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“Her too,” Yannis says in an icy voice, pointing at me as more police arrive.
“No, I—” But I’m cut off as I’m hauled to my feet and pulled stumbling from the room. I realize one of my shoes has been left behind and try to tell the officer, but he ignores me. Placing his hand on my head, he shoves me into the back of a police car with its lights flashing. “Wait, this is a mistake—” The door slams shut in my face.
The silence in the back of the car is jarring after the chaos of the party.
I sit up straighter and look out the windows, catching sight of the shifter as he’s being shoved into the back of a police car. He looks like he’s still unconscious. Is it even legal to lock up an unconscious man? Or shifter?
The car pulls away with him in it, but I’m forced to wait while the officers take a statement from Yannis.
My agent is going to get an earful when I see him. These jobs are always bullshit, but getting arrested through absolutely no fault of mine? Flaming piles of bullshit.
When the officers return, I say, “Excuse me, can you please tell me if I’m being arrested?”
The officer in the passenger seat twists to look at me and I see a name badge. O’Toole. “Thought you’d rob a posh client with your boyfriend, did you? It was a stupid plan. He’ll be lucky if he doesn’t have to drink through a straw for the rest of his life after the amount of voltage he took.”
I feel inexplicably sad for the shifter. He’s clearly deranged but he doesn’t deserve to be permanently disabled over a misunderstanding. I try to explain. “He’s not my boyfriend. I think me mistook me for?—”
“You’ll have plenty of time to confess when we get to the station.” O’Toole turns his gaze back to the road.
“But I didn’t try to rob anyone!” They ignore me and I stop talking to them, listening instead.
“Hey, Landis. Can’t believe I bagged my first shifter,” O’Toole says, grinning at his partner.
“Congrats, you zapped a dumb dog.” She sounds bored.
“What do you think’ll happen to him?”
Landis shrugs, her eyes on the road, her fingers clenched around the steering wheel. “Probably nothing. These asshole shifters can get away with whatever they want, especially the wolves. You know they have a King and everything? He negotiated the original accords, which allows them to do pretty much anything to us humans. It’s disgusting.”
“Maybe we killed him,” O’Toole says, a vicious glee to his tone. “One less shifter in the world ain’t going to hurt nobody’s feelings.”
Grossed out by their conversation, I tune the officers out. They aren’t saying anything I haven’t heard a hundred times before. Anti-shifter rhetoric is everywhere, and it seems to be getting worse.
I ponder my unexpected situation, remembering the way the shifter leapt through the bay window of my client’s home, my lips curling as I see the humor in it. I can’t fathom why these officers thought we were breaking in. If I wanted to rob Yannis, that would be about the stupidest way to do it.
What I think happened is the poor electrocuted shifter thought I was his mate and went berserk when he saw me ‘die’ right in front of him.
Once he calms, he’ll realize his mistake, explain it to the police and pay for the damages he caused. I hope that’s what happens anyway. I’m not waiting to find out. As soon as I explain my side of things, I’m leaving. I need to find Laz and tell him I’m done with these murder mystery jobs.
The ride to the police station takes about twenty minutes and when we arrive, O’Toole opens my door. Climbing out, I ask, “Am I under arrest?” I try to sound respectful, but I’m getting annoyed.
I didn’t do anything wrong and if I’m not getting paid for the only gig I’ve had in weeks, then I want to go home and drown myself in cheap wine.
“Not yet,” he responds.
I’m about to ask him why I was forcibly relocated away from my car if I’m not under arrest when a loud crash comes from the building we’re walking towards. O’Toole and Landis look at each other and walk faster, dragging me along with them.
“Where the fuck is she?” A roar echoes through the station as O’Toole, Landis, and I enter the reception area. Reception is in an uproar with officers rushing around and shouting at each other, but there’s no sign of the out-of-control shifter they keep referencing.
A bolt of relief goes through me when I realize they probably mean my shifter. Well, not mine, but the one who jumped on me. He sounds relatively uninjured after his encounter with the taser guns.
“Where the fuck is she?” he roars again with enough volume to shake the walls around us.
It sets the hairs on my arms on end.
“I will tear this place apart if you don’t put her in front of me right now and if you fuckers put her in cuffs, I will break every neck in this place.”
All eyes go to my wrists, which are bare, and a ripple of relief goes through the station.
