I ball my fists then force them to relax.
“At this stage, we’re still gathering information,” he continues as we all get seated. “With your permission, we’ll record this interview, then Zach and I will decide if filing charges is warranted.”
“I can tell you right now, it’s not.”
Zach arches an eyebrow. “Go ahead and walk us through what you saw.”
Rolland starts the recording.
I spend the next ten minutes rattling off the sequence of events, making sure to outline douche canoe’s moves. Recounting how he kissed Meg stirs me up and I have to lunge for one of the bottles of water in the middle of the table to steady my nerves.
“At any part of this interaction, did you touch Mr. Locke?”
Mr. Locke? How about we call him Russet? Yes, like the potato. He’s certainly pasty like one.
“Nope.” And a fucking miracle I didn’t.
“He’s claiming you shoved him.”
I bite back my laugh. If I had shoved this guy, he would have ended up on his ass. “Didn’t happen.”
Rolland and Zach make eyes at each other, then Zach leans his elbows on the table. “What happened after you carried Meg back to the sidewalk?”
“I took her and her friend home.”
“You didn’t go after Mr. Locke?”
Hot anger spikes beneath my skin but I exhale another cooling breath. “Nope.” Is that his story? That I went at him? There were plenty of bystanders who will attest that I did no such thing, so I’m not worried.
I’m pissed.
If this asshole thinks he can stir up shit like this in my town, we’re going to have a very big problem.
“Who besides Everett and Sepp can back you up on this?”
The detail he’s after stalls on my tongue. I clench my fists and release them. “Trina Guthrie and her sidekick Stacy were with the pilots.”
A muscle in Rolland’s cheek flutters. I’m sure he knows about Trina and her past—thanks to the legal issues involved with her escape from Sons of Eden. Which means he probably knows about me and Ev, though our story is very different.
Rolland and Zach lock eyes for a second, and Zach rubs down his chin. The energy in the room has a charge to it that wasn’t there before I dropped Trina’s name.
I don’t know what it means, but my guard is up.
Rolland stands. “Hang tight,” he says to me with a nod. “We’ll be back.”
He and Zach slip from the room, leaving me alone with the buzzing clock above the door and the tall, blank walls that feel like they’re inching closer with each passing minute. I lean back in the chair and remind myself that I’m not trapped here—I can leave whenever I want—but I last all of two minutes in the chair.
From my pocket, I pull out my hackey sack and push the chair out of the way so I can play. By the time Zach returns, I’m so deep in the zone it takes the cool rush of air from the hallway to snap me out of it.
“You’ve been cleared,” Zach says as I wipe my brow with my sleeve.
I frown. “What about Meg?”
He grimaces. “She got community service.”
“That’s bullshit.”
His eyes tense but he doesn’t reply. Probably because he can’t. “Thanks for coming in.”
