A Night at the Asylum Read Online Free Page B

inches. To the right was the front desk,
but it was dark. To the left were the jail cells, small and empty.
Cool air circulated in the hallway and I leaned against the
doorframe, inhaling.
    Low sounds of an argument filtered through a
closed door down the hall. The words were muffled, but pressing my
ear to the opening, I could just make them out. “Do you know how
tired I get of having to rectify the stupid shit you do?” There was
the sound of a strike, flesh upon flesh, and I gasped. “If you’re
going to attempt something so moronic, at least be a man and finish
the job.” There were heavy footsteps, and then the knob jiggled. I
landed back in the chair just as a figure swished quickly past the
doorway. What was all that about? I gripped the soda can in
my hands again, trying to concentrate on the minutes creeping
by.
    The wait wasn’t long. Roy, the officer who
had escorted me here, soon bustled his large frame back into the
room. He was sweating. The nervousness in his expression managed to
kick my own panic into overdrive.
    “Sara, I didn’t call your parents yet,” he
huffed, causing me to exhale in noisy relief.
    “Thank you, Roy,” I said earnestly. “Thank
you.”
    “Sure.” He sat down, pulling out a pen and
notepad. “How’s your dad doing? Last time I saw him was at the
auction in St. Joe...” He kept looking from me to the door and back
again, gasoline on the fire of my paranoia.
    My fundamental need to curtail bullshit took
hold, forcing me to interject. “He’s great. What the hell is going
on, Roy?”
    Roy knew me. He was privy to my impatient
ways. “Listen, Sara…I’m doing all I can for you on my end. I know
you didn’t do this, but the truth is…it doesn’t look good.”
    Nothing else processed past those words,
because my mind was imploding, right there in that little room.
“What do you mean, like, charges? Yeah, it looked bad, and I
thought maybe I was in trouble, but I never really thought I’d
actually be in trouble –” My babbling, mostly out of pure
disbelief, was reaching definite dog-whistle frequency.
    “Sara,” Roy interrupted. “Settle down. We
need to handle this calmly.” He was using lots of hand gestures;
flailing, really. “You can have a lawyer–”
    “ Lawyer? Are you serious? No!” My
voice dropped into a weird whisper-shout. “I told you I don’t want
my parents knowing about this! Work with me here, Roy!”
    It was unbelievable what my life had become.
If only I was a normal, responsible adult, with no one to report my
malfeasance to and no one to blame but myself.
    “Everything’s going to be fine,” Roy
promised. “Okay?”
    In spite of the idiocy of this whole
situation, I was assuaged by the surety in his voice. For the most
part, I trusted Roy. He and my dad had played varsity football
together, for God’s sake. Roy had gotten me out of trouble a few
times before, done things for me, like selling my Girl Scout
cookies to the entire police force or dropping me off at home in
his own car when I’d been out partying too late. It was hard to
believe he’d allow me to languish in one of those cells.
    So I talked, trying to remember as much as
possible. He scribbled down everything. At the end there was that
tug in my chest again when I spoke Emmett’s name. “What’s going to
happen to him? I think…I think someone might have given him
something,” I said cautiously.
    “I’m sure he’ll sleep it off,” was Roy’s
allusive answer, and then the door opened and that wonderfully
breathable air from the hallway came swirling in. On the heels of
the breeze was a tall, trench-coated man with dark, slicked-back
hair and piercing eyes. Immediately I recognized Brad Sutter,
police commissioner and Emmett’s father.
    Well, that explained why Roy had his panties
in a bunch.
    I’d only seen him in person a few times, but
my reaction to Brad tonight was the same as always: the guy creeped
me out. He had the self-important air of a