Page 39 of Last First Time
I can practically hear him frowning over the phone. “I’m going to go deal with Reed’s family drama emergency now, apparently. If you can, maybe come by and see the man at some point during visiting hours tomorrow. He was asking for you today every single time I talked to him.”
Well, now I feel like a bag of crap. “Okay, I hear you. I’ll see what I can do about the bond money, Abernathy.” Then I hang up and stare at the water-stained ceiling.
I’m in some little hole of a town in some flat Midwestern state and I don’t even know how long I’ll have to drive to get back to Valentine. There’s no way to organize some sort of group protest or garage sale or whatever at the jail in the morning. With that idea officially out, I need to figure out how to help Reed.
I already started by getting the eff out of town, but it’s not enough. I thought removing myself from the equation and becoming invisible would help ease the target off Reed’s muscled back, but apparently, I’m still thinking too small. Baron von Evil has deep pockets and an inexplicable hard-on for the mayor’s job in Valentine, and it seems he’s willing to stoop to any low in order to make that happen.
For a few minutes, I debate about returning one of the calls I got requesting an interview. It’s still something that I could do, actually. Make sure that the public knows that Reed is the good guy in this particular movie, not the villain. And coincidentally, I’d have enough funds to pay Reed’s bond.
But honestly, I’m not the best at public speaking or appearances. It’s one of the biggest reasons I was so concerned about being seen out with Reed in the first place. He’s always sort of been in the limelight due to his family and money, but I can’t even manage surviving a dinner function with too many pieces of silverware, let alone giving any sort of speech.
I’d be too embarrassed to talk about whatever is going on between me and Reed in public anyway. I know everyone will assume right away that I’m some sort of gold digger. They’d be throwing shade at me long before they ever heard about us going to college together or the friendship we formed. And then if I tell them I’ve fallen in love with my best friend, well, I’ll get laughed off the stage.
That kind of Cinderella story doesn’t happen in real life. No, in real life, us poverty-stricken types end up circling the drain until we’re shacking up in an unheated tenement building with others like ourselves. We don’t mingle with the trust-fund babies.
We keep to our side of the food pantry, and the occasional acts of service from the rich people in our lives only reinforce the message that we are beneath them. We are nothing to them, not even human beings. Disposable and replaceable.
Even Kade doesn’t need me. I’ve turned out to be nothing but a liability to him, and when it comes down to it, he needs someone completely different in his life. Someone with a good name, plenty of friends, and a big fat bank account full of cash.
I close my eyes, but I know that sleep isn’t coming tonight.
Reed
Iwake up and am surprised that I actually managed some sleep. The officer at the duty desk glances over at me when I stir, but he doesn’t say anything. Another day in paradise here at the LaGrange County Pee-Filled Jail.
As I sit up on the thin, lumpy camping mattress, I wonder again where Karisma has run off to. This is all my fault. I wanted to make her happy, for us to be happy together, and instead I’m locked up in fucking jail of all things and she’s packed up and left town.
I wonder what she plans to do about Riddles now. Surely with the loan approved, she’ll come back once she’s gotten over the initial embarrassment about the photographs. Even if she won’t date me or even be seen with me after this mess, she’ll be okay, despite the senator’s threats.
It was beyond stupid of me to take a swing at him, but I’ve always had a hair trigger when it comes to Kar. She’s mine to protect, and I’ll be damned if I let anyone hurt her again. Especially because of me.
I stew in my thoughts longer than expected, because I’m startled by the duty phone’s ring. The officer grunts out a few words too quietly for me to hear, then hangs up.
“Looks like you’re going for a ride,” he says as he comes over to unlock the door.
“Oh? Is my Uber here?” I give him my best smile, although even I know I have to look like a stepped-on bag of crap after the last twenty-four hours.
“Something like that,” he says. He takes me to the back hallway again, and we go down the secret elevator but don’t stop at the Batcave courtroom this time.
Instead, three federal marshals are waiting for me on a different floor. These men all look like body doubles for some sort of steroid-fueled Captain America. They have identical military looking haircuts and giant upper bodies. Any one of these guys could probably bench press two or three of me. I’ve never felt puny before in my life, but apparently today is the day.
“Gentlemen,” I say and nod to them, as if we’re meeting recreationally, instead of with me, handcuffed, in a basement parking garage that still somehow smells like urine. Maybe it’s me that smells like pee now. Maybe something is wrong with my nose and everything is going to smell like pee from now on.
The three men don’t even glance at me, but instead sign some paperwork and one of the action-figure men takes my arm and escorts me to the back of a dark sedan. Another grabs the envelope that I checked my belongings into. I am tucked into the car between two men who could probably kill me with their bare hands, and the third one drives the car. We exit the secret parking garage and head out to who knows where.
“You’re not taking me out to the wildlife preserve to disappear me, are you?” I’m kidding, mostly, but this whole three big dudes taking me away in secret is setting off every internal alarm I have. This is how people ended up getting killed on those true crime shows.
The man on my right side twitches a little. Is he even capable of smiling, or have they beaten that out of him at the scary federal marshal academy?
“Huey, talk to me man. If you’re taking me out to the wilderness on senator’s orders, I can handle it, but give me a few minutes to get right with God before you bury me in a shallow grave, okay?”
His eyebrow shoots up. Even his eyebrow looks like it could probably bench press me. “Huey?”
Sheesh. Even his voice makes me feel wimpy. Like maybe I am that useless playboy that I’ve been made out to be. This entire ride is going to be hell on my self-esteem, even if they aren’t taking me out to the middle of nowhere to kill me.
“Yeah, you know. Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Donald Duck’s nephews.” I shrug as best as I can, but I’m still handcuffed so my shoulders won’t move much.
The one in the driver’s seat snorts. Or chambers a bullet that he’s planning to put in the back of my skull once we’re out in the middle of nowhere. One of those two things.
