#scenebreak
I sat alone in that stupid room most of the day, not that I had any idea what time it was. The lousy clock chime was utterly random. I paced. I sat. I stood in front of the mirror and shouted. My ribs hurt, my head felt like a punching bag after an Olympic workout and my bladder threatened to explode. Even my balls hurt again.
Guys: never take comfortable balls for granted.
While I was heavy into my seventh rant at the mirror, the door opened. “If I don’t see a toilet in ten seconds, I will piss where I stand!”
Ms. Delacroix entered the room with a frown. “I’d rather you didn’t. It’ll have to wait a few more minutes.”
“I’m really kinda desperate, ma’am,” I said.
She took my wrist and led me out of the room. “Not one word, Ethan,” she whispered. “Not one.”
As she dragged me down the hall and past the bathroom, my bladder threatened to protest, but every time I’d shot off my mouth recently someone had gotten hurt, so I kept silent. She led me into the foyer, her hand still attached to my wrist. A mob of teenagers milled around.
Wait. . . I knew those guys. They were the football players who’d assaulted me. Weren’t they out on bail? What were they doing here? Everyone seemed confused, Officer Friendly most of all.
We were suddenly outside.
Reporters. Oh, God, no.
Flashes exploded in my face. A couple of hands thrust voice recorders at me. In Austin, the press created a three-ring circus at everything Dad endured. There’s one good thing about a small town, I guess: fewer reporters. They threw out a confused, overlapping mess of questions deflected on all sides by Ms. D’s shielding litany. “No comment. No comment. No comment.” She only broke the mantra once. “So sorry,” she said to the man whose foot had the misfortune of landing under her four-inch heel. “No comment.”
Our exit decelerated into an amazing Quentin Tarantino slow-mo where Ms. D dragged me through the reporters, flashes went off, and Skrillex played in the background. Yeah, that likely only makes sense to someone like me, with a parent who worships the man.
Looking over one shoulder, I found Farmer-C. He looked up, caught my eye. . . and looked away again as if I were a stranger.
No comment.
“Ethan!” Dad pushed through the crowd. He engulfed me in his arms, which would sound like hyperbole if you’d never been hugged by my dad. “Jesus Christ, son, what’s going on?” He held me out and examined me.
“Dad, you just ruined the perfect Tarantino moment.”
“You didn’t hear the album scratch?” He ran a hand over my head. When I flinched, he looked closer. The anger on his face would’ve made the guy who knocked me out wish he was still No-Touching-Anyone Dad.
Ms. D interrupted his ministrations. “We talked about this, Lucius,” she murmured in an annoyed sing-song voice. “We’re making a getaway.”
“Trust her, son,” was all Dad managed to say before she shoved me into her hybrid.
She hauled ass away from the station. “First stop: restroom.” Her East Coast accent made a comeback.
“What was all that?”
She drove past a perfectly viable mini-mart and a McDonald’s. “They over-detained. They have one cell with a max capacity of four. They had ten boys in there, you in isolation in one interview room and the two girls in the other. With the reporters on hand, I made it clear I was going to call in the state to shut them down for overcrowding and have them all up on charges for cruel and unusual punishment.” She smiled. “All bullshit, of course, but they didn’t know it.”
“So why the rush to get me out?”
“Just because they can’t keep all thirteen of you for questioning, doesn’t mean they can’t keep five or six. I had to get you out before they realized that.”
“Brilliant.”
We pulled into a rest stop at the edge of town and I sprinted to the restroom. I really, really, really needed a rest. I took a minute to wash my face before heading outside. Ms. D removed the last of her African costume, revealing trendy jeans, a blue Oxford and a nice figure. You know, for a forty-something woman.
She pointed at an enormous sandwich she’d miracled from thin air, and I dove into it head first. Yep. Dad had made it. Only he used that weird chipotle mustard stuff.
I nearly choked when she reached up and pulled the four foot long braids from her head. A wig? Holy crap! Under the wig, her hair was shaved in a crew cut. She was almost unrecognizable.
She smiled. “And people wonder why I keep my hand in the theater when I’m so busy as a lawyer.” She scratched her head with both hands. “Okay, Ethan, what’s going on? The whole story.” She handed me a bottle with my painkillers. Score!
I told her everything. Well, I probably glossed past the making out and the beer while skinny-dipping, but the rest was there. She sat on the picnic table with her feet—now in converse high tops—on the seat, asking the occasional question.
“We need to get the state or county involved in a search,” I said at last.
She shook her head. “I already told you, Warren contacted both to say everything was under control.”
“What about John Walsh?”
She cocked her head at me. “Would you be serious?”
“I am. Someone knocked me unconscious and took Tango’s car.”
“No one but me believes you were attacked, so she’s just a runaway girl—” She raised a finger. “Since she turned eighteen last week, as far as anyone outside Dumass is concerned, Katy’s merely a young woman who had a fight with her friends and needed some alone time.” She patted the table and I sat down. “My super powers don’t work as well on the outside world because people there actually know what they’re doing. The guys here are idiots, and Warren is using this as an excuse to strut around like a cock.”
I scoffed. “You got that right.”
She rubbed her hands over her head. “Okay. I’m not sure where to go next. I’m a lawyer, not a cop. Wait.” She looked at me. “What did you blow on the breathalyzer?”
“Breathalyzer? There was no breathalyzer.”
“What? That makes no sense. His whole case against you relies on you being drunk and passed out in the studio. Why else would you take a nap there after kidnapping Katy?” She lapsed into silence as she thought things through. “Who do you think took her?”
“I have no idea,” I lied.
She seemed to read me. “Ethan, even the vaguest suspicion might mean something.”
So I laid out my thoughts about K-pop, Taco, Ephraim and Woody.
“Interesting. Nothing solid, though. We’ll need to ask some questions.” She opened her tablet. “Her best friend seems the most likely to me.”
“What? Why?”
Her face told me I was stupid. “I talked to all the parents, Ethan. Katy’s mom already has this girl convicted. She’s carried a torch all these years. They had a huge blowout and Tango may very likely never speak to her again. We know she can pull off a massive deception.”
Wow. Put like that, it didn’t sound good.
“If not her,” she continued, “then the texts and car are a coincidence unless it’s you. Next is the ex-boyfriend, who wouldn’t have sent the texts or done the car.” She made a funny noise in her throat. “After him is the entire group that assaulted you. . . and all of their friends or family members.”
“Really?”
“Katy’s the eyewitness who’s likely to put those good ol’ boys behind bars for a long time. Retaliation is a powerful motive.”
“That’s why the football players were in the police station,” I said.
She stared at the tablet. “How well do you know the kids on the dance team?”
“I’ve only been here a few weeks,” I admitted. “I don’t see Juicy, Farmer-C or K-pop doing this, though.”
“How certain are you?”
“I guess I’m not certain. . . but I’d bet the farm on it.”
“And the other three?”
Lots of shrugging and shaking of my head. “I don’t know them at all.”
She thought about it. “I need to talk to everyone in that group. Would they talk to me?”
“More likely than they’d talk to me.”
She handed me a cell. “From your dad.” She gathered her things. “Hopefully they’re more interested in helping Katy than in holding a grudge.”
Amen to that.
#scenebreak
How the hell did Fox land Tamara Taylor for a fairy fucking godmother?