Chapter Four ♥
*
“I didn’t do it,” Leo said.
The room was dimly lit, to Major’s eyes. The light streaming in from the small, barred windows was nothing close to adequate. He could see the toiled that Leo no-doubt had to use from where he stood, which meant that anyone who came through could see it, too. Convenient for guards, but it had to be embarrassing for anyone using it. The empty bunk was at least some consolation. With the wrong cellmate, things could turn ugly fast.
“I know. You don’t have to tell me once.” Major allowed himself a wry smile. “Never mind ten times.”
“Shit. That many?” Major had to remind himself how bad things must be in here. Partly to be able to deal with the trouble that Leo had found himself in, but partly because he had to remind himself that it was normal for someone in his position to be as out of sorts as Leo clearly was.
“I didn’t count the first couple, so I can’t say for sure. But yeah, pretty close.”
“I’m sorry, dude. I’m just… this place is crazy.” He slipped back onto the bottom bunk, which didn’t noticeably deform as he sat on it. Like it was just a metal pallet and a blanket. “It’s getting to me already, and I’ve barely been here two days.”
“We’re going to get this figured out. You’ve got at least two strong witnesses, and a field full of character witnesses to tell the world you wouldn’t do something like this.” He tried to make himself sound more convincing. Doing a good job, though, would have meant feeling less afraid himself, and Major wasn’t ready for that. Everything else in his life seemed to be going tits up, after all. He seemed to be the only one trying to make it all work out. “We all know you didn’t do it. The cops… they’re just covering their asses. We’ll get it all figured out, don’t worry.”
“I know you will. I trust you.” The words stung at Major, because Leo seemed to mean them.
Was he even worthy of that level of trust? The best things he’d managed in the past week were receiving verbal abuse from his ex, and keeping his best friend from getting into a relationship with his sister—a sister who wanted that relationship more than she wanted to breathe. What else could he screw up?
“Did you get your bail hearing yet?”
“Got it first thing this morning.” Leo shrugged, frustrated but resigned. That was a good attitude, Major thought. Jail might be the one place that was true. “Something about Judges not working on weekends.”
“And?”
“I guess I’m a flight risk. Too much money, I guess, and they’re worried that with the severity of the charges…”
Major’s eyebrows furrowed. That made no sense. Leo had never been more than fifty miles from his house. The notion that he was about to hop in his private jet to escape the charges was laughable. And yet… here they both were. He took a breath and stifled the flames of anger.
“That’s horseshit. Do you know who I can talk to?”
What he was going to do, Major didn’t know. He didn’t have the best record with the police. But he had to do what he could, at least. There had to be some way to get justice done. There had to be.
“No, I don’t know anything about this shit. I’m doing fine.” He let out another sigh, his shoulders slumping. His face looked drawn, from stress and likely from not eating well. Major felt for him. “I’m just complaining. We’ll get this taken care of soon.”
“Keep your chin up. You seem like you’re keeping a real level head about all this.”
“The public guy might not have been able to get me bail, but he seems like he knows what he’s talking about.”
Major’s jaw tightened. The public guy? There was no way that Leo couldn’t afford a lawyer. Trying to envision a scenario where Leo decided that the public defender’s office was the best option was impossible. He kept his questions to himself. “That pisses me off.”
“Yeah, well… nothing we can do about it now. Preliminary hearing is in a couple weeks, and then we see what happens next.” He hung his head and looked at the floor, the difficulty of going on with everything becoming too much to bear. “Right now I’m just trying to let the time pass, and not think too hard about it.”
Major’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He had an hour before work. If he wanted to get lunch and a shower in, he’d have to start now.
“Look, Leo—”
“If you have to go, you have to go. Have a good day, bro.” He smiled up at Major, weakly. “I’ll be here when you get some time, and want to spend it in a concrete box.”
“We’re all here for you, okay? You’re going to get through this.” Major let out a sigh and stepped back. His hands balled up in fists. This was a load of shit.
There was no evidence that Leo had done anything wrong, and there was plenty of evidence that he hadn’t. But he was being denied bail? Because, what, the public defender’s office couldn’t find its own ass with two hands and a flashlight?
But why was he with the public defender in the first place? And even still, why were they having so much trouble? The questions just kept compounding onto themselves, and the longer that Major looked, the more disgusted with the whole thing he got.
“I know.”
Major walked towards the door. Past a handful of other cells, there was a security checkpoint, where a dour-looking woman with a thousand-yard stare had ignored his attempts at polite conversation on the way in. He was almost there when the drunk in cell 2 slid off his cot, and revealed himself to be a her. One who was more familiar than Major would have expected.
“What are you doing here?”
Her voice was annoyed, like she thought he had come to the jail just to spite her. As if there was any way for him to have known that she was arrested in the first place.
“I’m here seeing Leo,” Major answered tersely.
Daphne nodded as if suddenly remembering. “You bailing him out?”
“No bail,” Major answered. He wasn’t going to refuse to answer, but he wasn’t going to waste his time on it. “Don’t understand why.”
“Judge must have a bug up his ass,” she said. The more she talked, the less she seemed like she was trying to jump down Major’s throat, and the less she seemed like she was trying to jump down his throat, the less that it bothered him to talk to her like a human being. The things she’d said to him yesterday… she was drunk.
“I guess so. You just trying to see what it’s like on the other side of the law?”
“I’m… eh, I’m afraid not. I got picked up last night after you left.” She slumped down, and her shoulders sagged. “Hey, I’m… well, I’m sorry.”
“You were drunk,” Major answered. It was the excuse he’d given himself; it would be a fine excuse to give her, too.
“I was being a bitch, drunk or sober, and I didn’t mean it.” She had a pleading look in her eyes, like she needed him to understand.
“Yeah, well, I’ve got to get going,” Major said. He still had time to catch lunch and a shower if he hurried.
“Wait. You in a hurry?”
He pinched his lips together. Maybe no shower. Maybe a quick lunch. “I don’t have to be, why?”
“I need someone to go get me bonded out of here.” She had a look on her face like he was supposed to do something about it.
“You’re joking,” Major said.
“Not even a little bit. Just run across the street. I’m good for it.” From the way that Daphne looked at him, it was like she thought it wasn’t even much of a favor. Like, oh, can you get me a cup of sugar?
“You can make bail, no problem, but Leo can’t?” It just made him angry, and not at her, but she was standing right there in front of him. What were they doing in that courthouse, that Leo Wolff of all people was considered such a flight risk that they didn’t dare let him out until trial?
“I’m a bail officer in good standing. I can’t exactly go on the run and keep my life together, can I?”
Major grit his teeth together. She wasn’t wrong, as much as it might have made him angry to see the disparity between her and Leo. “I’ll be back, then.”
“You’re a dear.”
The officer, Officer Collins, still had the same dour expression she’d worn all morning when she waddled over to Daphne’s cell door.
“Seems like you’re in luck,” the Officer said sullenly.
“Yeah?” Daphne sat up on her bunk, but made no move to get off it.
“Someone paid your bail.” The Officer, eyeing her, ran her keycard through the electric lock. The door popped open an inch. Daphne stood slowly, careful to keep her hands in view.
“Perfect. That’s what I sent him off for.”
“He’s waiting in the lobby. You know who it is?” The first sign of light showed on Officer Collins’s face as she spoke. Daphne had to hide her amusement. So Major was her type, huh? Well, that didn’t say much; he was everyone’s type.
“Sure I do. Talked to him twenty minutes ago.”
“You’ve got a good boyfriend, then.”
Daphne didn’t bother to correct her. Maybe she didn’t need to, if she played her cards right. She was planning on folding the hand, though, so the possibility was hardly even considered remote. “Yeah, I guess I do.”
“You know where to go to get your stuff back?”
“I know how to read a sign,” Daphne answered. Usually, there would be one, if you knew where to look. “Is that going to get me there?”
“You shouldn’t have too much trouble, if you’re used to police stations.”
“More used to drop-off than I am to leaving them, but I can figure my way.”
“Keep your nose clean, girl,” Officer Collins said, the first sign of any sense of camaraderie between them that the heavyset woman had shown.
“Will do,” Daphne answered back, and went on her way. There was still a long day ahead of her, but the long day behind her had at least shaken a little bit of sense into her.
She went through a set of double doors, down a long hallway that she could dimly remember having been down before through a haze of drunkenness and anger. Major leaned against a wall on the other side of another pair of double doors, looking less put-out than she would have guessed.
“You don’t look the least bit surprised,” were the first words he said to her.
“You said you were going to bail me out; you did. Should I be?”
“I’d think that with all your experience with criminals and dead-beats, you’d know that people lie all the time,” Major said. He still had that smug look on his face. Like he was about to catch her big time in his ‘trap.’
“Sure. People lie all the time. Practically every word, some of them. But some people are honest, and Major, you’ve got a lot of faults, but I never knew you as a man who broke his word. You said you’d come through, and you came through. Just like I knew that you would.”
She meant it more than he could have known. There were a lot of people in her life that she’d relied on, as a leap of faith. Not knowing whether or not they’d be there when she jumped, and more often than not, those leaps had been a mistake. It wasn’t a leap of faith with Major; it was a blind leap across a gap she’d always been able to make.
“Well, you owe me,” he said. He was as pleased with himself as Daphne had ever seen him, watching the trap spring closed.
“Strictly speaking, I owe the bail bondsman,” she corrected.
“Don’t be a smart-ass. And you owe me, too. A favor, and if we measure by how much you ought to appreciate my help, you owe me a big one.”
That was the hook. Knowing Major, she could just refuse, if she had to. Instead she cocked an eyebrow, leaned in, and spoke softly enough that nobody else would hear.
“Are you trying to blackmail me?”
“Yeah,” Major said back, his voice low and threatening and more than a little bit hot. “I’m blackmailing you.”
“Fine. I know how that game works. What do you want?” The first thought that popped into her head was the one she worried about the most, and yet, the one she minded the least. “Trying to get me into bed again? You’ve sunk lower than I thought.”
Major puffed out his chest, and looked up. “Oh, you owe me a much bigger favor than that,” he said, intentionally avoiding meeting her eyes. Didn’t he know that he was ruining her with this suspense? Or was that why he was doing it?
“Is that right?” Two could play at that game, she decided. She could wait.
“Dinner. You owe me—no, you owe the whole gang—dinner.”
He finally met her gaze, his eyes fixing her with their intense, burning expression. She thought she saw longing in them, but then, maybe she only saw herself reflected in them. She wanted to refuse. It would have been easier if he’d wanted her to sleep with him. Some part of her had hoped that was what he wanted.
But she let out a breath. She did owe him, after all, and it was buyers’ choice. “You know how to push, I’ll give you that.”