"Ten Days Wonder" - Eight.
The gate to the cell block opened and there was the muted sound of a woman talking to Officer O'Reily, of someone approaching. He raised his head a few inches off the bunk, even though he knew there was no way Adriana would come back. Not after the way everything had gone down.
Maybe it was Roxy. The night before, he'd used his one phone call to call and tell her to keep quiet, in the hopes that nobody would remember seeing damning evidence sitting smack dab in the middle of her salon.
The odds of Roxy being able to keep quiet about anything were slim.
They were probably going to wind up in adjoining cells.
No, it wasn't his mother.
Evangeline Williamson was staring at him through the bars, her dark eyes huge and sympathetic and not at all the ones he wanted to see. "You'll be released within the hour," she said, her voice as crisp and perfectly cut as her brown business suit. "A preliminary hearing has been set for Tuesday."
"Why would you help me? RJ's going to hate this." He swung his feet onto the floor, trying to hide the wince of pain as his ribs felt the pull.
"Precisely because he's going to hate it." Evangeline laughed, but there was no humor in it. "I don't like the game he played with you, Rex. If he hadn't put such stringent conditions on the loan, you might not have gotten so desperate."
"Desperate enough to commit statutory rape?" The words left a bad taste in his mouth. Or maybe it was the hangover from the gin. Cottony and sour.
She didn't even blink. "No...to be a party to arson. Adriana Colon Lord gave a statement last night clearing you of all suspicion on the other charges. However, your own words to Detective McBain can't be so easily dismissed."
"Wait." He shook his head, trying to clear it of the white noise and the pounding. "Adriana made them drop the charges?"
"She said you didn't touch her, that you made no overtures. That you were trying to let her down easy from a crush when Antonio and John walked in and River Carpenter called them out of jealousy."
"And they believed her?" Rex couldn't help but chuckle. Wow, that was a lousy pack of lies. Well, for the most part.
"They believed David Vickers. He accompanied her to the station as her guardian and he was furious." A slight smile betrayed Evangeline's amusement. "Apparently, he yelled at her in front of the entire squad room and grounded her for life. I'm surprised you didn't hear it."
No, he hadn't heard anything. After Adriana's visit, there had been nothing but the night sounds of a county jail and the beginnings of a killer headache.
"What about the fire? Was anybody hurt?" he asked.
"Nothing serious. Just scrapes and bruises, smoke inhalation. They think the fire started in a store room, thanks to a lit cigarette, some old rags, and gasoline. Did you put the gas in the community center?"
"No." That, at least, he could be honest about. "I have no idea how it got there."
"Then why did you suggest to Detective McBain that the fire was your fault?"
"I'd been drinking. I was upset about what happened with Adriana. I probably would've admitted to being on the grassy knoll next. I didn't really mean it," he shrugged.
Another lousy pack of lies. For the most part. And Evangeline knew it. But she was going to use it to defend him and even the score with RJ. He had to give her points for her skewed sense of justice. "All right," she said, moving back from the cell. "I'll go see if the paperwork for your release has gone through."
"Evangeline...?" Her name was out before he could catch himself.
"Yes, Rex?" She looked back at him, cool and collected, the consummate professional.
"Did she...did Adriana...did you read her statement?" he asked, haltingly. He had to stare at the floor, count the cracks in the concrete, because he couldn't stand to see his stupidity reflected on her face.
"It was the first thing I did after I told them I was your representation." After a few moments, realizing he wasn't going to come out and ask anything else, she sighed. "When they asked her if she was absolutely sure you hadn't done anything indecent..." Evangeline broke off for a moment, shaking her head. Maybe she was remembering being a teenager. Whatever it was, she shrugged it off and continued, "She told them it wasn't your fault that she fell for you. She said it was hers... because she was stupid."
"She's...she's not, you know." Rex buried his face in his hands, shoulders shaking with something too dark to be mirth. "She's not stupid at all."
"And neither are you." Evangeline came back to the bars for a moment, her voice soft, compassionate. "You picked the right girl, Rex."
"Yeah. Biggest bank account in Pennsylvania," he laughed, harshly.
"No. The biggest heart."