“Burke ain’t here. She’s on suspension.” The words came out of him in a burst like they’d been pulled out. “House arrest.”
My jaw dropped. I wanted to ask what had happened to get her into trouble, but from the way his eyes had narrowed, I figured there would be no forthcoming information from him.
I asked anyway.
“None of your damn business,” he said, already on his way out the door.
“Then get me my phone call!” I pushed more magic into my words, and again he jumped, slamming the door behind him.
“Oh, Leather Girl, you lit a fire under his ass. How’d you do that?” The old lady once more sidled up to me, and I looked down at her.
“Do you have a name?”
“Edna,” she said. “Edna White.”
“Seriously,” Fancy Pants stood beside me on the other side. “Who are you talking to? ’Cause acting crazy is not going to get you out of here. Just ask us. We’ve all tried it. Nobody cares if you’re nuts.”
I looked down at Edna, who grinned up at me as Alan appeared in the anteroom, looking paler than usual. “Bree, they’re moving up the trial again. This is impossible! How are they making this happen?”
“The shadow world,” I answered without hesitation, the certainty coming from the middle of my bones. Crash could have handled the regular police without an issue. I was sure of it. Hell, I’d bet that Corb and Eammon could have gotten me out of trouble with the human authorities. But we weren’t dealing with them, were we? “Same way you got everything in the divorce and landed me with our combined debt. The corrupt system never bothered you much when you were a beneficiary of it.”
Alan glared at me. “That was necessary. There are times when the law is wrong and needs to be massaged into place.”
I pointed a finger at him, my handcuffs clinking. “And I’d bet you anything that they—those people in the other room—feel the same way you did. So all your high and mighty ‘this isn’t right’ bullshit is just for show.”
Which was beside the point. Officer Burke was on house arrest, no doubt to keep her from helping me. So this thing went even deeper than I’d first thought. How had they known there was a connection between us?
Talk about getting ducked sideways and upside down.
I looked back at Edna, who had an impressive swat for a dead person, and let out a sigh. “You got any ideas on how to get out of here?”
Fancy Pants ignored me this time, just muttering “Nuts, she’s a fruit loop.”
“You need someone to break you out. Maybe that hotsy-totsy, yummy lawyer of yours? He’s got muscles for days, and I’d put money on him being fae, if I were a betting kind of woman.” Edna sighed. “I did so love me a fae lover once in a while. Very flexy in the sack, all bendy and full of tingly magic in all the right places.”
I started to giggle. I shouldn’t have laughed. I was for all intents and purposes on death row, about to be executed for a crime I hadn’t committed.
The giddiness of the unexpected laughter mixed with adrenaline made me feel like I was full of helium and about to float away. Maybe it would have turned into full-blown meltdown laughter, only the door opened and Officer Cuffs walked in with a cell phone, holding it out to me as though he couldn’t believe what he was doing and didn’t want to acknowledge it.
“Here. You have two minutes.” Officer Cuffs growled, his eyes sweeping over the other women in the cell with me. Fancy Pants cringed back, but Edna and the gal on the floor did not.
I took the phone and dialed the first number I could think of, which was Corb’s. Hopefully he could put his council connections to good use. He picked up on the second ring.
“Who is this?” he growled, obviously not recognizing the number.
“Corb, it’s me. I need you to get Roderick and send him down here. They’re framing me for Alan’s murder. Something hinky is going on, and the council might be able to help. There’s no way the human police are doing this alone. I—”
“They won’t help. I already tried,” he said. “Hold tight. We’re working another angle. They’re not going to win, Bree. Trust me. Okay? Look for Kink, just wait for her.”
And then he hung up on me, which was just as well,