"That would be my responsibility," I told him. "I'm serious, Tad. I'm having nightmares. I need to know what's going on."
And then, because he's honest and true and a real friend and a good cop, he told me.
There'd been two deaths of high school kids, both overdoses by good girls nobody even knew were doing fet. One had been a track runner who got injured and started abusing opioids. After a very expensive tour of facilities, her parents thought she was clean.
They were wrong.
The other girl had never met a drug she didn't like. Unfortunately, fentanyl didn't like her back.
There were reports coming in about bikers from other cities setting up shop and the Brotherhood starting to ride out to protect their territory. I reminded myself that Jesse was gone and that I'd never had an obligation to the group other than bringing them down.
I was still at cross purposes about that.
Bring them down.
Set them free.
No. Bring them down. Before they did to high school students what they'd done to me.
You did this to yourself.
True. But I had help.
"You hear anything about my dad?" I bit my lip and held my breath. The call was getting long. I had to let go and decide what I was going to do.
"He's okay. Visited recently."
"Because he had to?" While he'd been hospitalized IAD had dragged up old cases from when he was an active police officer and charged him with several counts of using excessive force.
He had. Sometimes. But he was a good cop.
"Once. Most of the charges have been dropped. What's left is a slap on the wrist that his old lot's unwilling to drop because it'll make him look weak. Nothing's going to happen to your old man."
"Thanks, Tad. What about the other time?"
I could hear the smile in his voice. "Came in to say hi. This place is hard to leave, Annie. So get the fuck better and get the fuck back here and then –"
We said it together. "Get the fuck back to work."
7
Cole
There were two girls on the bed. Not my bed, because there was a good chance it was going to get messed up.
What I'd done to Annie in the morning had me so hot I called Marilyn and Steph, had them show up and strip down and I'd been fucking them, the two of them tied one on top of the other so I could just move them up and down and take whatever hole I wanted.
Now that wasn't enough and I stripped the duct tape off them, gave Marilyn a dildo and said, "Hurt her."
I stood back, hard as a rock, stroking my cock as I watched Marilyn order Stephanie to her knees and start plunging the plastic phallus into Steph's ass. Steph grunted with every thrust, rocking forward.
Good. That was good. Beautiful to watch their breasts jiggling and hear Stephanie grunt.
But my mind was on what I was going to do to Annie.
Because I wanted to. Because I enjoyed it and she did too, even if she couldn't admit it yet.
And because the instant I'd walked in here to fuck the girls, I'd seen the red light shining on my phone by the bed.
She was getting bold. She hardly waited until I left the suite. Probably checking on her father. Or maybe on her job.
Didn't matter. Rules were rules. She was supposed to be out of contact with the so-called real world for her own good.
She should have listened.
8
Annie
He sent for me at noon.
Breakfast had been solo, a plate of fish and green stuff. I sometimes tried to identify it but apparently green healthy food has endless variations and in the end it didn't matter if it was seaweed or chard: It was all disgusting.
One time Cole had laughed and told me I was like a child, unwilling to eat what was good for me because I found it "yucky." He pointed out the importance of a balanced diet and laughed when I suggested ice cream was part of a balanced diet. Then he'd fed me the green stuff, bite by bite. It didn't make it less repellant. It didn't get me any ice cream, either.
The next time I took exception to the amount of healthy food on my plate versus the amount I was anxious and willing to put in my mouth, he slammed both fists down on the table, cleared it by the expediency of swiping all dishes onto the floor. He lifted me bodily onto the table and beat the hell out of my ass until I shrieked in pain and cried.
This morning it was green stuff and a book, a plate of eggs, and a spiral paper notebook and pen to take notes. I was getting an unofficial degree in criminal justice, it seemed. Cole felt that I might be with him for a year, though he hadn't actually said that to me yet. What he had said was that the time I spent with him should be worthwhile. Therefore I was studying so when I left, if I chose not to go back to Seattle PD or Seattle PD decided it was better off without me even if I was totally rehabbed, I'd have some options.
He thought DEA was a good choice for me. Having beaten an addiction and having a good arrest rate, they'd be lucky to have me, he'd said in a tone of voice that suggested he knew enough people in the agency to make certain of it.
That day during the boredom of yoga and meditation I'd pondered whether I'd be happy to get into the DEA that way. It was food for thought.
So was what I was reading as I ate. It was currently constitutional law, the case law that had come to be the go-to for amendments like Miranda, the case that led to the Miranda statement given to anyone arrested. Miranda came into being in a 1966 case in which the suspect had kidnapped and raped and after being arrested by officers at his house, was held in isolation and interrogated for two hours.
That seemed a fairly innocuous amount of time to me after having lived with Cole St. Martin for more than a month now, closer to two months with the amount of time I'd been gone.
But apparently two hours was enough for Miranda, who didn't have counsel with him or anyone advocating for him or telling him he had the right not to incriminate himself.
The Supreme Court of Arizona said his rights hadn't been violated and he could go ahead and serve those 20 to 30 years.
The U.S. Supreme Court didn't agree and found for Miranda. Out of that case law came the requirement to advise people upon arrest of their rights.
On some level I knew a lot of this. On others, it was interesting. It wasn't enough to keep me reading all day and when Cole was gone, I had too much time on my hands. But it was interesting. The idea that I could sail through classes after doing the coursework in my own form of custody and maybe start over in a different, more intense form of police work - That was welcome. It was something else to think about during meditation.
It wasn't enough to think about during other things.
Cole sent for me as I was finishing lunch, which was fish and green stuff and coffee. No bread, no chips, no lunch meat, no strawberries. I had a bad feeling about that. Cole knew I loved strawberries and since they're perfectly healthy, usually included them with my meals since – of course – there was no dessert.
When I got out of here, I was going to fall face-first into a German chocolate cake before I went out searching for the people on my list who were going to pay for their treatment of me.
For the first time ever, it occurred to me that Cole might make that list. What he'd done to me in the bathroom – my face flamed with humiliation again and I forced myself to concentrate again on the case law.