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Julius was sitting stiff-backed in his chair, and Hudson could feel his anticipation mixing with Quinn’s anxiety.
She took a deep breath.
“My parents are trying to kill Julius,” she said.
* * *
By eleven that night,they were still in the police station. They’d moved to a conference room, with Ash and someone else drawing on a whiteboard. On it was a pretty bad drawing of the courthouse, even worse drawings of the crowd, and then an approximation of the buildings around it.
Half the police force was there too. Some standing, some sitting, a few quietly talking on cell phones.
“I don’t know,” Quinn kept saying. There was a half-empty and stone-cold cup of coffee in front of her. “I told you everything, twice. Please, let me get back to the motel. They’re going to find out where I’ve been.”
Ash and one of the other officers exchanged looks.
“Can you call them again?”
“They already don’t believe that I’m still window shopping,” she said. “I’ll tell them that I went for a drink by myself, but that’ll already piss them off, if they even believe me.”
The other officer in front opened his mouth, but Ash cut him off.
“Thank you for your help, Quinn. I don’t want to further endanger your life—” here, he shot a look at the other officer, “—since whoever’s willing to shoot this man is probably willing to shoot you too.”
The other officer had the decency to look slightly embarrassed.
“We’ll drive you,” Hudson volunteered.
Julius’s eyebrows shot up, but he ignored it. With everything that had happened in the last couple of hours, they couldn’t spend time with the girl they both knew should be theirs.
Quinn looked nervous again for a moment, but then seemed to remember where she was and why she was there.
“Thanks,” she said.
Ash frowned. “I think that’s against protocol,” he started, but Julius and Hudson both stood.
“We promise not to kill her, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he said.
“We’re not even finished,” Ash said.
“We’ve been going over the same thing for an hour now,” Julius said. An edge of irritation was starting to creep into his voice. “SWAT guys watching all the roof access, officers stationed throughout the crowd. Body armor. Quinn’s listening to everything her parents say. Hudson’s absolutely not attending this event.”
With that last statement, he turned his head and shot a look at his mate.
Hudson tried to look innocent. Like hell Julius was keeping him away, but there was no point in fighting.
“What else is there to figure out? We’re going home,” Julius said.
Then he stood and walked from the room. Hudson gave the collected officers a what are you gonna do? shrug and walked out behind him, Quinn trailing.
When they got to the steps of the police station, Julius stopped for a moment. Then he gave himself a good, long shake.
“AAARRRGGHHHHH!” he shouted.
Quinn’s eyes went wide.
Then Julius took a deep breath and turned to them.
“You want shotgun?” he asked Quinn.
