He damn well better not bedoinganything with her aside from booking her in, not if he wants to keep his arms.
Paul waddles away, shouting for Davidson. I lean back against the desk, cooling my heels. It takes too goddamn long for him to reappear.
"She's got a mouth on her, doesn't she?" he asks, grinning at me.
"Indeed, she does." I warned her not to say anything for that exact reason. With her mouth, she may very well talk her way into more charges before I get her out of here.
"It'll be a bit before she's ready to go. Davidson is doing the paperwork now."
"Fine. Let me know as soon as she's ready."
"Will do," he says.
A while turns into an hour and a half. By the time they get the paperwork done, I'm no longer sure she isn't going to kill me. I'm even less sure when Davidson leads me back to see her, and I find her on a bench in a small, dimly-lit holding cell, glaring at the bars like she's trying to melt them with her mind.
She's no longer cuffed, but she's got her feet tucked under her on the bench, almost as if she's afraid to let them touch the grimyfloor. Not that I blame her. God only knows what that floor has seen. The stain in the far corner looks like blood. Or shit.
I've seen enough in my life to know it could be either.
"You've got a visitor," Davidson announces to her, still shaking his head like he has no fucking clue what's happening here.
Frankly, I'm not sure I do, either. I just know I want this woman in ways I've never wanted anything, and I'm not just talking about in my bed. I want her in my life, complicating it the way she has since I met her.
She lifts her head, her gaze falling on me as Davidson retreats. If I thought she was pissed when she stomped off in cuffs, I was wrong. She's beyond pissed now.
"Did you know," she says slowly, rising to her feet, "that they fingerprint you when they arrest you? Because I didn't know that, River." She lifts her hands, showing me the ink stains on her fingers. "My fingerprints are in a criminal database now."
They aren't actually. Davidson didn't submit them since Alexa refused to file any charges. Thanks to her, Jasmine won't even have a court date. She's free to go at this point, like this never happened.
Knowing people doesn't suck.
"Do you still want to camp out on my porch forever, princess?" I ask, leaning up against the wall outside of her cell.
"No, actually." She eyes me up and down like she's trying to decide the most painful way to murder me. "I've decided to bury 900 alarm clocks in your yard, all set for different times of the day. Just when you think the coast is clear and you can concentrate again, bam!" She slams her hands together. "There's another one, ruining your life, every single day until the batteries die." Her smile is downright savage. "You'll never write at home again."
"That's cruel."
"So was having me arrested, you overgrown, egotistical, arrogant, insufferableass!" she cries.
"Are you saying you haven't been stalking me?"
"I was framed."
I throw my head back, my laugh echoing off the cinderblock walls. "Please, walk me through how you came to that conclusion."
"You baited and entrapped me, then had me arrested. And the police are clearly on your side because they refuse to let me file charges against you for extortion and blackmail." She glowers at me. "You paid them off, didn't you?"
"Nope. They just like me." Since I moved here five years ago, I've made friends with half the force. It's not hard to do when they're in the diner damn near every time I am. They keep an eye on my place. I sign shit for their wives. It's a win-win.
"No one likes you, River. You're an ass."
"You want to get out of here?"
"No, I want to stay here and be Bertha's bitch." She rolls her eyes, ignoring the fact that she's in her cell alone. "Of course I want to get out of here. Does anyone evernotwant to leave jail?"
"Yes, actually. Happens all the time."
She massages her forehead. "I'm too tired to even ask how you know that."
