Earth to Emily (3 page)

She rejoined her friends in what looked like a game of tag, a good way to stay warm out there. Watching her kept my face stretched in an ear-to-ear smile. Even though she’d lost both parents and now lived with the killjoy Hodges, I hoped she took some comfort in knowing she had me, and that I truly wanted her. I thought of my parents. Until I was sixteen, I’d felt wanted and loved by them both. After my dad left, especially after he cut off contact when I was a senior at Texas Tech, I still had my mother. It’s not that losing my father’s love didn’t hurt me, because it did, but I knew I wasn’t alone. Of course, it was possible the Hodges were loving people and made Betsy feel wanted, too. It just seemed highly unlikely to me after meeting Mary Alice.

My phone rang. I answered it without looking, my eyes still on Betsy. “This is Emily.”

“This Ava,” a lilting, cheery voice said. “You know, Katie’s Ava in St. Marcos.”

My best girlfriend and former boss at Hailey & Hart in Dallas, Katie Kovacs, had left the practice of law to live in the Caribbean, where she had reinvented herself as a singer and keyboardist with her new friend Ava Butler. I’d gotten to see Katie and Ava perform several times. They were the real deal. They’d almost landed a New York recording contract but Katie got cold feet when she became a mother. I remembered that Katie said Ava had a little girl now, too.

“Hi! Wow, what a nice surprise to hear from you.”

I watched Betsy, half-listening to Ava. Betsy got tagged and was “it.” Her friends dispersed, and she began to chase them.

“I got a manager book me a bunch a stateside gigs. I gonna be up your way soon.”

“That’s great. You realize it’s winter here, right?” Ava was an island girl. I couldn’t imagine her here in the waterless, palm-treeless Panhandle anytime on purpose, much less in this freezing cold weather. And if Ava was coming all the way to Texas for gigs, motherhood must not be slowing her down as much as it did Katie.

She laughed. “Yah, mon. I asking for double rates.”

Another rap on my window. This one sounded like it was shattering it. I gasped and wheeled, dropping my phone and ducking toward the center of the car as I did so. No glass fell in on me, and I regained my composure quickly, ready to shout at Mary Alice, only it wasn’t her.

From the console where my phone had fallen, I heard, “Emily? You okay, Emily?”

An officer waited outside my car, one hand clutching a baton that he had tucked under his elbow. He was young. And short. Red haired. Full faced and thick bodied. Behind him stood Officer Samson. I rolled my window down again.

Before I could speak, the new officer said, “I’m Officer Burrows. Step out of the car, please, ma’am.”

“Certainly, Officer Burrows.” I held up one finger. He shook his head, so I made it fast before he could object further. I grabbed my phone and said to Ava, “Sorry, gotta go—police.”

Ava’s voice sounded concerned, but I was already hanging up the phone. “Oh, bad news. Okay, I call you.”

I set my phone on the passenger seat. “Do you need my license and registration, sir?”

The officer’s voice grew louder. “Step out of the car, ma’am. Don’t make me say it again.”

Officer Samson echoed, in a more gentle voice, “Ms. Bernal, if you could please do what Officer Burrows asks you to do.”

My throat constricted. I unbuckled my seat belt and grabbed my winter coat. I opened the door and got out, then started to put it on.

Burrows snatched it away from me. “Hands on the hood of the car, feet shoulder width apart.”

My mouth went dry and it took a second for his words to register. He gave me a shove on the shoulder, spinning me around. It jarred me out of my confusion, and I did as he said. Behind my car I saw not one but two squad cars parked at an angle, blocking me in like a dangerous criminal.

I moistened my lips. “What’s the problem, sir?”

He didn’t answer, just patted me down everywhere, and I do mean everywhere. It was the first time anyone other than my OB/GYN had touched me
there
in four months, and this wasn’t exactly the way to break that unwelcome streak.

“You’re going to wait in the back of my car while we search your vehicle.”

“Why do you need to search it?”

He took me by the upper arm—his fingers biting into it even through fleecy sweatshirt material and long johns—and led me to the cruiser, my coat still in his other hand.

“Officer Burrows, am I under arrest?”

He said nothing.

Thinking back to the advice I’d heard Jack give clients, I said, “I do
not
consent to a search of my car. Nor do I consent to being locked in your vehicle, unless I am under arrest.”

Burrows opened the back door to the cruiser and dropped my coat to the ground. Without warning, I felt a cuff snap around my right wrist and my arm pulled behind me. My first reaction was to struggle, but I stopped myself. My father had always told me to respect authority, even when it didn’t deserve it. Might made right, in the moment, because dead couldn’t be undone. Jack could help me sort this out later.

I looked up at Officer Samson, but his eyes were hidden behind aviator sunglasses. Burrows grabbed my left arm and jerked it behind my back to join the other. The second cuff snapped closed. I wanted to shrink into invisibility. Betsy’s recess bell hadn’t rung yet. She was still outside. If she was looking, she could see all of this, with no one to explain it to her, to tell her I would be fine. Her mother had died in prison, and her father had died escaping Johnson’s Ranch. Watching me, powerless, could be incredibly traumatic for her, and I prayed she was playing with friends and didn’t see what was happening one hundred yards away.

Burrows put a hand on top of my head and shoved me down enough to topple me into the backseat of the car. The whole scene was surreal for me. My only brush with the law had been a few traffic tickets. A vision flashed through my mind of a tie-down roper’s lariat sailing over the head of a calf. The rope jerked tight as the quarter horse stopped and threw its weight in reverse. The calf thrown on its side by the cowboy, who then wrapped three of its ankles with a piggin’ string and threw his own arms into the air to signal he was done. Now I knew how the calf felt.

“We’re searching your car because a citizen called in a pervert taking pictures of kids. We were given a license plate number and vehicle description same as yours, and you match the description of the photographer.” Burrows leaned over and picked my coat off the ground and threw it in after me, then slammed the door.

Mary Alice Hodges and her wrath of God. It had to be. My heart beat like a hummingbird’s wings against the inside of my chest, and I struggled to think of what Burrows and Samson would find in my car that could get me into trouble, or give them reason to give me trouble. My purse was there with my “baby” Glock 26 inside, and my license to carry in the wallet inside the same purse. I had nothing else in the Mustang except my dry cleaning and the half-spilled cup of coffee.

Well, nothing except for my iPhone on the front passenger seat. I had never taken a dirty picture in my straitlaced life, certainly not of any children. My mind raced through its contents. There was a photo of my husband’s girlfriend—a man named Stormy who lived as a woman, although he kept his junk, if you know what I mean—wearing my red negligee. The tramp had texted it to me, and I’d saved it for the divorce, just in case. That one was embarrassing and inappropriate. But did I have any pictures of kids?

I had saved one on there of Betsy with her mother, which I’d used for identification purposes when I was searching for her. Then there were a few I’d snapped of her on the playground, innocent stuff, because it made me feel better to be able to look at them, like the one I’d taken today. Pictures any mother would take, and while I wasn’t her mother, I was going through the process of trying to
become
her mother, after all. But I’d password protected my phone with the ultra-secure “1111.” I figured it was so obvious no one would ever guess it. Hopefully that included the police, so they wouldn’t be able to look at my photos. Then all of this would be moot, and it would get straightened out quickly enough. It had to. I hadn’t done anything wrong.

I strained to see what the officers were doing, my view obscured in part by the metal barrier between the front and back seats of the police vehicle. I could see that they had popped open my trunk. Geez. I knew it was empty except for my spare tire, but months of working with Jack kicked in and my brain moved past what they might find to whether they even had a right to search my trunk in the first place. Burrows was treating this like I was Public Enemy Number One, and I was pretty sure Jack would tell me it was an illegal search.

I heard the trunk slam. Footsteps crunched on the snow, coming closer to where I sat trapped in the backseat cage. The driver’s side door opened in front and a body landed on the seat. Air whooshed out in protest. The door slammed. In the confined space, I smelled garlic and cheap aftershave. My nose and forehead wrinkled. Burrows put my purse and phone on the seat. He spoke into the radio, holding it with his left hand while he continued to mess with something I couldn’t see in the front seat with his right.

“I need a tow into impound on a Ford Mustang, green, on Wentworth Drive across from Windsor Elementary.” He read off my license plate number. “I’ve arrested a suspected child molester, an Emily P. Burr-NAL—B-E-R-N-A-L. I’ll be bringing her in. Also, she was in possession of a handgun.”

“I have a license to carry! It’s in my wallet.”

I wanted to scream. How did we jump from the bogus improper photos to the inflammatory and even more screwed-up child-molester accusation? And then the bit added on about my gun to make it sound like some kind of huge deal, like I was a dangerous felon, when it wasn’t and I wasn’t either. I knew it wouldn’t do me any good to argue with him about the semantics, no matter how damaging, but I couldn’t believe his gall.

Burrows holstered the radio and turned to me, unloading my Glock as he did. When he had it empty, he inspected it. I saw him read the words engraved around the mouth of the barrel. “So, you think I’m messing with the ‘Wrong Girl’?”

“My dad thought so, at least.” The gun, and the words, were a fifteenth-birthday gift from my Wild West-throwback father. “I only know
I
didn’t do anything wrong, and I don’t understand what’s going on.”

Burrows lowered the gun and shoved it into something I couldn’t see from the backseat. Still facing the center of the front seat, he said, “Emily Bernal, we take sex crimes very seriously in this town, and you’re under arrest for taking improper photos of a child.”

A klaxon horn sounded in my head, and white-hot panic seared me from the inside. Burrows turned his head forward in the driver’s seat, and all I could see was his red hair and fuzzy neck that needed a shave.

“Arrested? Improper photos? That’s ridiculous. I didn’t do any such thing.”

He switched on the ignition. “If you haven’t done anything wrong, Ms. Bernal, then I’m sure we’ll get it all straightened out at the station.”

He spoke by rote. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to the presence of an attorney before and during any questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you free of charge before any questioning. Do you understand these rights as I’ve explained them to you?”

He turned back to me again. This couldn’t be real. I shook my head.

“You don’t understand them?”

“I understand them.” I shook my head again. “When do I get my phone call?”

Burrows snorted, and we accelerated into the street with a jerk that snapped my head back against the seat.

Utilitarian gunmetal-gray steel and dirty industrial-white paint filled my view of the storage area before me. Odds and ends of paraphernalia littered the inside of evidence cages. Phones. Wallets. Jackets. Belts. Caps and hats. A motorcycle helmet covered in Arizona Cardinals bumper stickers.

Jack stood behind me while I signed for return of the personal items that I had been required to check in earlier. The officer behind the desk—young, freckled, and open-mouthed, with a nameplate on her chest that read TINSLEY—couldn’t tear her eyes away from Jack.
Get in line, sister,
I thought.

I pawed through the tray of my belongings. My purse was there, with my wallet, gun license, and gun (unloaded), as was my coat, but there was something missing. “My phone?”

Without looking away from Jack, she said, “Huh?”

“Officer Burrows took my phone. I need my phone back.” I looked at the voucher, which listed my personal property. The phone wasn’t on the list. “This voucher’s wrong, too.”

“Is that your signature on it?”

“It looks like it, but the one I signed listed my phone.”

“Well, now, isn’t that strange.” She smiled at Jack. “Let me check with the officers.” She picked up a desk phone and punched a few numbers. “We’re missing the inappropriate-photo suspect’s phone. Burrows brought her in; Samson was with him. Yeah, Rin Tin Tin.” She put her hand over the mouthpiece and whispered, “They call Burrows the drug-sniffing dog because he’s so good at busting kids smoking pot.” She winked at Jack and spoke into the phone again. “Burr-NAL—B-E-R-N-A-L. Okay. Thanks.” She hung up. “Someone’s gonna ask him. You can wait over there.” She nodded her head at a bench against the wall.

Jack and I looked at each other. He shrugged and we sat. From our side of the room we had a view of the balding strings of silver tinsel strands tucked above the window to the evidence room. Above it, cut-out red letters that hooked together and hung crookedly spelled MERRY CHRISTMA. I wondered if anyone would replace the S.

Jack’s phone beeped, but he didn’t look at it. “You’re sure they checked your phone in earlier?”

“Positive. Why do you think Burrows would keep it? He knows I didn’t take any dirty pictures. This whole arrest was just harassment.”

Jack pulled his bottom lip. “Is your phone password protected?”

“Yes.”

“Did you give the password to them?”

“No. Why?”

“Do you get work email on your phone?”

“Yeah, but—”

“It’s the thin blue line.”

The Dallas Area Rapid Transit Light Rail Blue Line went from downtown out past White Rock Lake. I had ridden it occasionally when I worked for the Hailey & Hart law firm in Dallas. “I’m confused. How did we get on the subject of trains in Dallas?”

His left eyebrow drew toward his hairline. “I’m talking about how police officers stick together. They call it the thin blue line.”

“Oh.” I picked some imaginary lint off my sleeve.

His dimple sunk in and out like it was in spasm, and his eyes twinkled. “We have a case against Wu. The police stick together. Maybe someone is trying to see if you have anything on your phone about the Freeman case.”

I considered it. Could Jack be right? “Really? Would they even know I work for you?”

Jack said. “”Hmm. Dunno. Probably. It’s a small town.”

Jack and I had been together the night before when we talked to Samson at Love’s, but we weren’t working a case. We could have been two people out on a normal date, albeit a really lame one at Love’s Travel Stop. I thought back through the last two months. Had my name appeared on anything related to Freeman’s case? Paralegals didn’t sign pleadings. I hadn’t been with Jack when he deposed the officers, either. That was before I came to work at Williams & Associates.

But it hadn’t been the first time I’d met Samson. Honestly, I couldn’t remember my conversation with Samson two months before when Betsy had been kidnapped. Oh well, like Jack said, it was a small town.

“That’d be too convenient, right after Mary Alice rousted me. I saw her make a phone call, then, bam, ten minutes later, Burrows shows up. He’s harassing me for her.”

“Maybe.”

“That woman terrifies me.”

“Hodges? Why?”

“I told you. She
threatened
me with the wrath of God. It was creepy. And then this.” I gestured around the room. “What did she do that could make them do this to me?”

“If she did.” Jack’s phone beeped. He ignored it.

“She did.” I snorted. “How’d you get me out, anyway?”

“After a discussion with your attorney, the assistant district attorney decided not to book you.”

My voice came out at a higher pitch than I would have liked. “Thank you, but how—”

He pretended to pop his knuckles. “You have the best criminal law attorney in two states.”

“No, seriously.”

“I’d at least put me in the top five.”

“Jack.”

“The charges were BS. Plus this was a new ADA, and I told him you worked for me.”

Which was good. If it had been my archnemesis, ADA Melinda Stafford, my butt would still be planted on a bench behind bars.

“That was smart.”

“I promised him you wouldn’t go anywhere near Betsy again without supervision.”

“But that’s impossible.”

He looked at me slant-eyed. “Emily, I’m not sure if you understand the seriousness of your situation. This is a felony involving a child. You can’t afford to be charged in the first place, even if I get you off five minutes later. Period.”

“I know.” The implication of the type of charge I was facing wasn’t lost on me. “Even the suggestion of this could ruin my chance of adopting Betsy.”

“We won’t let that happen.”

Ugly truth smacked me in the forehead, a few hours too late. “She knew. Mary Alice Hodges knew what this would do to my adoption chances, and she did it on purpose.”

Jack’s phone beeped again, and he didn’t even glance at it.

“Check your darn phone already,” I snapped.

His left eyebrow lifted, pulling the dimple in and mouth up. “It’s going to be okay, Emily.” He typed a few keystrokes on his phone and swished through text messages. “Wallace. The Hodges called him, and so did Burrows. You’re not answering your texts. He’s a tad concerned.”

“Do you think I need to call him?”

He held his left hand up in the “stop” gesture and a scar caught my attention. I’d seen Jack’s hands plenty of times, even felt them on me in ways that made my cheeks flame to remember, but I’d never noticed the scar on his left palm before. And it wasn’t insignificant. It was round, like a cigarette burn, but bigger. And puckered. I stared at it as he spoke.

“Let’s focus on what’s on your plate here, for now.”

“Where’d you get that scar on your hand?” I pointed at his left hand, which was now on his leg.

Jack’s yellow-brown eyes flicked to mine and then down, and butterflies went crazy in my tummy. How could he irritate me so much, then calm me, intrigue me, and excite me all in less than a minute?

Officer Tinsley called my name from behind the counter. “Ms. Bernal?”

I jumped up and hurried over, Jack moving in long, lazy strides beside me. “Yes?”

“The officers didn’t see a phone in your car. They’re real sorry and hope you find it.”

“But I saw Burrows put it in the front seat of the cruiser, and Samson was right there.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but that’s not how he remembers it.”

“He?”

“Burrows.”

“Don’t all cops have those body camera thingies after Ferguson? Those would prove I’m telling the truth.”

“Um, no, sorry, ma’am, our department doesn’t have body cams. We do have the dash cams, but they’re only triggered in certain situations, or when an officer turns them on.”

“So was the camera on when I was arrested?”

She stared at me, slack-jawed.

Jack put his hand on my shoulder. I looked up into his eyes. They were warm, and he nodded at me. I took a small step back and he moved into the gap I’d left.

“Officer Tinsley, thank you for checking for us. Could you let Burrows and the other officer—Samson, was it?—know to expect me to file an official complaint of misconduct with the department, on behalf of Ms. Bernal, for excessive force, falsifying paperwork, and refusing to return her phone? We’ll be seeking the dash cam footage then.”

“Um—”

“Thank you. Now, let’s talk about getting Ms. Bernal’s vehicle back.”