Chapter 23
hour one
They took my fingerprints and my mugshot down at the precinct. Being that Meadow Grove wasn’t a large city, there wasn’t much going on that Monday morning as they brought me in and ran through their intake process.
The woman at the front desk was playing a game on her cell phone while she listened to a podcast on the speaker across from her.
The station was small, with an open floor plan.
Beyond the front desk, there were four other large metal desks in the front room spread out with two on each side.
A few officers, who seemed about Rick’s age, were at their desks talking and joking around.
One was leaned back with his feet on his desk as he spoke to another officer who was seated on the corner listening intently with a wolfish grin on his face.
The air was chilled from a series of ceiling fans, but I felt numb. I could hardly hear what the woman was saying as she walked me through the steps of intake.
It didn’t matter in the end. After gathering all of my personal information, including my civilian clothes and swapping them in for a beige sweatsuit, they took my cell phone and Rick brought me through a thick security door that revealed a corridor where all the holding cells were.
I had hit rock bottom.
Ten minutes after Rick had left me in my cell, he was back with Scott. He was still in his blue Marty’s polo and khakis.
“Saylor!” Scott rushed over and clutched the bars on the door, staring at me incredulously.
Slowly, I stood, feeling every bit of shame weighing my shoulders down. “Hey, Scott.”
Rick let us into a private room where there was only a single table and two chairs. By the large mirror stretching across the wall behind the scene, I guessed this was an interrogation room. The camera high up in the corner all but confirmed it.
I faced Rick. “I don’t get to go home?” Of course Scott’s arrival wouldn’t make this easy, but hope was all I had.
Rick frowned and Scott hung his head. “You have to stay here for at least forty-eight hours until you go before a judge.”
Sensing the heaviness of the moment, Rick gripped the knob. “I’ll let you two have a second.”
He shut the door and Scott and I gravitated over to the table. Him on one side and me on the other.
At once he took out his cell phone. “I…I have to call your mother.”
I reached out toward him, too afraid to touch him. “Please, you have to believe me. I didn’t do this.”
Scott’s brown eyes found mine. I had his eyes, his love for rock music, and his wild and rebellious spirit. In the short time that we’d known each other, I’d come to learn and revel in the fact that I was my father’s daughter.
But I had been nothing but wrong from the start, and I wasn’t sure if enough time had passed for him to trust me and know when I was telling the truth.
Scott clutched his phone and sighed. He pushed his free hand through his hair and peered down at the table. “Saylor… You’re expelled.” He looked up at me. “And if you’re found guilty, you’re facing up to ten years, and a fine that can be as much as twenty thousand dollars.”
This was serious. I knew it when I saw the evidence in my locker, but hearing it from Scott only cemented the severity of the situation.
This wasn’t getting pulled over with a joint. This was a trafficking charge in a school-zone at that.
“Scott…” I didn’t know what to say. He looked and sounded disappointed.
Without waiting any longer, he opened his phone and dialed my mother on speaker.
She answered at once. “Scott? I just got your text. What’s going on? Is Saylor okay?” She sounded anxious, and I hated to have to cause her any more stress.
Scott closed his eyes. “She’s been arrested, Maddie.”
“What?” Her shock was tangible, causing the hairs on my neck to stand up. “What happened?”
“They did a routine drug search at the school and they found over three pounds of weed in her locker. It was all bagged up like she was intending to sell it,” Scott explained, his voice tired and defeated.
“She’s been expelled, and they’re talking about serious time for this.
She won’t be able to go before the judge for a couple of days. ”
The silence that met that last statement was deafening.
“I don’t understand. She was doing so good.” Her voice cracked and my heart tore in two.
I covered my face as my shoulders shook and tears ran down my cheeks. I’d been doing so well, and here I had hurt her all over again. It wasn’t even my fault, but trouble seemed to follow me wherever I went.
“I know, Maddie, I know,” Scott spoke softly into the phone. Then he looked up, finding me, holding my stare. “She says she didn’t do it. The deck’s stacked against her, but…I don’t know. I don’t see why she’d lie.”
My mother was crying on her end and I could take no more.
I stood from the chair, going over to the door and knocking on it loud enough to be heard.
My mother was broken and Scott was skeptical. Even when I was innocent, I was still a fuckup who caused nothing but pain. I had never sunk so low.
Rick brought me back to my cell. I went and lay down on the thin mattress, facing the wall and curling myself into a ball. Doing my best and failing to cease to exist.
hour thirty-two
There was nothing to do but think. Cut off from the world, all I could do as I lay in my cell, was stare at the ceiling and think over my life. Think about every selfish and reckless choice I’d ever made. And how it all landed me here in Meadow Grove.
I thought things were better. I thought I was doing good.
Yet here I was.
Down the hall I heard the security door open and footsteps descend toward me.
I sat up and braced myself. Briefly, I wondered if it were time for dinner.
Lunch at the precinct was a bologna sandwich, an apple, and a hard-boiled egg.
Dinner the previous evening had been a piece of bread, corn, lettuce, and a weird mixture of beef and rice.
I hadn’t eaten in almost two days.
Rick came into view as he stopped at my cell door with a set of keys. “You’ve just gotten a lucky break.”
Was I going home? Did they realize I was innocent?
I licked my dry lips and stood up. “Am I free to go?”
Rick appeared grim, averting his gaze. “No, your lawyer’s here.”
I was confused as I felt my forehead crease. “My lawyer?”
Mom. She must’ve shelled out for an attorney. Anything to give me a fighting chance.
The thought depressed me. Now I was really costing her.
I followed Rick out of the cell and over to an interrogation room. He gripped the knob of the thick black door and faced me, assessing me. “Let’s hope this works out.”
He opened the door and the first thing I noticed was who was sitting at the metal table in the room.
René St. Julien.
I could tell he had just gotten off work. His jacket was gone, and the long sleeves on his designer dress shirt were pulled up to his elbows. He had paperwork out on his side of the table as well as a tablet. End of the day or not, he was still prepared to put in work.
Something in my chest throbbed and I knew why he was here.
Guilt was quick to set in as I approached the table, moved around René, and took a seat across from him.
He looked up from his research and studied me, his hazel eyes doing a silent sweep from my waist on up. When he got to my brown eyes, he just stared, face impassive.
“Hi,” I let out, my voice low and weak.
René smirked and propped his arms onto the table, leaning into them. “Hello, Saylor.” He eyed his papers. “I’ve been going over your case and this is quite the predicament you’ve landed yourself in. I mean, let’s face it, you’re fucked.”
Even my own counsel didn’t see an out for me.
“Okay,” I accepted my fate.
René sighed and sank back in his chair. “Let’s cut to the chase. I haven’t been the greatest father. I’m far from perfect. What I lack in my personal life, I more than make up for in my career. I make a lot of money.”
René listed these things off matter-of-factly, detached almost. And then he frowned, deeply.
“My son has never asked me for anything, despite my having the means to give him whatever he desires. He could bleed me dry, but he doesn’t. He’d rather do it on his own, or ask his mother.” René peered over at me, his lips twitching to smile. “We both know why I’m here.”
No matter how Dreux felt about his father, he’d put his pride aside and reached out…because of me.
Sniffling, I looked away and could only nod.
“Hey,” René spoke gently, gathering my focus once more. “He believes in your innocence, so please, don’t embarrass him.”
“I won’t,” I promised.
René accepted this answer as he sat up and gathered a stack of papers. “Good news? So far, we’re looking at constructive possession instead of actual possession. The drugs weren’t on your person, but they were in your locker.”
“Is that less harsh?” I asked.
“It’s still pretty bad, but it’s not like you were caught red-handed,” René responded.
“This can go a couple of ways. If you plead guilty, because you’re a first-time offender, we can get you into a probationary program through the First Offender Act.
Your record will be sealed and there will be no conviction on it. ”
It was a way out. A way to avoid prison time. But I wouldn’t take it.
“I’m not guilty,” I spoke strongly and adamantly.
René set his papers aside and regarded me. “Let’s talk about how the drugs got into your locker, Saylor.”
I didn’t have an answer. “I don’t know.”
“Dreux says he walked you to your homeroom and you never even stopped at your locker,” René said.
“That’s literally what happened,” I agreed. “That Friday before break I left some books and a hoodie in my locker, and that’s it. I never even saw the weed or touched it.”
René sat and clicked on the end of his pen, ruminating on the situation and the picture I’d painted. “Do you think you were set up?”
It was the only explanation that made sense, but still. “I’m not sure how. I don’t bother anyone.”
“You haven’t made any enemies since moving to Meadow Grove?” René pressed, searching for a loophole.
I tried and failed to come up with any altercations I’d been in since moving here. I’d clashed with Scott and Dreux, but neither would cross me like this.
Shaking my head, I felt defeated. “No.”
“And no one else has the combination to your locker?” René asked, going and grabbing his tablet to type notes.
“Just, like, the senior office I believe,” I said. When I’d met with the senior guidance counselor my first day, she’d issued me a locker along with the combination to the embedded lock.
René was quiet as he typed this up. It was in the silence that I took the time to look at him. In his seriousness and determination, I saw Dreux. He even had a few freckles when I looked close enough.
“I’m going to have my guy do a little digging at that school,” René said as he came back to me. “Look at the cameras. See who has access to your locker besides you. If you’re telling the truth, none of this adds up. A shit ton of weed doesn’t just appear out of nowhere.”
“It looks bad, but I promise, it’s not mine and I wasn’t selling it,” I swore.
“I’ve been a fuckup for a long time, Mr. St. Julien, but after Scott laid down the law and made me get rides from Dreux and work at Angela’s, I’ve been good.
I’ve followed all the rules. And I’ve been sober. I did not do this.”
René stared at me as I stared at him. He broke away and rubbed at his chin, appearing thoughtful.
“You go before a judge in the morning. I have a rapport with Judge Sparks, and I’m sure I can pull strings to get you bailed out.
From there you will go home to Scott and remain there.
No hanging out around town, no skipping town, and please, no stupid shit. ”
Staying home under the radar sounded more like a reprieve than a punishment.
“Okay,” I agreed, hopeful this would be my last night in jail.
René released another sigh and once more took to examining me. “He really likes you.”
Considering where I was currently sitting, it felt like Dreux’s downfall. “He’s good for me, but I’m bad for him.”
René snorted. “He’s not perfect, either, Saylor. He was messing up a lot before his mom got on ’im. You were messing up until Scott got on you. Neither of you rebelled or pushed back. You listened, you learned, and you grew. Give yourself some credit. You deserve a happy ending.”
Tears lined my vision, and as much as I wanted to reject his kind words, I couldn’t.
After the arrest, I’d been nothing but hard on myself, and it wasn’t right or fair. I was innocent, whether anyone believed me or not. And René was right. I did deserve a happy ending.
It was all a matter of hoping I would see it.