Reckoning (Wolfes of Manhattan 5)

Innocent people got convicted all the time. The system wasn’t perfect by any means.

I never thought I’d be on this side of it. Did anyone?

Only now was I realizing exactly what was happening. Before, I’d been numb. Frozen and numb. But now? I was arrested. In police custody for a murder I didn’t commit.

Lacey Wolfe, you’re under the arrest for the murder of Derek Wolfe. You have the right to remain silent…

The officers didn’t acknowledge Rock.

I said nothing. I didn’t beg Rock to help me, though I was pleading inside. On the outside I was determined to appear strong.

Truth be told, I was scared out of my mind.

Chills spiked along my flesh as I stood facing a camera. Then my profile.

I, Lacey Ward Wolfe, good girl extraordinaire, had a mug shot. A fucking mug shot.

Paperwork. Paperwork. Paperwork.

And then…

A holding cell.

Rock was working on this. I knew that. I’d be out of here quickly, right? He could push this through without an arraignment. But what if he couldn’t? What if I had to spend the night here? In a jail cell?

Three other women were in my cell. Two were obviously prostitutes, and the other was a young woman who sat crying in the corner. A toilet and sink sat in another corner.

And then I had to pee. Of course. No way was I taking a piss in front of these other women.

Come on, Rock. Please.

I wasn’t wearing a watch, and they’d taken my phone, of course. My purse was back at the office. They hadn’t let me bring it when they arrested me.

I sighed, willing back the tears that threatened to fall. This was it. I’d hit rock bottom. Rock bottom, and I hadn’t done anything wrong.

You never think it will happen to you.

A guard walked to the holding cell. “Wolfe?”

I nodded and attempted to swallow the lump in my throat. “That’s me.”

“An attorney is here to see you.”

“Hey!” one of the prostitutes said in a raspy smoker’s voice. “I never get to talk to my attorney except on Tuesdays.”

The guard ignored her, opened the cell door, let me out, locked it, and slapped cuffs on me.

“Is this really necessary?” I asked. “Do I look like I could overpower you?”

“Regulations, ma’am,” he said.

I resisted rolling my eyes. I understood rules and regulations. I was an attorney, for God’s sake. But I was also innocent!

“Unreal,” I said under my breath.

A few minutes later, I was in another room, where Lester Parker, head of the legal team at Wolfe Enterprises, sat. The guard left us.

I held up my cuffed wrists. “Can’t you do anything about this?”

“I’m sorry, Lacey. I’ve tried.”

“Call Dane Richards from my old firm. He’s the best criminal attorney I know. Rock will pay him anything.”

“We’re already assembling a top notch defense team,” Lester said, “but first things first. I’m working on getting you out of here. We’re getting your arraignment on Judge Foster’s docket for six o’clock tonight. He’s staying late for you.”

Baxter Foster, father of my old partner Blaine Foster, never stayed late. That was a known fact. He was near retirement and only put in his eight hours, if that. “Foster?”

“We’ve made it worth his while,” Lester said. “Can you hold out until then?”

I looked around the windowless room. No clock. “I don’t have a clue what time it is, Les. I don’t have a watch or a phone, and the clock outside the holding cell doesn’t work.

“Sorry.” He glanced at his phone. “It’s two thirty-five.”

Two thirty-five. Over three hours. Could my bladder make it until then?

“Do I have a choice?” I asked.

“Not really. We can’t just post bail and they let you out. Not on a murder charge.”

“Not even for—”

I stopped abruptly. For a Wolfe? had been on the tip of my tongue. I was a Wolfe, for God’s sake! But I was also accused of murdering a Wolfe.

A Wolfe who was a psychopathic derelict, but whatever. The world was better off without him, for sure, but I wasn’t willing to go down for a crime I didn’t commit.

“This whole thing is crazy,” I told Lester. “I’m the one with the least motive of everyone involved here.”

“But you were the easiest to pin it on.” Lester cleared his throat, that serious rumbling that only a man in his sixties could make. “All those items stolen from your place. The business cards… Hank Morgan is dirty. I feel it in my bones. There’s a reason he’s going after you. We just have to figure out what it is.”

I huff. “I have to use the bathroom.”

“There should be a toi—”

“Yes, of course there’s toilet in the cell. I don’t want to do my business in front of a bunch of other women. Or a guard who might be getting off on it.”

“Lacey, those guards don’t watch women take a piss.”