was not a situation I wanted to provoke. Hell, being at a police station in the first place was like voluntarily giving myself dental surgery—Checker better be grateful.
There did exist a person whose yelling was supposed to work, though. I texted Pilar for Elisa’s number.
When I called Elisa, it hit voicemail. But Pilar’s message had been a name card including her surname as well as her number, which gave me a different idea.
I marched into the police station, trying to ignore the cameras while at the same time keep nervous eyes in all directions. “I’m looking for Elisa Carpintero,” I said to the uniform behind the desk near the entrance. “She’s my lawyer.”
The uniform tried to be as unhelpful as possible, but I finally got her to pass on a message and sent Tabitha’s name as my own. Even after acquiescing, she shot me a poisonous look and said something about “no funny business, today of all days.”
Come to think of it, a lot of the cops around here seemed jumpy, their eyes flicking over their shoulders and their hands to their holsters, even inside the station. Was that all because of my little harmless bomb?
Whoops.
I sat down to wait on one of the benches against the wall and covered my own hooded watchfulness by fiddling with my phone. I was still using one of the stolen ones from the night before; I hadn’t been coherent enough to exchange it for a burner from the apartment where I’d left Simon. Simon and … a vague itch made me check the messages from Pilar again.
Oscar. Right. Fuck. The guy who had tried to blow up my office, and was now in the wind.
“You must be Cas Russell.”
I whipped to my feet, probably too combatively for a police station, but managed to stop there. A young, heavyset Hispanic woman with an aggressive posture had come around the corner. She folded her arms and stared down at me in a way that reminded me eerily of Diego. Like father, like daughter, apparently.
“Elisa, I’m guessing,” I said. “Where’s Checker?”
“Still in holding. Do you have anything new?”
I didn’t waste time. “I think someone might be after him. Possibly more than one someone.” Both his old friend and mine. “You need to get him out of here. Detectives have already been in interviewing Arthur—can you expedite this?”
She nodded, but a frown appeared between her eyes. “I’ve gathered that’s a concern. But if he’s in danger, he might be safer in custody for the moment.”
“No. He isn’t. Trust me.” Mostly because I’d have no guarantee of getting in there to protect him. “Get him out.”
“Noted. I’ll go continue making them all hate me, then. Squeaky wheels.” And with no more pleasantries, she strode off the way she had come.
I decided I liked Elisa. I took a steadying breath and forced myself to sit back down.
The bright sunlight outside the glass front doors winked through the shadows of people flickering back and forth. Every one of them felt like a threat. It was all I could do not to keep a hand on the grip of my Colt.
Christ, I was tired. Or the cops’ jumpiness was rubbing off on me.
But my appreciation for Elisa was tripled when she and Checker came out together half an hour later, with no handcuffs this time.
I shot up off the bench. Checker looked awful. He clearly hadn’t slept much either—deep shadows gouged themselves under his eyes, and his hair stuck up in all directions. But he had a little bit of a smile and energy to his movements, and I surmised Elisa had told him about Arthur being found alive and not permanently harmed.
Finally, something that had gone right.
“Hey,” he said to me, but led the way out into the sunlight before further conversation. I couldn’t blame him.
I did make sure to step a little way in front of him as we got outside, though. Just to be safe.
“Are you two going to join them at the hospital?” Elisa asked.
“Yeah,” Checker answered for both of us without checking. “Lise, are you sure…?”
“I’ll see you,” Elisa answered smoothly, with a friendly prod to his shoulder. “Keep out of jail this time, sport. It was nice to meet you, Ms. Russell,” she added to me, before heading out into the parking lot to her car.
I realized too late that I probably should have told her to ride with us. I was reacting to everything too slow. At least she was the much lower profile