by Leonie Gant
Chapter Seven
After being bundled up in a police car for the second time in two days, I found myself back at the police station. Eleanor and Emily had been transported to hospital. I, on the other hand, was considered a dangerous criminal and was required to sit in the interrogation room for a full hour before Griffin and Ramos walked in again. Griffin had an icepack on his eye which I was willing to bet was just for show. I mean seriously, he’d been hit over an hour ago. The two sat down and I looked at them sourly.
“This is ridiculous, it was an accident. I want my attorney now.”
“Okay then,” said Griffin, laying the ice pack on the desk between us. “You have requested an attorney so you don’t have to speak again until your attorney turns up. Until that moment I am going to talk and I hope you are listening. Since you’ve been arrested, I have been photographed and I have completed a report regarding the assault I suffered at your hands. You are currently looking at a felony count for assaulting a police officer. If I choose to go ahead and press charges.”
“It was an accident.” I couldn’t believe this was happening.
“It may have been,” shrugged Griffin, “or it could have been deliberate. If I press charges we can leave it up to the court to decide. You may be lucky and find a jury who agrees with you, or you may get a jury that isn’t happy that a foreigner comes to America and commits felony crimes here. Regardless, your life becomes infinitely more difficult and if you are found guilty and sentenced to jail, even if it is suspended, your green card goes away and you get deported.”
“Why would you do that?” I asked, stunned. I was having trouble understanding. I looked desperately at Ramos but her expression was completely blank.
“Alternatively,” Griffin said as if I hadn’t spoken, “you have another option.”
I looked at Griffin and just knew I was not going to like my other option.
“We need to get into the world you are in. We understand that you attend a lot of celebrity events, most of it is not part of your paid work, but you are expected to attend anyway.”
I nodded, feeling numb.
“We also understand, it is ostensibly a social gathering for you, despite the fact you are supposed to be working. As a result you are permitted to bring a plus one.”
I nodded silently again, knowing that I was not liking where this was going.
“If you would be amenable to me being your plus one for the foreseeable future, I may find you to have acted in the public interest and would be motivated not to press charges.”
So there it was, I was going to be blackmailed by the police. They could put any number of pretty words around it but it ended up being the same thing. I had not even had a parking ticket in my life and now I had a felony assault charge hanging over my head. My first instinct was to tell the douchebag, as I was now calling him, to go shove it and get my attorney for me now. Thinking about it though, I knew if I got a record for felony assault I could not only kiss my career goodbye in America. No other country in the world would give me a working visa with that kind of record. Still the idea of working with the evil douchebag after what he was trying to pull was almost more than I could take.
“If I were to agree,” I said quietly, “why can’t Ramos be my plus one?”
“Because if I’m going to be seen at these things regularly, it’s better if I’m your new boyfriend.”
“Number one, nobody’s going to believe that. You’ve already been seen as a detective by at least one other staff member. Number two, this is the twenty first century. Nobody’s going to blink at me bringing a female plus one.”
“Can I please speak to the prisoner alone?” said the douchebag, keeping his eyes on me.
Ramos left the room and the door closed quietly.
“What’s your real problem with doing this?” he asked, perfectly calmly, as if destroying my life was nothing to him.
“My real problem,” I hissed. I couldn’t believe he was being so obtuse. “You know perfectly well I was only trying to break them up before someone got hurt. I didn’t even know you were behind me. I got grabbed and I reacted. Now because of that you are threatening to destroy my life. I thought cops were supposed to be the good guys.” I could feel the tears pricking my eyes and I blinked furiously to stop them.
He put his hand over mine gently. “We are the good guys, I just need a way in.”
I snatched my hand away from him. “Don’t touch me,” I said with as much venom as I could muster. “I’ll do this but only because I don’t have a choice. I don’t want you touching me at all. You can tell yourself that you’re doing the right thing all you want, but underneath it all, you and I both know that the way you are doing this is completely wrong. Once this case is finished, how do I know that you won’t still press charges?”
“I give you my word that I won’t press charges,” Griffin said.
“Strangely enough your honor is not something I am particularly inclined to trust at the moment,” I said derisively.
Griffin flinched and it felt good to have got at least one point on him. “Look,” he said angrily. “Ryan Hendricks died of a cardiac arrest.”
“If he died of a heart attack, why the hell do you need me?” I asked.
“A week ago Ryan Hendricks had a full medical exam for insurance for a movie he’s doing. At that time his heart was perfectly healthy. It doesn’t add up. Something happened in the last week that killed him. I need to find out what that was. There’s a possibility that there is a new drug on the street that we can’t detect. We are getting stonewalled from every side. No one is talking and we don’t have enough to force them to talk. This is the only way we have any chance of finding out what happened.”
“You could have asked me before threatening to destroy my life,” I said.
“Would you have done it?” he asked.
“We won’t know now will we?” I said.
“I’m not the bad guy here,” Griffin said angrily.
“Sitting on this side of the desk,” I said, “yes, you are.”
Ramos poked her head in. “Her attorney is here,” she said quietly.
“That’s okay,” said Griffin. “She’s free to go.”
Ramos handed over my bag.
“I’ve programmed my number into your cell,” Griffin said. “You need to let me know when the next event is.”
As I walked past him, he grabbed my arm. “Do you understand what I am telling you?” he said.
“Yes,” I replied dully, pulled my arm away and walked towards Reggie.
Seeing my face, Reggie knew not to say anything. Gently he led me out to his car, settled me in the passenger seat and then turned to me.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I turned to him. “I’m fine,” I said, and in one of my not proud moments, I burst into tears.
Dear, sweet Reggie didn’t ask anything else. He just wrapped his arms around me and let me sob on his shirt. I was scared and overwhelmed, and right in that moment I just needed someone else to take care of me. In between hiccupping sobs, I told Reggie what had happened.
“I’m taking you to Monique,” said Reggie.
“My car is still at Eleanor’s,” I said.
“Give me the keys and I’ll get someone to pick it up and deliver it to your home,” he said. “I think the three of us need to sit down and work out what we’re going to do.”
“I have a deal with the detective,” I said. “There’s nothing I can do.”
“Then we work our way around that. Don’t worry, Trudie,” Reggie said, with his trademark confident grin. “We won’t let anything happen to you.”
