No public acknowledgement.
I walk around the administrator’s desk and barge into the police chief’s office. He’s on the phone and his feet are propped up on the corner of his desk.
As soon as he sees me, he ends the call and sits up.
“Mr. Reed, what can I do for you?”
“For starters, I’d like to know why Savannah Whitlock was arrested in the middle of her class this morning.”
He scrunches his face together as if he’s actually clueless. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Are you seriously saying you don’t even know what your officers are doing under your watch? Do you even know they bribed her to spy on Arturo and the team, and when she said no, they started harassing her?”
His eyes widen slightly as he types a few keys on his keyboard. “She hasn’t been booked into the system yet. Are you sure she’s here?”
“I have it on good authority that she was arrested by your officers. Where else would they take her?”
“How long ago did this happen? Maybe they haven’t pulled in yet.”
“I got the phone call about ten minutes ago. SCAD isn’t a ten-minute drive away from here. If they didn’t bring her here, then where would they take her?”
“Are you insinuating they kidnapped her?”
“No, but if she isn’t here, then that’s the only explanation.”
Neither one of us speaks as he presses several keys on his keyboard. He lets out another sigh before pressing another set of keys.
“Arturo would not be happy to see how you’ve let the police force go. Between the harassment with the younger officers to the Emerald City Reapers running amok, your time is almost up if you don’t stop it.”
“I’m trying. It’s just hard when the entire new class is against our old school ways.”
“Well, you better fix it before I go to the higher ups with this. Or worse, the local news station. They would love to run a story on Officer Carter harassing a college student to spy on local businesses.”
“He’ll be on administrative leave for a month. I’ll have another talk with him after he returns about how things run around here, and if he isn’t on board, then he can resign.”
“Great. Now I’m going to find Savannah.”
“You can’t just walk around the police station unsupervised.”
“Can you pull up the camera feed on your computer?”
“Yes, why?”
“Then I’m not unsupervised, because you can watch my every move.”
I stand up and storm out of his office. Walking in the opposite direction of the main entrance, I stumble upon several closed doors.
The first two offices are dark and empty. The third one has a lieutenant sitting behind the desk, filling out forms. He looks up at me and scowls.
“Sorry. Wrong office.” I say before closing the door.
Down another hallway are a few doors. The first door on the left leads to an interrogation room, while the second door leads to an office that has a two-way mirror looking into the interrogation room.
The first room on the right side of the hallway is another interrogation room, where Officer Carter and another young officer are sitting across the table from Savannah.
They jump up as soon as I walk inside. Ignoring them, I head straight to Savannah. She’s rubbing her wrists and fingers.
Linking my hand with hers, I inspect her wrist. It’s red and angry, as if the fuckers had the handcuffs too tight.