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“What’s wrong?” Anemone said.
“Probably nothing,” I said, but then Imani walked in and said, “Vince has been arrested.” I thought,Oh, hell, they found out he broke into the development,and then she added, “For possession.”
Drugs? “It’s a frame,” I said.
“He wouldn’t,” Anemone said.
I looked at Imani. “If it’s that little tick Bartlett—”
“County,” Imani said. “We should go now,” and I went out to her car with her, fear morphing right into rage.
Somebody set him up. As payback. If it was Cash, he was going to lose some of those damn perfect teeth.
Of course it was Cash.
I told Anemone she could stay at the factory, go through it with Jason, and make plans for the future, but you can imagine how well that went.
When we got the county lockup, Imani steamrolled everybody in her path with her preternatural calm, those piercing eyes, and the law. I don’t know why everybody doesn’t just roll over and play dead when she walks in.
I, on the other hand, was this close to throwing a fit or throwing up, so when one of the goons who’d arrested him, a bald guy, tried to tell us that we couldn’t see him, I lost it.
“Listen to me, you asshole, if there were drugs in the Gladiator, you planted them, and since you obviously have the brains of a grape seed, you’ll have screwed that up in some way, and you’re taking your partner down with you, so when our suit for false arrest wipes out this place’s budget for the next ten thousand years, the first cost-cutting action will be your stupid,criminalasses.”
His partner turned even paler as the bald guy took a step forward, and Imani said, “Touch her and she’ll retire on your net worth while you meet new friends in prison,” and then this big older guy with four stars on his collar came in and asked, “What the hell is going on?” and saw Anemone and stopped in his tracks, stunned.
That’s when it got almost funny. Vince was in jail, so not funny, but . . .
It turned out that the sheriff had seenCoed Summer, one of the movies Anemone had romped through when she was seventeen, and the sheriff had evidently been a teenager, and the images had imprinted on his brain. He changed from a gruff, annoyed, middle-aged, take-charge kind of guy into a fourteen-year-old fan boy in about a nanosecond. Imani and I watched in dumbfounded admiration as Anemone reduced him to a puddle of goo as only she can do.
When she suggested that perhaps two of his men were responsible for the suit for false arrest we were about to bring, the younger of the two looked at my t-shirt that said, “Look Both Ways Before You Cross Me,” and nodded his head toward the door behind him.
I followed him when he opened it, and he took me down a hall to the cells, where Vince was stretched out on a cot, his hands behind his head, studying the ceiling.
“You’re looking very calm for a dangerous drug-dealing felon,” I said, so relieved to see him in one piece I could have cried.
He rolled his head to look at me. “I called Imani. I figured I’ll be out by dinner.”
“Sooner than that. Turns out the sheriff is a big fan ofCoed Summer.”When he frowned, I said, “Anemone’s teen movie debut. I believe she was seventeen and in a bikini, much like Patsy on YouTube. And evidently the sheriff was also a teen and in a movie theater. He has the movie poster in mint condition and is making plans to meet her so she can sign it.”
“She was in a movie when she was seventeen?”
“That’s how she met the goomba she married. Are you okay?” I hadn’t meant to ask that last part, but this whole thing scared the hell out of me.
“I’m fine,” he said calmly, but he sat up now.
“Imani should be getting you a nice settlement from the county about now,” I said, glaring at the cop. “Starting with false arrest.”
But Vince was shaking his head. “They thought they were doing a legit bust.”
“What?”
Vince nodded at the blond-haired cop, who’d stayed silent through this conversation. “He showed me his bodycam footage. The drugs were in the swingarm container in the back of the Gladiator. I don’t lock it since it just holds my stove and some food and my mocha. They didn’t plant them. They were in there. Someone else must have last night at the Pink House. I didn’t lock the Gladiator because I didn’t think anyone would do anything up there.”
“Cash,” I said.
Vince nodded. “That’s my guess. It’s too dumb for the Wolves, I doubt O’Toole does his own night work, and Franco would spit at the idea.”
“So if it wasn’t them, how did they know to stop you?”
