Page 76 of A Spot of Trouble
Violet’s head spun. Everything around her went fuzzy and she was vaguely aware of Opal, Ethel, Mavis, and Larry gasping in horror as her dad said something about a warrant and fines and started reciting the Miranda warning.
You have the right to remain silent, blah blah blah.Violet knew it by heart. She’d heard Joe and Josh practice it so many times back when they were in the police academy that she could probably recite her rights in her sleep.
Still, it was beyond unnerving to have them read to her by her father while he was standing next to a squad car with that terrible expression on his face.
Was this some sort of horrible joke? What was happening?
“Dad, stop. What is going on?”
She had the right to remain silent.Ha!As if.
“Dad! Talk to me, please.”
“Violet, get in the car.” He opened the door to the back seat. Seriously? She had to get back there, behind the cage thing? “I need to have a word with your friends for a minute. Wait here.”
She did as he said, mainly because she was afraid if she balked, he might slap a pair of handcuffs on her. Just the thought of it made a hysterical burst of laughter rise up her throat. The one and only time she’d worn handcuffs was when her dad had come to her middle school classroom for career day. The kids had all taken turns trying them out.
But Violet wasn’t in middle school anymore. She was an adult, and apparently she’d gone and gotten herself into adult trouble.
Arrested.
She squeezed her eyes shut tight and tried not to hyperventilate. This was Turtle Beach. The island’s jail consisted of a single cell just a few steps away from her father’s desk, and it was rarely occupied. Certainly never by Violet.
This cannot be happening.
The driver’s side door swung open, and her father slid behind the wheel.
“Where’s my dog?” she asked, and she wasn’t sure if the tremble in her voice was caused by fear or fury. Probably a little of both. The only thing she was more concerned about than straightening out her humiliating legal predicament was her Dalmatian’s welfare.
“Mavis, Opal, and Ethel assured me they’ll take care of Sprinkles. And don’t you worry. I just need to take you down to the station and get you to deal with some paperwork. Your friends can come pick you up as soon as that’s done. Once the fines are cleared up, you’re free to go.” He shifted the car into park. “That’s how the department handles local code violations. Standard procedure. You’re my daughter, but you still have to follow the rule of law. How would it look if I made an exception?”
Local code violations? Was it possible that this whole ordealwasn’ta mistake at all?
Dread settled into the pit of Violet’s stomach. She stared blankly at the back of her dad’s head. He still had a dent in his hair from the ball cap he’d worn to the softball game just a few hours ago.
“Dad, can you please tell me the nature of the fines that I owe?” She glanced at the rearview mirror, where her father’s gaze met hers.
“Cupcake, you have unpaid fines from a number of fire code citations.” He sighed and resumed staring straight ahead. “Quite a few actually.”
Violet dropped her head into her hands. Sam had showered her with enough pink tickets to wallpaper the entire inside of her cupcake truck. And they’d all beenreal?
Panic flared inside her chest, and she remembered something Griff had said a few days ago when she’d gone to Sam’s office to thank him for not throwing her friends in “fireman jail” for their sprinkler stunt.
Yeah, that’s not a thing. Violating the fire code is the same thing as breaking the law. Same fines, same penalties, same jail.
Oh, no. No, no, no. She’d balled all those tickets into tiny pink wads of paper in defiance. She’d thought she’d been taking a stand. She’d thought they’d just been part of the silly Dalmatian war she and Sam had been engaged in for the past few weeks. The loser was supposed to have to do something mildly unpleasant, like dress as a cupcake or take their Dalmatian to obedience classes.
Notgo to prison.
The squad car pulled to a stop in the driveway of the Turtle Beach police station, and Violet tried to tell herself this wasn’t a huge deal. It was jail, not prison—more along the lines ofThe Andy Griffith ShowthanTheShawshank Redemption.
Still, her father was the police chief. She should never have allowed herself to get into such a humiliating predicament, no matter how infuriatingly attracted she’d been to the fire marshal who’d been writing her all those citations.
“Dad, can we talk for a second before we go inside?” Violet sniffed. She wouldnotcry. No way. She’d gotten herself into this mess, and she was going to handle it like a grown-up.
Oh, the irony! She’d just been patting herself on the back for having her act together and—boom—almost instantaneously she’d ended up in the back of a squad car.
“The sooner we get this started, the sooner we can get it over with,” her dad said, reaching for the door handle.
