“Yes,” I said, taking it and after a few clumsy attempts to unlock it, I pulled up a name and dialed. “Please, please?—”
“Cayden?” came my mother’s sleepy voice, thick with concern. “It’s early, honey, is somethin’ wrong?”
“Yes,” I barked, my voice cracking from the combination of everything that had just happened and hearing my mother’ssweet voice so heavy with concern. “Mama, I need help. Walker needs our help.”
“You tell me right now,” she said, her voice clearing quickly.
“I got an idea, Mama, but we’re gonna need help,” I said, no longer caring that the other two men were there to hear my voice shake, or the desperation in it.
“Tell me what I need to do,” she said. “Talk.”
So I did, and after telling her my idea, I felt that maybe, just maybe, there was a chance.
WALKER
I flinchedwhen the darkness was obliterated by a sudden blast of light that made my eyes water in desperation and pain. “Jesus, how many times are you guys going to pull this trick? You know it doesn’t work, right?”
The door to the room swung open and, for the third day in a row, Agent Smith entered and sat down across from me. “Sorry, our lighting hasn’t been updated in years. They can take a minute to turn on.”
“Right, and I’m sure having the brightest bulb possible without it counting as a spotlight is completely necessary,” I said dryly as I shifted in the hard metal chair that was probably just a coincidence. Kind of like how when I was in my cell, they had me positioned where I was nearest the loudest generator in existence, and a cell neighbor who was prone to randomly screaming. It wasn’t quite torture, and their deniability would be plausible when their lawyers came forward, but I wasn’t an idiot. “Honestly, I have to admire how stubborn you’re being. We’re on day three, and every time you demand answers, I sit here and stare at you. Sometimes I say something funny that you refuse to acknowledge, and I remind you I’m supposed to have a lawyer present. You keep trying, and we go around and aroundfor hours before you get fed up and leave. Hmm, do you have a crush on me?”
His nostrils flared. “You could save everyone a great deal of trouble if you answered the questions.”
“Ah ah, correction, I would saveyoua great deal of trouble. Which is the first problem, because I have no desire to answer the questions of a self-important jackass who still gets confused by the arm and head holes in his shirts in the morning,” I told him. “The other problem is that I know answering your questions without a lawyer is a real good way to find myself in trouble. Well, in more trouble than I apparently already am.”
“I’ve tried to tell you, if you can clear this up, you wouldn’t have to sit around,” he said, once again avoiding all mention of my demand for a lawyer. I wasn’t really surprised. I knew the tactic well. As a matter of fact, one of my published missives had been on how important it was not to fall for law enforcement tactics. Technically, I was violating my own advice by saying anything to the agent, since my advice was to hunker down, refuse to talk save for repeated demands for legal right to representation. I had explained that there was always a chance a request could be ‘delayed’, usually through ‘miscommunication’ or ‘lost messages’. I was sure my request would be delayed a few days more, which was fine by me, I was stuck here either way so I might as well enjoy tweaking the idiot in a suit across from me, because he was clearly stuck with me as much as I was stuck with him.
“No, you want me to give you a reason to come after me even more,” I said with a raised brow. “So you can get home to your…well, there’s no ring on your finger, so you’re not married, big shock there. Which means your personality really is that bad, Agent Smith, because on looks alone, you’re actually kind of cute. No one’s going to beat down doors to get into your bed, but if I woke up to you after a fun night, I wouldn’t throw you out.”
He stared at me, and I could practically feel his desire to shoot me. Probably not in the head because that wouldn’t get him what he wanted, but the leg might motivate me to stop being a pain in his ass. Except that wouldn’t work out all that great. Even if he got away with it, I wasn’t afraid of being shot. I’d gone through it before, after all. It was like their plausibly deniable way of denying me sleep wasn’t really a hassle. I hadn’t been getting proper sleep for years; I was fortified against suffering sleep deprivation.
“Let’s go over the evidence, shall we?” he asked instead in that stiff voice that sounded like he was going to crack at any moment.
I held up my wrists, bound by cuffs which were in turn cuffed to a ring on the table. “Aww, but agent, how am I supposed to do that with these pretty bracelets you brought in for me? Maybe if you uncuffed me?—”
“Not happening,” he snapped, and when he hesitated, I smirked, because yes, Agent Smith, I saw you don’t have control of the conversation, and that I’m getting under your skin.
“Then I guess you’ll have to read it for me again,” I said with a heavy sigh. “You should stop by my cell and do that, by the way. A bit of bedtime reading.”
“This is a joke to you, still?”
“This? No. You? Absolutely.”
I thought he was about to take a swing at me when the door swung open again and another agent walked in. “We’re going to cut this off.”
“On whose orders?” Smith demanded, looking up in outrage.
“That would be mine,” another man said, appearing in the doorway, dressed in a suit that probably cost a fortune.
“His lawyer,” the second agent said, and I could see how much that information hurt Smith right in his black, shriveled soul.
“Did you check…” Smith began.
“Yes, top to bottom,” the other agent said in a tired voice. “He’s cleared, and he’s not taking no for an answer.”
They exchanged a look while my lawyer, who most definitely looked way too expensive to be a public defender, listened in comfortable silence. He was clearly willing to let the two agents go through their conversation while he said very little. If anything, his silence seemed to unnerve Smith even further, who slammed the file in front of him shut and stood up.
“Cuffs, please,” my lawyer said, tilting his head.
