inside in order to get me free.”
Seb looked like the cat who’d eaten the canary. “Boyfriend,” he murmured.
Well? What else was I going to call him? It was nearly impossible not to return his pleased-as-punch smile, but I forced myself to shake it off and focus. “Oh, and Mr. Lee sicced his dogs on us, too.”
“Officer,” my father called out from the other side of the fence. “The only thing right about her statement is destruction of property. That blond hoodlum destroyed one of my doors.Andhe threatened me with a gun. Look!” He held up Seb’s sawed-off shotgun, surprising all of us. I suppose he’d found it up in the bedroom. “When someone points something like this at me, I’m well within my rights to stand my ground.”
The younger officer still had his gun out. “All right, sounds like we’ve got issues. Hands up, all of you.”
We all complied. Some of us more slowly than others, namely Paul.
The cop’s older partner kept one hand on his holster and gestured toward my father. “Let’s put that sawed-off on the ground, sir. Yep, right there. Put it down and step away. Get that dog put up, too, while you’re at it.”
As Ester gripped the chain of the Doberman, urging it away from the front gate, my father tossed the sawed-off onto the driveway. The officer moved it farther away with his foot, instructing my father to back up, and he started to radio something into thespeaker that was strapped to the shoulder of his uniform until Seb spoke.
“That’s a prop gun, Officer.”
The man cocked a brow at him in disbelief. “Pardon?”
“That’s mine, but it’s a prop. Replica. Came from a museum. Doesn’t shoot.”
The officer picked up the sawed-off and immediately chuckled, weighing it in his hand. “Almost fooled me. Feels like a kids’ toy.” He checked the gun, making sure it didn’t have ammo, then squinted at Seb. “Any real weapons on you?”
“Just my good looks,” Seb said, smiling.
The officer shook his head. “Let’s pat them all down. Everyone sit your asses on the lawn, and we’re going to figure out what’s happened here today.”
“What’s happened here today is that these kids broke into my house and destroyed my property,” my father said, looking aggrieved. “I want to press charges against all of them. Those two are with me, my friend’s kid.” He pointed toward Paul and Lulu. “They’re innocent. It’s these four you need to arrest.”
Jesus. That wasn’t going to work, was it? Part of me was terrified it would. His word against ours.
“Sir,” Benny said to the older police officer. “You might want to check his security footage. I didn’t get a chance to look it over too well, but you can access it right here...”
Benny held up his phone slowly, and offered to show the officer.
“How’ve you got his cameras on your phone?” the man asked.
“His security system isn’t secure. Any phone using the Wi-Fi can access his home security system through the app, and his Wi-Fi doesn’t have a password,” Benny said casually, unlockinghis screen. “Here you go. See, he’s got cameras inside and out, a good dozen or more of them, so it shouldn’t be too hard to prove that he locked her in the room. You can access the controls to that footage there and rewind it.”
