“Who are you, and why are you touching my sister?” Dotty demanded, ignoring Addie.
Addie swallowed, trying to wet her dry throat.
“These guys helped me,” she said quietly.
Dotty’s eyes widened. Addie wasn’t sure if it was because she was speaking out loud in front of other people or if she couldn’t imagine these guys helping her.
It might have been a bit of both.
“Helping you? How have they been helping you? How did you even meet them? Where did you go?” Dotty grasped hold of her chin. “And who the fuck hit you?”
She shook her head. And before she could try to answer, they heard another voice coming toward them.
“I really like your hairstyle. It suits you. And your uniform makes your chin look firmer.”
That was Monroe’s voice.
Relief filled Addie. Only she would try to tell a cop that his uniform made his chin look firmer.
“So, hey, I was just wondering, do you know where my sister is? She’s tall, has strawberry-blonde hair. Rather scary sometimes.”
Monroe and a police officer came into sight. The officer was staring down at Monroe with a look of wonder on his face. He seemed to be hanging off her every word.
That wasn’t unusual.
Monroe was so beautiful that she tended to dazzle everyone around her, men and women.
Monroe glanced around and finally saw them. “Oh my God, there she is! Wait, wait, Addie. Oh, shit. Oh, yes. Thank God.”
Monroe skipped her way over to them, enveloping Addie in an embrace. “Oh man, I’m so glad you’re all right, babes. I’ve been so worried about you. Dotty lost it outside that bar when we got kicked out and couldn’t find you. Then the cops wouldn’t let us go back in. When Dotty tried to shove past, I knew she was going to get arrested. And I had to back her up because that’s what sisters do, right?”
Monroe glanced around at them all with a wide smile, not seeming concerned that Addie was surrounded by three rough-looking, tattooed men.
“Then we both got arrested and ended up having to stay here for the rest of the night, which was just a few hours by the time everything wrapped up. We’re not still under arrest, though, right?”
“Of course we’re not,” Dotty said. “We did nothing wrong. The police wouldn’t listen to us, and they were trying to impede my investigation. I will be making a complaint about all of this.”
Investigation?
“You weren’t on an investigation,” the man in the tailored suit said. “You were creating problems and being a nuisance, and you’re lucky that you aren’t being charged.”
“Lucky? I had to spend the night in a jail cell,” Dotty said. “I don’t consider that lucky.”
“It was a holding cell, and you had it to yourself.”
“I would rather have been with my sister,” Dotty said.
“Well, we can still make that a possibility,” the man in the suit said. “Because I’m about this close to arresting you again.”
“On what grounds, Noah?” Dotty asked.
Noah?
“That’s Police Chief Wilbur to you,” he said. “I suggest you leave before I count to ten. Otherwise, I’m going to forget that I’m a patient man.”
Dotty opened her mouth, and both Addie and Monroe grabbed her by an arm and started to drag her backward. Dotty was taller than them both and outweighed them by a bit, but with the two of them working together, they managed to make her move.
“I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again, Police Chief Wilbur,” Dotty called out.
