Page 7 of Breaking All The Rules
One of them was occupied by another middle-aged uniformed man—there was a lot of testosterone around here—who took in Bea and her bunny slippers with a grin before saying, “Arlo’s just going to love this,” and turning back to his computer.
Bea wondered who this Arlo might be for about two seconds before Officer Cooper said, “Bite me, Reynolds.”
Beyond the central desks were two offices. One had a large window with the blinds open but the door shut. The other office was open, a smaller glass panel in its door displaying the word Chief in some kind of hackneyed Wild West font. Her graphic-artist brain winced at its inelegance.
On the far wall to her left was a bank of filing cabinets—two on each side of a central open doorway. They looked a little dinged up, with various objects from flashlights to handheld radios to a yo-yo sitting on top. She could make out a corridor beyond the doorway, but where it led or what was behind it was hidden from her view.
A cell? Probably.
Removing his hat, Officer Cooper said, “Sit down.”
Bea looked at the chair he was indicating and shot him a mutinous look. “This isn’t the pokey.”
The officer called Reynolds sniggered as the guy who had brought her in shoved his hands on his hips and shook his head at her before hooking his thumb over his shoulder. “It’s that way.” He opened the drawer at what she presumed was his desk—his very neat desk, of course, because he was a rules guy—and took out a set of keys. “Follow me.”
He headed in the direction of the doorway, and Bea, still clutching her brown paper bag, followed, noticing for the first time that Officer Cooper had a very fine ass. It wasn’t what she should be thinking, because he was literally about to lock her in a cell and was also a man and she wasn’t fond of any of his sex right now.
Also, he had to be about ten years younger than her.
But it wasn’t like she was going to jump him—that had been more her mom’s thing—and she wasn’t that mad at men that she failed to recognize the magnificence of his tush. And, while she was at it, the truly fabulous way his broad shoulders filled out his shirt and the seriously effortless length of his stride. Also, the way his sandy-blond hair just brushed the collar of said shirt at the back.
Following him to the left as they walked through the doorway, he took three paces—five for her—and they were at a cell. The first of two. A bona fide cell with bars and everything.
“In you go,” he said, pulling the door open. “The pokey awaits.”
Bea, her pulse speeding up, took two paces into the cell. It was small, spare, cold, and ruthlessly neat with only two pieces of furniture. A bench that was attached to the wall and a bare, metallic toilet bowl—no seat—in the corner, tucked in behind the bench. She figured it was supposed to afford some privacy but ugh.
Suddenly she regretted that breakfast beer…
But as the door clanged shut behind her and the key turned in the lock, she realized that, for most people, being put in here wasn’t a choice, and how freaking awful would that be in this Spartan, dehumanizing, freezing box? With a toilet that was giving her hemorrhoids just looking at it and a camera, she noticed, up high in the opposite corner, watching her.
A long-buried memory hit then, of her mother being arrested at some protest march and her father bringing her home from the police precinct, absolutely furious. Bea had been sitting on the top step in her pajamas, hugging her knees, listening to their argument filter through the shut living room door and up the stairwell through the gaps in the banister. Her grandmother had found her and ordered her to bed.
“You want out?” Officer Cooper said.
Bea heard the not-so-ballsy-now-are-you note in his voice and shook the memory off. Voluntarily walking into a cell was not the same thing as being involuntarily shoved into one. She wasn’t about to go full mom no matter her father’s dire predictions after he’d heard she’d quit her job.
Squaring her shoulders, she crossed to the bench and sat her ass on it, placed her bag of Annie’s pie beside her, and moved around a little. The seat was hard as a rock.
“How do you feel?”
She folded her arms and jutted her chin as she looked at him with what she hoped was an air of defiance. “Like a rule breaker.” Bea hadn’t been sure about it when she’d first blurted out the words. It felt a little too close to something her mom might have said. But then she’d realized her mom hadn’t ever followed rules to start with, which was a very different thing.
“Okay…”
He leaned a shoulder against one of the bars, obviously resigned to this playing out as he hooked his thumb in his belt near his hip. It was casual and relaxed—he really didn’t see her as any kind of threat—and she dragged her gaze down to the way his police-issue pants molded to his narrow hips and long legs. They weren’t tight but hugged and cupped everything just right. “Let’s take this from the top,” he said. “Your name?”
One of the things Bea had enjoyed most about the last two weeks was her total anonymity. She wasn’t sure she was willing to give that up just yet. “Why do you need to know my name?”
“Because, if I’m going to write you up for all those offenses you just committed, I’m going to need a name. And an address and a social security number.”
That seemed reasonable enough, but Bea was done being reasonable. “Yeah…” She shook her head. “Still pleading the fifth.”
His mouth curved into a smile, which drew her attention to his face. Without the brim of his hat throwing a shadow over his features, he was really something. A very nice mouth, spare cheekbones, square jaw. The scruff covering his jaw seemed more lazy than designer. And those shoulders were just as good from the front, too.
“Ma’am, I know you’re the woman who’s rented out the apartment above Déjà Brew.”
Bea was beginning to like the way he ma’amed her, which was all kinds of screwy. “Oh?” She arched an eyebrow. “And how do you know that?”
