THE VOLUNTEER
I knew this would happen sooner or later. I was walking a dangerous line with the captain of the ERT. But it wasn’t my fault he didn’t understand consent. I was surprised I didn’t get arrested the first time.
This time, when the ERT tried to raid, I’d made a dig at the police chief.
Apparently, the clip had already gone viral, and he did not like this.
I mean, I couldn’t blame him. My exact words were: “I don’t give a flying fuck what the police chief ordered.
If he doesn’t understand that no is a full sentence, maybe he should get re-educated.
I don’t know about you, but I learned that shit when I was six.
It’s just sad that the man in charge of protecting the city is dumber than a first grader. ”
They left me sitting in the interrogation room for two hours before a man in his late fifties walked in with a woman closer to my age behind him.
He was dressed in a black polo shirt, grey dress pants, and brown dress shoes.
Interesting combo. She wore a beige blouse, black pencil skirt, and black flats. Sensible shoes; I loved that for her.
“Miss Hayes,” the man said as he leaned on the wall next to the one-way mirror. Typical male bully, trying to make himself seem important with an intimidating stance. “I’m Detective Chambers. This is my partner, Detective Williams. Sorry to keep you waiting.”
Ah, so this was Candice’s father. She was a nurse from 49th that I was casual friends with.
She was always ranting about him. From what I’d heard, he was a shit person and an even shittier dad.
Two seconds into meeting him, I could definitely see the distain.
I couldn’t imagine living with this fucking dick.
“Yes, I’m sure,” I replied.
Detective Williams sat down in front of me and laid out her files. She pressed her lips together like she was trying not to laugh at my sarcasm.
“Do you know why we’ve invited you here?” he asked.
“You call handcuffing me in my place of work an invitation?” I raised an eyebrow. “I’d hate to be invited to your dinner parties.”
Williams coughed once before schooling her features. “We apologize for the misunderstanding. Our intention was to invite you here to answer a few questions. The officers are being reprimanded for their mistake.”
Chambers grumbled in a way that made me think she was telling the truth, because he didn’t seem happy about it. Well, good. I didn’t like being handcuffed and marched through the hospital like some kind of criminal either.
“So I’m not under arrest?”
“No.”
“Great. I’ll be wanting my things so I can leave.” I stood.
“Miss Hayes, please sit back down. We just want to ask you a few questions about your involvement with the fugitives known as Avalanche, The Weaver, Whisper, and Hemlock. If you don’t cooperate now, we will have no choice but to issue official charges,” she said.
“Great. Then I want my lawyer.”
I didn’t have a lawyer but I was sure I would find one between this moment and the next time they showed up to arrest me. I knew a lot of people who probably had fantastic lawyers.
“Miss Hayes, it’s in your best interest to speak to us right now.”
“Sure, but I have a right to see a lawyer, so be a good little detective and follow the law.” I gave Chambers a sarcastic smile. He did not like that.
“Listen here—”
“No. Go get me a phone, so I can call my lawyer or let me out of this room.”
“You—”
The door swung open and one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen walked in. She had long, wavy, dark-brown hair with caramel highlights and golden-brown eyes. She wore a bright red shirt that matched her lipstick, a black pencil skirt that clung to every curve, and cream stilettos.
“Detective Chambers! You’re not trying to intimidate my client now, are you? Remember the headache I caused you last time?”
If this was a cartoon, steam would be coming out of his ears. Oh, she was a good lawyer; I could tell by the daggers he was staring at her.
“You’re not her lawyer.”
“Am too.” She smiled. “We received her retainer twenty minutes ago and rushed right over.” She pulled a piece of paper out of her leather briefcase and handed it to Williams. She scanned the paper and looked over at her partner.
“It’s all in order. Miss Law’s firm is handling anything relating to Miss Hayes.”
I had to press my lips together to keep from laughing. Miss Law? Priceless.
“She’s been here for two and a half hours. How did you just receive her retainer?”
“Tsk-tsk, Detective Chambers, you’re not telling me that you’ve had my client sitting here for two and a half hours without letting her contact an attorney, are you?”
I didn’t think it was possible for him to look more pissed off, but he did.
“Your client isn’t under arrest. There was no need for her to contact an attorney.”
“Funny, I received word that she was escorted out of her place of employment in handcuffs and forced into the back of a cop car. You’re saying she wasn’t under arrest but was still treated like a criminal?”
Chambers scowled before storming out of the room. Williams gave my lawyer a quick smile.
“We’ll give you a few minutes to confer with your client. But we do need to ask her a few questions before she leaves.”
“I’ll confer with my client and maybe we’ll answer your questions. You’ll be lucky if she doesn’t want to sue after the way she’s been treated.”
Ooh, I liked the sound of that. I didn’t need the money, but it’d be nice to have—especially when it came out of the RMPD’s budget.
Williams nodded as she collected her files and then strolled out of the room.
“Sorry for my dramatic entrance and the lack of an introduction. My name is Vivian Law, attorney at Bridgers and Milton. It’s really nice to meet you, Violet. I’ve heard so much about you.”
She held her hand out for me to shake, which I did.
“Nice to meet you, too. Can I ask who hired you on my behalf? Was it the hospital?”
She pulled the chair from the other side of the table to mine. Only one chair, a telltale sign they never intended for me to have a lawyer.
“A Jonathan Philips footed the bill.” The Weaver. Interesting. “An unnamed contributor asked for me directly. All I have is the initial A.” Avalanche and Weave. More interesting.
“Well, I’m glad A asked for you. Watching you put Chambers in his place was life changing.”
“I’m honoured. So, shall we sit and talk business?”
We spent ten minutes talking about my…extracurricular activities.
She assured me I had nothing to worry about.
The police couldn’t actually arrest me for having a list of phone numbers and aliases.
Standing at the front of the hospital while keeping the police and the ERT from breaching was a little bit different.
She’d have to coordinate with the hospital’s lawyers before she could advise on that.
When the detectives came back in, they only brought one chair with them. Chambers went back to the corner and leered some more. Williams laid out the files again and began asking her questions.
“How did you track down Avalanche?”
“I didn’t.”
“How did you find The Weaver?”
“I didn’t.”
She asked me about the other two. I gave her the same answer. Technically it wasn’t a lie—even with Avalanche, he was ultimately the one that cornered me.
“What can you tell us about these men and their routines?”
“Nothing.”
“How do you get in touch with them?”
“They get in touch with me.”
“How?”
“I was given a burner phone.”
“We’ll need to confiscate that.”
“It will be provided to you tomorrow,” Vivian jumped in.
“Today—”
“Tomorrow. It’s past 11 p.m. My client has been kept here against her will for three hours—without legal representation for two and a half. You will get the phone tomorrow. At a reasonable hour. When she feels like providing it.”
“So she can scrub all the numbers? I don’t think so.” Detective Grumpy spoke for the first time since returning. “She’ll provide the phone to the officer escorting her home.”
“She absolutely will not. It’s bad enough she was paraded through the hospital with handcuffs. You won’t do the same in her neighbourhood with a police car. I’ve arranged transportation for her when we’re done here. You will have the phone tomorrow.”
“Listen here—”
“Oh my god.” Everyone in the room turned to look at me. “Do you just talk to hear yourself speak? It’s a burner phone, dumbass. There are no phone numbers to delete. It clears on its own.”
Maybe that wasn’t a feature of all burner phones, I’d never had occasion to use one before, but it was on mine and I was so tired that I was close to punching this guy in the face if I didn’t get out soon. He needed to shut the hell up.
“You—”
“Be very careful of the next words to leave your mouth, Detective,” Vivian warned.
“You haven’t answered a single one of our questions and now you have the nerve to call me a dumbass? Give me one good reason I shouldn’t throw you in a cell overnight.”
“I’m no lawyer, but last time I checked it wasn’t a crime to call an egotistical man-child a dumbass. Miss Law, you’re a lawyer, is that against the law?”
“No. No, it is not.” She was keeping a straight face but Williams was struggling to do the same.
“There you have it. Throw me in a cell, and I really will sue. One of your officers can meet me at my office on 49th tomorrow morning. I start at 9. Make sure your officer is on time. I hate being kept waiting.”
I had a feeling the scowl on Grumpy’s face would be permanent after this interaction. Fine by me, he earned it by being miserable.
Vivian was leading me out of the police station twenty minutes later. They asked me some more stupid questions I didn’t have the answers to before finally letting me go. I was so exhausted that all I could think about was crawling my ass into bed and sleeping through my alarm in the morning.
“There’s a car waiting for you outside. They’ll get you home. I just have to finish some paperwork back at the office to be your official attorney of record.”
“Thank you so much. It was really great meeting you, Vivian.”
“You as well, Violet.”
A mini-limo sat outside with the passenger window rolled down.
“Miss Hayes?” the driver asked as I approached. I nodded. “Cool, I’ll be your driver. My name is George. You can take a seat in the back. Vivian made sure there were some snacks and stuff, figuring you wouldn’t have eaten in a while.”
I thanked him with a smile, then slipped into the back seat ready to devour all the food in my sight. Instead, I was greeted by an entirely different kind of snack.
“What the fuck?”
Avalanche—in full costume—was grinning like an idiot.
“I’m pretty sure you mean: It’s so nice to see you, Avalanche. Thank you so much for sending me a lawyer so I didn’t have to spend the night in jail, Avalanche.”
“No, I’m actually quite sure that’s not what I meant. Besides, Weave footed the bill, did he not?”
“Semantics.” He waved his hand. “I picked the lawyer. Vivian’s the best. Only the best for my favourite volunteer,” he said as the car started moving.
“Is there a reason you’re hiding in a limo outside the police station? Or do you just enjoy being a pain in my ass?”
His eyebrow rose. I shook my head.
“I didn’t mean it like that and you know I didn’t mean it like that. Don’t look at me with…that face.”
“I’m sorry, let me learn how to shapeshift. I’ll get on making a new face, just for you.”
God, he was insufferable. We’d spent the better part of a month seeing each other every day for one reason or another. First it was the cypher, then he was hanging out at the hospital to make sure none of the other villains tried anything, and he was walking me home almost every night. Now this.
“Avalanche, I’m exhausted. What do you want? Other than annoying the shit out of me.”
Again, not a good choice of words judging by his growing grin.
“I heard some girls only shit twice a week. I just want to make sure your digestion track is in good working condition.”
I sighed. “I hate you.”
“No, you don’t. You might wish that you could, but I’m adorable.”
“No, I’m adorable. You’re annoying.”
“Can’t argue with that logic. I just came to make sure you got home okay.”
I was really starting to think my crush on him wasn’t one-sided. Between all of his check-ins and our occasional flirting, it was getting harder to keep myself in check.
“You know I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. I really wish you’d stop treating me like a stupid child.”
“I would never treat you like a stupid child.”
I glared at him. He sighed in response.
“I know you can handle yourself, but working with us… Violet, there are a lot of people that might want to get ahold of you to get to us. We just want to make sure we’re keeping you safe like you’ve been keeping us safe.”
“Well, fine.” I sighed again. “I suppose I could put up with your company as long as you don’t mind watching me scarf down these chocolates.” I waved to the bowl in the door. “I haven’t eaten since lunch.”
“Deal.” He grinned.