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It was a small rectangle of a window that led into the basement. She pushed at the bottom of the casing and was surprised when it creaked inward, leaving a small area of space to wedge a small body through.
How precipitous.
And how cool that her mother made her study her SAT words all last summer to be able to use the word perfect for the setting.
Her mom was smart like that, and luckily, she took after her instead of Maisie.
More voices to her right. She slid beneath a nearby shrub.
Two men wearing the same uniforms armed with flashlights walked onto the patio. This time, she noticed the guns strapped to their hips.
Holding her breath, she waited, the beam of light coming within inches of her as she prayed they wouldn’t notice the open window less than five feet away from her.
Then the two men walked away, as if making their rounds and addressing another security location. She waited a few minutes before crawling on her hands and knees back to the window, saying a quick prayer to her dad in Heaven, turning onto her stomach, and sliding through the window feet first until they were both hanging on the other side, the window casing biting into her stomach.
She moved her legs around, pointing her toes and trying to find something for her feet to land on, but there was nothing.
Slowly, she pushed her torso through the small space, hanging by her fingertips. She sucked in a breath and released her fingers, falling several feet, her legs buckling beneath her.
* * *
Tati repeated her plan,which Grant was convinced was fraught with failure.
“Let’s go over this again. You’re going to pull Hillsboro over, walk up to his car with your uniform on. He’ll think it’s just your everyday police stop for speeding, failing to stop at a red light or something,” Tati said while pulling her duffel of disguises from the backseat.
“How long were you with Bureau again?” Grant asked.
“Funny. I’m serious. Now pay attention. Then, you tell him to step out of the car and while frisking him, handcuff him, and throw him in the trunk, giving us ample time to storm the estate and rescue Lucas, Birdie, and Flynn.”
“Let me update you on some police protocol you’ve obviously forgotten. Local police have jurisdiction over crimes within their city. State troopers have jurisdiction over state roads and statewide crimes. Federal policing agencies, like the one you were with, for what must have been a limited time, have jurisdiction over federal level crimes.
“I’m flagrantly outside of my jurisdiction, which you already know. And if I were to get caught falsely handcuffing a citizen without cause or due process and throwing him in a trunk, I could not only lose my job but be arrested for impersonating a local police officer.”
“But you have the authority, like any other plumber or road construction worker, to make a citizen’s arrest if there’s a felony. And how can you say there’s no just cause? I believe, tell me if I’m wrong, that driving into the office to force someone into a coma applies.”
She jumped out of the vehicle, and Grant had no other choice but to follow suit. Tati was on a mission.
Grant met her at the rear of the car where she was pulling more duffel bags from the trunk. “The officer has to witness the felony. I can’t intervene based on hearsay.”
She paused and turned toward him. “So me informing you that I was put into an induced coma is hearsay? Seriously right now?”
Grant’s insides were warring against one another as Tati lowered her head, her hands on her hips, and taking a deep breath. “Okay, you want to go all police chief-splaining on me? Fine. Let’s do this. Within the General Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, under section 28, titled arrest without warrant, it states, and I quote: An officer may arrest, without warrant, and detain a person whom the officer has probable cause to believe has committed a misdemeanor involving abuse as defined in section one of chapter two hundred and nine A.”
Dammit. She had a point, but it was a cloudy one. He didn’t like this, not one bit. “That’s a stretch, and you know it.”
Unfortunately, he could tell Tati was nearing the end of her rope. “Fine. What’s your plan? What’s your firecracker of a police chief of a strategy that plays by the rules and fits within the boxes of what you can and can’t do to keep a totally fucked-up doctor from putting your brother in a coma, or worse?” Tati threw what looked to be an old ladies’ gray wig inside one of her duffels and pulled the zipper closed. “Tell you what. You stay here and watch reruns ofThe Golden Girls, playing it safe and keeping your job intact while I go save your brother’s life.”
He needed more time. Needed to consider the pros and cons of what they were about to do. Maybe create a spreadsheet. “Just give me a minute to think this through.”
“We don’t have a minute, Grant. We need to act now. There are extenuating circumstances here.”
The woman just didn’t get it. “Again, there arealwaysextenuating circumstances. That’s why we have laws and rules and protocols. So that we’re not all losing our minds and going rogue.”
Tati threw the duffel on the ground, stalked toward him, and held his face in both hands.
“Are you with me or not?”
He shook his head. “Thumbing my nose at the law is not how I live my life or run my department.”
