can straighten all this out to where it makes some
sense."
He opened the door for Crystal, Butterfly and
Raven and the four of us walked with him toward the
front of the building.
"It's all right," Crystal said. "It's just like we
discussed."
Raven looked at her as if she had gone mad and
then gazed at me as if I had betrayed her, betrayed
them all.
They put us in a large conference room. There
was a glass window across from us and I had seen
enough television shows and movies to imagine that it was a one-way window with people observing us on the other side. A police receptionist came in first and offered us soft drinks. Crystal asked for some tea and
the rest of us had Sprites.
"What's going to happen to us now?" Butterfly
asked in a tiny voice as she sipped her drink. "We could go to jail," Raven replied, fear raw
in her voice.
Butterfly looked at Crystal and then at me.
"Let's not rush to any conclusions," Crystal said.
"Let's see what they ask and say first."
Just then the door opened and a woman in her
late forties entered, wearing a deputy policeman's
uniform.
She didn't wear a pistol, but she had a pair of
handcuffs dangling off her belt. She carried a
clipboard and walked with a stiff, military posture. "My name's Lieutenant Mathews," she said,
pointing to a name tag that read MATHEWS above
her left breast. She sat across from us and just studied
our faces for a moment before looking down at her
sheets. "Who's Brooke Okun?"