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A knot of guilt had formed in my stomach the moment the police cruiser pulled away from my house with Roan in the backseat, and it had only gotten worse in the past ten minutes. When I originally called Charlotte, I told myself it was because I needed someone to tell me I’d done the right thing, but now that we’d spoken, I knew that wasn’t the case. She was the one I called because I knew I could count on her to give me the truth, no matter how much I might not want it.
“God, I’m going to have to go bail him out, aren’t I?”
She cackled hysterically through the line. “Go drop the charges, they’ll let him out without any issue. Leo and Micah are good guys.”
Leo and Micah were two detectives on the Hope Valley police force. When they’d been trying to shut down a drug ring some years back, Charlotte had been their informant on the inside. Since that whole drama went down, the three of them had grown incredibly close. Charlotte was also tight with their wives, Danika and Hayden.
I let out a heavy breath and steeled my nerves. “All right. I’m gonna go get him. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Call me tomorrow,” she demanded before I could hang up. “I’m desperate to know how this is going to play out!”
That made two of us.
21
ALMA
The sun had set by the time I pulled up in front of the police department. I didn’t know the rules for getting someone out of lockup, but I could only hope there wasn’t some kind of time limit and Roan wasn’t going to have to spend the night behind bars.
I pulled the glass door open and stepped into the brightly lit building, walking up to the officer manning the front desk.
He looked up from the file he’d been flipping through, and I gave him a shaky smile. I wasn’t sure why cops made me so jittery. I’d never been in trouble in my life, not so much as a speeding ticket, but every time I had to talk to one of them, I got all nervous and flustered. “Hi, uh, are Leo Drake or Micah Langford on duty tonight?”
He grinned back. “Sure thing. They’re up in the bullpen.” He jerked his chin in the direction of a set of stairs half the length of a regular one. “Just head on up. Can’t miss ’em.”
I thanked him and started in the direction he’d indicated, discovering quickly that he was right. Not because the area was easy to navigate—it was, but that was beside the point—but because all I had to do was follow the raucous laughter to the huddle of people in the center of the bullpen.
All of the desks had been abandoned as the cops in uniform and plain-clothed detectives centralized around one clump of desks. I heard someone speaking, then a moment later, the crowd fell into laughter all over again.
As I got closer, I could see everyone was gathered around the desks of Leo, Micah, and two other detectives, Hayes Walker and Patrick “Trick” Wanderly, Nona’s husband. And everyone was gathered around because RoanfreakingBlackwell stood in the very center of the crowd, regaling them with some story that had them all in stitches.
“So I looked at the guy and said, ‘Hey, don’t blame me. I just work here.’”
Another burst of laughter went up from everyone. I didn’t know what the hell Roan was telling them, but it didn’t sound like much of a punchline to me. Still, the men and women who protected our town were in hysterics.
I cleared my throat and shot a flat look at Fred Duncan, the first officer who turned around and spotted me standing there.
“Oh shit.”
It was like a domino effect after that, heads turning in my direction, looks of guilt at being caught slacking off on their job and people scurrying away back to their desks.
Then there was Roan. Absolutely no worse for the wear.
“Freckles,” he greeted boisterously, throwing his arms out wide. “This is a nice surprise.”
I kept my expression blank as I folded my arms over my chest. “Well, I was at home and I got to thinking that maybe I overreacted. So I came here thinking I’d try to get you out so you didn’t have to spend the night in lockup.” I shot a glare at Leo and Micah, then turned it on Hayes and Trick. “Guess things are a little less strict around here than I thought.”
“What did you expect us to do?” Hayes asked, his brows rising high on his forehead. “Beat him with a phone book?”
“Maybe delouse and spray him down with a fire hose?” Leo threw in.
“No, I didn’t expect that,” I said sarcastically. “But I also didn’t expect to walk in here and see you guys having a freaking tea party.”
“Don’t be like that, Alma,” Micah, the most charming one of the group, started. “What can we say? He’s a really cool guy.”
Oh, I knew that all too well. The man was too charismatic for his own damn good, and he was way too talented at turning it off and on. “Fine. Whatever,” I grumbled. “So is he free to go if I drop the charges or whatever?”
Roan smiled like he’d just won the lottery.
