Imperfectly Criminal Page 3

  Damn if this hasn’t been the weirdest day of my life. First, I hit someone with my car, then I have a great date that I still manage to ruin, and then Liz the slut apologizes for her slutty ways. I shake my head.

  I need to go to bed before anything else happens.

  I exit the restaurant, crossing the street to get back to my car. After turning the key in the ignition, I look around carefully before merging into traffic. This day has been bad enough, I don’t need any more traffic tickets. Halfway down the street, I see Liz standing next to a small, faded blue Toyota, a guy holding the passenger door open for her. Must be her brother. They look a lot alike. Same dark hair, same bone structure.

  I can’t see her eyes since she has the glasses on, but she seems upset. Her brother hugs her as I’m driving by.

  It doesn’t matter.

  I drive past them and head home.

  Chapter Five

  Freya

  The more I know about men, the more I like dogs.

  –Gloria Allred

  I’m late getting to the restaurant the next morning.

  “Hey guys.” I plunk down my purse and slide into the booth across from Jensen and Lucy just as he’s kissing her on the cheek.

  They’re so in love, it’s disgusting.

  “Try not to make me vomit before we eat,” I tell them with a groan.

  “You have the choice of averting your eyes,” Lucy says. Of course she makes no excuses. Lucy is adorable but she doesn’t know it. Well, maybe she knows it, but she doesn’t care. She’s not really the type to put any stock in appearances. She has long dark hair¸ wide brown eyes that notice everything and petite features that make her look younger than she is.

  “What’s the good word, Freya?” Jensen asks.

  “There is no good word,” I grumble, eyes down on the menu in front of me.

  “Still breaking hearts?” he asks with a grin.

  “Hardly.”

  The waitress comes over with her notepad and we order

  “What happened last night with your date?” Lucy asks once the waitress is gone.

  I groan into my hands and then give them the gory details. I tell them about the wonderful date that I ruined, and what happened with Liz the slut, but I leave out what happened with Dean. I don’t know why. I’ll tell Lucy eventually, but right now I feel…bad. I’m embarrassed that I hit someone with my car, and too full of guilt so I’m not ready to share yet.

  “Tough break, Frey,” Jensen says when I’ve finished the story.

  “What about James? The guy who works in the physics lab?” Lucy asks.

  She set me up with him last week.

  “Oh, you mean the farter.”

  Jensen’s mouth drops open. “The what?”

  “He farted fifteen times during dinner,” I say.

  “No,” Lucy says, shaking her head. “I don’t believe it. You’re exaggerating.”

  “Yes! He did! I counted. And he would yell ‘Fore!’ after each one.”

  “No!”

  Lucy is aghast, but Jensen is cracking up.

  “Yes! I can’t make these things up.” I lift my hands and let them plop down on the table in a gesture of surrender.

  “He doesn’t do that at work,” Lucy says, her expression concerned. “He seems so normal.”

  “They all do,” I say with a sigh. “But then they come around me and turn into weirdos. And if they’re not weird, I am. I’m done with guys, really. No more dates, no more men for me. I think I’m going to be a lesbian.” I look at Lucy. “Will you make out with me? I need to see if this will work.”

  I start to lean over the table with puckered lips, and she pushes me back with a laugh.

  Our food arrives and after the server puts down the plates Jensen asks me, “Are you sure you don’t want to try again? There’s a single guy who has a show this weekend at the gallery and he seems fairly normal.”

  “No!” I say a little too vehemently. “I mean, it’s no big deal. I don’t need a man to make me happy. I just need a distraction. A nondate distraction. Something to keep my mind off of, I don’t know, everything.”

  What I really need is something, anything to erase my last, terrible experience with intimacy.

  A flash of Dean all hunky and angry flashes in my mind, and I immediately shove the thought away. That is not a helpful distraction.

  “So. How’ve you guys been?” I ask in an upbeat tone, glad to switch the conversation onto them so that I can listen and nod while I stuff my face.

  I love food. Food trumps men every time. It’s constant and delicious, and hell, you need it to survive. I do not need a man to survive. I just wanted one to erase the pain the last one left behind.

  ***

  Two days after my breakfast with Lucy and Jensen, I’m walking through campus and heading towards my car. It’s a warm day, spring is finally peeking its head onto this side of the world, but despite the beauty of the day and the buds bursting open into pink flowers on trees, I can’t help but feel like a turd sandwich.

  “You hit him with your car?” Lucy’s voice asks in my ear.

  I finally got over myself and spilled everything to her. It was only a matter of time.

  “Yes,” I say into the phone while navigating through people heading the opposite direction through the quad. “It was an accident! I got a reckless driving ticket—my mom is going to love that—and he said he might sue me.”

  “Have you heard from him since?”

  “No. Not a peep. He’s letting me simmer in nervous anticipation, the big creep.”

  “Maybe he won’t press charges.”

  “I doubt that. He told me he would and he was pretty pissed.”

  “Why don’t you just call him and find out?”

  “Oh, right,” I scoff. “He would love that, me calling to grovel and beg for mercy. No way.”

  The phone beeps in my ear and I pull it away from my head to see who’s calling on the other line. It’s a number I don’t recognize.

  “Luce, I gotta go, I’ll call you later,” I say and switch to the other line. “Hello?”

  “Freya?” It’s a male voice.

  “Yes?” I’m not sure who this is, but he sounds smoldery.

  “It’s Dean.”

  Speak of the devil.

  “Oh, hey! Mob guy!” I say. I shouldn’t taunt him. Seems like a bad decision since he could be suing me and all, but I just can’t control myself.

  “Would you quit calling me that? I’m not a mob guy.”

  “Aww, mob man is grumpy!” I say, like I’m speaking to a child. I start to cheer up. Yes, I’m stuck in a seventh circle of hell, but at least I can make someone else miserable, too.

  “Look, I don’t have a lot of time. You’re pre-law right?” he asks in a low voice, and then continues without waiting for my answer. “I need your help.”

  That’s weird.

  “Uh, you realize pre-law is nothing like law school, right? And it’s even farther from passing the bar exam and being an actual lawyer. I just take more poli-sci classes than your average student.” I hear a strange noise in the background. Like someone on a walkie-talkie.

  “Where are you?” I ask.

  “County jail.”

  I stop walking. “Come again?”

  “I’m in jail,” he says a little louder.

  “You didn’t have to say it again, I heard you the first time. What are you doing there, they finally bust your gambling ring?”

  He makes an annoyed sound into the phone. “No. I didn’t know who else to call. I remembered you talking about the law school, and…I used my one phone call on you.”

  “That was stupid,” I scoff.

  “Look, they’ve had me in for questioning all day long. I know they don’t have enough to charge me, but I think they’re trying to keep me here as long as possible just to be dicks. I need you to help me find out what’s going on. I don’t have anyone else to ask, and if you help me, I won’t press charges for the wh
ole running me over thing.”

  “Why are they detaining you in the first place?”

  There’s a pause and I hear someone in the background say, “One minute.”

  “I don’t have time to explain. I’ll call you again when they let me go, just promise you’ll help me.”

  “If I promise to help you, you won’t sue me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I get that in writing?”

  “Yes!”

  “I don’t know, I’m not even sure what I’ll be helping you with. What if you want me to do something shady or illegal?”

  “Nothing illegal, I promise. I need help with research and legal things.”

  “But you’re in the clink now; how do I know I can trust you?”

  “I’m not in the clink,” he grinds out. “I’m being held for questioning. They have nothing to charge me with.”

  “Actually, they could hold you for up to seventy-two hours while the prosecutor works on building a case against you. The cops can’t charge you with anything, only the prosecutor can. And if they don’t have enough evidence, they can hold you for that entire length of time before they let you go.”

  He lets out a frustrated groan.

  “Time’s up,” I hear someone say in the background.

  “I have to go,” Dean says.

  He really sounds upset and desperate.

  I feel a twinge of guilt in my chest and then I open my big mouth.

  “I’ll help you,” I say quickly. “As a matter of fact, if you drop your case against me, I’ll start helping you right now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You just sit tight and don’t worry. I’ll see you soon, sweet cheeks.”

  There’s a shuffle and a click and I’m not sure he heard my last endearment.

  Doesn’t matter. I shove my phone in my bag while I’m walking, moving quickly towards the parking lot.

  ***

  I have to go home to change before rescuing Dean. Maybe this isn’t the best decision. I mean, I don’t have to get him out of his current predicament, but if I do, he won’t have that whole running-him-over thing to hold over my head so much. I can get myself some leverage and stop feeling so guilty.

  This is crazy. I don’t even know what he did to get picked up in the first place—what if it’s something totally awful? He’s sort of a bad boy. I know this. It’s why I hired him to beat up Cameron in the first place. I heard he once got in a fight with ten guys and walked away with them all bleeding and collapsed around him, like some fucking superhero.

  I throw on the business suit my mom bought me before I started school. I’ve never worn it because the blazer makes me look like a linebacker, but it’ll work for me today. I pull my hair back into a severe knot before racing back out the door to my car.

  Here goes nothing.

  ***

  The county lockup isn’t exactly what I expected. It looks more like a sleek office building than a holding for criminals. I walk in as confidently as possible towards the front desk while tossing my hair out behind me before realizing my hair is pulled back and the effect is rather lost.

  “I’m here to see my client,” I say as haughtily as I can muster although I’m shaking in my sensible heels. I would have loved to wear my stilettos, but they looked more hooker than lawyer. I wanted to look like I belonged on the right side of the bars.

  The clerk doesn’t even glance up at me. She looks like Nurse Ratched but with a taser instead of the little white cap.

  “Name,” she barks.

  “Freya Morgan, attorney-at-law.”

  Now her eyes flick up at me. Maybe I should have left out the whole “attorney-at-law” bit. Was that over the top?

  “Your client’s name?” she asks in monotone.

  “Right,” I say. “Dean.”

  Shit. I don’t know his last name. I’m lucky I remembered his first name, and didn’t call him Thor or Mob guy. My mouth dries and my palms sweat. I’m fucked.

  “Dean Collins?” she asks, tapping something into the computer.

  “Yes,” I say quickly. Dammit, I hope that’s him. There can’t be that many Deans being held for questioning. Can there? “Dean Collins,” I repeat with a nervous swallow.

  She gives a brisk nod. “They’re in interrogation room C. You’ve been here before right?”

  “Sure. Yes. Of course.” If I answer in the affirmative three times, does that make it any less of a lie?

  “I’ll need your ID.”

  I take it out and hand it over—hopefully she doesn’t look too carefully at the age—and she hands me a guest pass on a lanyard. I put it on over my head and it seems I’m dismissed. I walk around the clerk’s counter and down a short hallway. It leads me through a doorway into an office area that’s larger than it looked like it would be from the outside. There are quite a few cubicles with people bustling about. A man is cursing at the copy machine. I sidestep him and head towards a few doors along the far wall. There are plaques outside each doorway with names and room numbers. C. Must find C.

  It only takes me a few minutes, and then I burst into the interrogation room.

  Chapter Six

  Dean

  The good lawyer is not the man who has an eye to every side and angle of contingency and qualifies all his qualifications, but who throws himself on your part so heartily, that he can get you out of a scrape.

  — Ralph Waldo Emerson

  I can’t quite believe this is happening to me.

  I’m exhausted. The real bitch of it is that I almost didn’t take this last job, but when I tried to get out of the gig, the girlfriend offered me double what I normally charge.

  The room I’m in is sterile and gray. The detectives have been questioning me for hours, but I have nothing more to tell them.

  We’re engaging in yet another staring contest when door swings open, banging against the wall.

  Freya marches in.

  What the actual fuck?

  “Good afternoon.” She nods at the detectives, whom I’ve named Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dumber because remembering their actual names would humanize them too much, and I prefer to keep people who want me imprisoned in the non-friend zone.

  “Mr. Collins is my client. I would like a moment with him, please,” she says firmly.

  I can’t believe she’s doing this. She can’t get away with it, there’s no way they’re going to believe—

  “Are you aware that your client is being questioned in connection with multiple homicides?” Tweedle-dumber asks her.

  Okay, maybe they will believe her. Morons.

  I catch the flicker of shock that shoots through her expression when she hears what I’m in for, but she manages to cover it fairly well.

  “Of course I’m aware of that,” she says.

  The detectives stand there and stare at her.

  She puts one hand on her hip. “Can I have a moment now, or are there any other asinine questions you wish to attempt to shock me with?”

  Once they’re gone, she throws herself into the chair across from me and lets out a gusty sigh. “This is like, the most stressful thing, ever,” she says.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I don’t mean to sound like an ass, but I can’t help it. I’m tired. Hungry. Grumpy. And what the hell is she doing? She can’t help me if she gets locked up, too.

  “Touchy, touchy. I came to bust you out.” She straightens up in the seat, the motion pushing her chest out a little and my eyes can’t help but be drawn to the movement before I snap them up to her eyes. She has nice eyes. Kind eyes. Big and brown and warm. Like honeyed whiskey.

  Jesus, I need to get out of here. The fact I’m having these thoughts about anyone proves that I’ve seriously lost it.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” I whisper harshly. “You’re not a lawyer.

  She considers me for a second. “Fine. I can leave if you prefer to be deloused and forced to sleep on a small cot with a large dude named Hank.”
<
br />   I blink at her and try not to crack my teeth as my jaw clenches. I forcibly have to relax. I called her, after all, and she is trying to help me, misguided though her attempt might be. This isn’t really what I meant when I told her I needed her help.

  “I’m sorry.” I scrub at the stubble lining my jaw. “It’s been a pretty shitty day.”

  “I got that from the whole multiple homicide thing, are you kidding me? What the hell happened?”

  “Jesse Carmichael,” I say, speaking in a low voice.

  She shakes her head, but then I see the moment when the recognition hits her and her eyebrows go up so much, they nearly hit her hairline. “The guy that was found dead on campus? They think you killed him? Then what’s with the multiple?”

  “They found another body this morning, Matt Ellison.”

  She just stares at me with an odd expression on her face.

  I frown at her. “I didn’t kill them!”

  “Did I say anything? I was just thinking that name sounds familiar, but I’m not sure where I know it from.” She taps her lips with her finger.

  I don’t answer for a moment, watching her thoughts fly across her face. It’s one of the things I like about her: you can always tell what she’s thinking, and if you can’t she’ll probably tell you. There’s no prevarication. No hiding. So unlike most girls in college. It’s one of the reasons I thought of her to call first. Plus the pre-law thing. And I had no one else to call.

  “Matt and Jesse…” I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry. “Their girlfriends paid me to knock some sense into them. Ever since you hired me to beat up Kevin—”

  “Cameron,” she corrects.

  “Whatever. Ever since then, beating up exes has become sort of a side business.”

  “Really? I’m like a trendsetter.” This seems to perk her up.

  “Yes. I knew this world was full of vengeful bitches, I just didn’t realize how many lived within a five-mile radius.”