18. Chapter 15 | Elle #2
CJ moved before Dom could get to him. Weight back, shoulders rolling, the exact stance Dom had drilled into him a dozen times over the kitchen table, except this time it wasn't a stranger's jaw his fist found.
It connected with a sound that carried across the street.
Lewis staggered back, more startled than hurt, a hand flying to his mouth. For one suspended second, nobody moved.
Then the deputies were moving, fast now, no longer bored.
"Whoa now—hey!" One of the deputies had CJ's arm wrenched up behind his back before Elle could process it, while the other blew a whistle, sharp and repeated, the kind that wasn't calling for help so much as calling a halt to everything.
"That's it! Office is closed! Everybody clear out, now!"
The line dissolved into chaos. People scattered from the steps, a woman crying out as a third deputy came around the side of the building at a run, more whistles, more shouting.
Someone's sign went down under a boot. A man near the front tried to keep his place and got shoved so hard he stumbled into the person behind him.
"You can't just close it, we've been out here since eight—" Elle started, and a deputy's arm swept out, pushing her back a step without even looking.
"He assaulted a man right in front of two officers. We got ourselves an agitator." The deputy gripping CJ wrenched his arm higher, and CJ made a sound that wasn't quite a shout. "A lot of these people stirring up trouble today, and we are done letting it happen on this courthouse's steps."
"He's fifteen and that man is his abuser—" Dom lunged, and Elle's arms circled her waist, holding on with everything she had.
Thelma Blake would have known exactly what to do.
Gasp loud enough to turn every head. Invent a connection — a cousin at the Parish, a lawyer's card she didn't have — and spin it fast enough that nobody checked it twice until she was three blocks gone.
She'd talked her way out of a studio drunk tank countless times.
But Elle was not Thelma Blake, so all she could do was grab Dom and whisper.
"Don't. You can't help him from a cell."
"That's my daughter," Lewis said, dabbing at his lip with the back of his hand, his voice soft and wounded for the deputies' benefit, all trace of surprise gone from his face. "I don't even want to press charges. I just want to take her home where she's safe."
"That's not up to you anymore, sir, she assaulted you in front of two officers." The deputy walked CJ toward the cruiser. "We gotta process this."
They marched him down the steps, CJ twisting to look back at Dom, fear stark in his eyes. Dom went slack in Elle's arms once the door slammed.
Oretha jogged up from the far end of the line, the CORE lawyer's number half-dialed in her head before she'd even reached them. "Lawyer's meeting us at the station."
?
The precinct smelled of coffee and industrial cleaner over something darker: sweat, fear, old violence soaked into the walls.
Oretha had ridden over with them, silent in the front seat the whole way, and was at the front desk talking low and fast to anyone who'd listen by the time Elle and Dom made it through the door.
Curtis had died in a jail in North Carolina. Elle wondered if he had ever been taken to a room just like this one, lights just like these. One thing leading to the next, and the next, until—
She cut the thought off. Old anxiety, worn smooth. This was CJ. Not here. He was getting out. Coming home.
The desk sergeant came out with a clipboard. "Anyone here for Charles Jordan?"
"His name is CJ. CJ LeJeune."
He checked his paper. "Says here Charles Jordan, minor, female, daughter of Lewis Jordan. Assault charge, victim's the girl's own father."
Dom's face paled. "That man is a legal guardian only. He is not raising that child. He was belittling him in front of strangers until that boy broke."
"That's not what the two officers on scene wrote down, ma'am."
The CORE lawyer arrived minutes later. "Lewis Jordan has full legal custody.
You're not listed as a guardian anywhere.
We can file for emergency custody, but that's seventy-two hours minimum, and without documented recent abuse, most judges won't move on it.
Now there's an assault charge sitting on top of it, which doesn't help. "
"He can just take him. Tonight?"
"Unless we demonstrate immediate threat, or create enough public pressure. Yes."
Dom's legs gave out. Elle caught her arm and sat with her.
Oretha crouched in front of them, looking only at Elle. "We're running low on options. Might need every card we've got. You understand what I'm asking."
Elle understood perfectly. Her voice. Her name.
Her face, and the story that went with it, and everything that story had already cost her once.
Her hands shook in her lap. Underneath the coffee and the cleaner she could have sworn she smelled smoke, though there wasn't any, hadn't been any in three years.
Just the memory of it, lodged so deep it came back whenever fear grew large enough.