have said sure, they might have reason to get rid of me. But not the regular police.
“There would still be a trial,” I mumbled, my mouth more than a little numb as I struggled to process what Alan was saying.
He kept talking, his words beating back the buzzing in my head, but not much. Planted evidence. Pay offs. Rush trial. Ridiculous bail. No way out.
I pressed my head against the cool bars and fought the despair that wanted to drown me, the undertow of giving up wrapping around my legs and tugging hard. A deep breath, then another and another, until the rest of the white noise slid away and I could look up without my vision sparkling and going black at the edges.
“Then I’m going to need a lawyer. One that isn’t dead,” I managed to say. “They have to give me that much.”
Like I’d wished on a star and the universe was providing instant fulfillment, a police officer stepped into the anteroom of the cells, clipboard in hand. Irritation flickered over his face, and a dusting of white powder on the corner of his mouth told me that I’d interrupted his coffee break and donuts. “O’Rylee, Breena. You have a visitor. Says he’s your lawyer?”
I pulled myself to my feet until I was standing once more, if not steady, at least upright. I had called no one, so Corb and the others must have pulled this gem out of the bag for me. A lawyer was good, and whoever it was would be able to slow down this train. Maybe they could get a stay of execution. Literally.
That’s what I thought, anyway, until he stepped into the room.
My eyes locked on him, and I was sure I was seeing things.
“Ohhh, the silver fox,” the old woman with the fluffy white hair said. “I was hoping he’d come my way.” She tittered and I stared at the man I’d thought had left me high and dry. The guy who could have been my rock to cling to in stormy seas. And instead . . .well, he’d become a rock I stubbed my toe on.
Crash stood in the doorway dressed in dark jeans, a button-down white shirt, and a black tie, and damn him, if he didn’t look just as good as when he was wrapped in nothing but a towel. No, that wasn’t true, I liked the towel look a lot. Even if I was pissed with him, the fluffy-haired old gal was right.
Crash was downright delicious, no matter how you sliced it.
Blue eyes flecked with gold stared back at me, and he lifted one eyebrow. “How am I not surprised to find you in hot water just hours after you were in the frying pan?”
2
The police officer came toward the cell with handcuffs hanging from the finger of one hand and the key held in the other, his knuckles white. He jammed the key in and cranked it hard enough that I thought for a second he might break it, and my next thought was that it would really suck to be stuck in here with the women I’d met and the smear of poo everywhere. I felt bad for them, but I didn’t want to stay with them.
As soon as the door was open, he tossed the handcuffs to me, aiming them straight down so I didn’t have a hope of catching them. They clattered across the floor to rest at my feet against the toe of my boots. Someone had definitely pissed in his cereal that morning.
“Put them on,” he snapped.
“That’s rather unprofessional,” I said as I bent and picked up the cuffs, carefully putting them on one at a time, not tightening them too much. I knew better than to argue, seeing as the officer was obviously spoiling for a fight. This was not the time for me to put up a big stink. Maybe Crash would have a way out of here for me, a magic spell, or a legal loophole that I didn’t know about. I was afraid to hope, but it had to be a good sign that he was here.
Or maybe he’d just showed up to apologize for the way he’d left things after I helped him kill Derek, the goblin king. Or for kicking me out of my gran’s house with nothing but a note.
A note. Like he was a teenager who’d rather send a breakup text than look me in the eye when he said goodbye.