talked to him?”
“To who?”
“Hank?”
“You’re his brother, right?” Cash glanced down at a notebook haphazardly filled with his familiar handwriting. I wondered how much he knew in addition to what I’d told him on the phone. He was a smart guy. He’d probably already unturned some stones.
Again, Wilder ignored the question. “Have you seen him?”
If Cash found this line of questioning rude, he didn’t let it show. In fact he was being a lot nicer to Wilder than he was to me. “Only briefly. Since the charges against him are more significant, I can’t get you in to see him.” Cash focused on me, the kindness melting off him like ice. “He was overjoyed to find out I was his lawyer, by the way.”
Neither Wilder nor I needed further explanation. If Hank had his way, he would stay in jail for a year if it meant he could wait for a white lawyer. Too bad for him the lawyer I was currently banging didn’t have his preferred skin color.
I half-expected Wilder to apologize on behalf of his brother, something he was likely accustomed to doing. Instead he asked, “Is he okay?”
If Cash had been to see Hank before coming to us, it was no small wonder he wasn’t acting warm and fuzzy towards Wilder or me. He probably assumed Wilder shared his brother’s attitude, and he was mad at me for putting him in this position.
My annoyance over his behavior faded a little. I wouldn’t be at my sweetest if someone were calling me names favored by slave-owning racists over a hundred years ago. I’d heard some of Hank’s favorite derogatory terms. If I’d been on the receiving end of any of them, I would want to leave him here to rot.
Cash forced a small smile and nodded in answer to Wilder’s question. “He seems to be in good shape. I’m not sure how his treatment has been—he looked a bit bruised—but he’s otherwise okay.”
He was in jail and charged with murder, but at least he wasn’t dead. It wasn’t the most ideal outcome, but I felt like we were a step ahead of where we’d been the night before. Hank was alive, and that was a small mercy.
“I don’t think I need to tell you guys how serious this whole thing is. The story hasn’t broken yet, but when the media hears that a werewolf killed a pretty young woman… Especially a werewolf as charming as your brother? It’s not going to look good.”
“That’s the whole point.” I sighed. If we were going to make any kind of progress, Cash would need all the details.
I filled him in on everything that had happened after I left the previous morning. I told him about almost being driven off the road, and the video Timothy Deerling had sent Callum. Any time Wilder felt I’d left something out or hadn’t gotten the details right, he interjected, but otherwise he let me tell the whole story.
It took me close to twenty minutes to cover everything, and throughout my narrative Cash said nothing. He sat back in his chair and shifted his attention from me to Wilder, occasionally taking a moment to write something in his notebook. He managed to fill two or three pages without actually saying a word.
I finished by telling him what I’d said to McGraw, and the little tidbits Josie had let slip to me during our brief chats.
“And how about you?” Cash asked Wilder. “What’s your experience been like since they locked you up?”
“They roughed me up when they first brought me in, but I’m guessing you saw what I did to that one deputy.”
“Anderson, yeah. He’s pretty insistent on pressing charges for that.”
Wilder nodded. He must have been expecting it. I suspected if Anderson said he’d let the whole thing drop for an apology, Wilder would take the criminal record instead.
“You know battery on a police officer is a felony, right? You could go to prison.” When Wilder didn’t reply, Cash continued, “I’ll work on getting the charges dropped, based on the circumstances. We’ll see how amenable they are, but I wouldn’t hold your breath. I think I can argue that they took you by surprise and you were trying to defend yourself and Genie. Maybe if I can shift some blame, they’ll change their tune.”
“The princess can defend herself,” Wilder muttered.
I suppressed a smile. Cash maintained an impassive frown.
“Be that as it may, I’ll take the arguments where I can get them. I think they’re more interested in