Larkspur Read Online Free Page A

us
decide.”
    He squinted at the woman in a bad suit.
    “ Could you introduce
yourself?” Agent Art asked. “These are children.”
    “ Oh,” the woman looked
surprised. She started talking in a flutter of words. “Right. I’m
Collette Lazarian. I’m a Deputy DA. I’m new. There. Um. I’m not
trying your case. I’m just here to relay messages
and . . . stuff.”
    As if to make sure what she’d said made
sense, she smiled. Wanda’s mom scowled and Charlie looked like he
was going to eat the woman whole. Agent Colin threw a wad a paper
at Charlie and smiled. Charlie smirked and sat back.
    “ Why are we here?” Sandy
asked.
    “ Good question,” Agent
Angie gave Sandy a broad smile. “This is a big case, probably one
of the biggest cases any of us has seen.”
    “ Why?” Ivy spouted
out.
    Agent Angie smiled at her.
    “ It’s a big case because
there are so many children involved,” Agent Angie said. “And
because there are so many victims involved.”
    Agent Angie looked across the table and
smiled at all of the kids.
    “ It’s also a big case
because there’s a lot of media attention and this is such a
horrible thing,” Agent Angie said.
    “ We want to keep that at
the forefront,” Agent Art said. “What you each experienced was
horrendous. That’s a fact. We don’t want to minimize what you went
through.”
    “ You haven’t answered my
question,” Sandy said. Everyone was so surprised that Sandy spoke
up that they turned to look at her. “Why are we here? The kids have
to go to school tomorrow. They have school work and other
activities. We’ve spent an hour sitting in this room while
you . . . discuss?”
    Wanda saw a flash of a smirk across Agent
Art’s face. He clearly had said the same thing. No one on the other
side of the table said anything. Sandy nodded. She stood up from
her seat. Following her lead, Heather popped to her feet.
    “ I’ve had enough,” Sandy
said. “We’re leaving. When we come back, we’ll come back with our
lawyers.”
    The agents looked at the woman from the DA’s
office from the side of their eyes.
    “ Charlie?” Sandy
asked.
    “ Oh, you can’t leave,” the
woman from the DA’s office said.
    “ Why not?” Sandy
asked.
    “ We . . .”
    “ Your problems have
nothing to do with us,” Sandy said.
    “ Sandy, please,” Agent
Angie said.
    “ Make it quick,” Sandy
looked at the woman from the DA. “You have five
minutes.”
    The woman swallowed hard.
    “ Art? Why don’t
you . . .?” Agent Angie nodded to him.
    “ The question one is who
to charge. Question two is what charges to file,” Agent Art said.
“While the DA has heard from the community that every child should
be charged to the maximum allowed by law, and he’s willing to do
that, he wondered if it might be too much.”
    “ For whom?” Sandy
asked.
    “ For the children,” the
woman from the DA’s office said.
    “ Victims,” Agent Angie
said.
    “ Yes, them too,” the woman
from the DA’s office said
    “ Art, why don’t you lay it
out?” Agent Colin asked a little too fast.
    Agent Art nodded. He got up from his seat
and went to a white board.
    “ We have groups of
criminals,” Agent Art said. “We have the boys who purchased the
videos. They can be charged with, at the very least, possession of
child pornography.”
    Agent Art drew a big circle on the
board.
    “ We have another group of
criminals who participated in some way in your assaults. This is
really two groups. One group of boys didn’t participate. They got
high and were bystanders. Some of them drove the boys to and from
the assaults. At the very least, they are guilty of not reporting a
crime and aiding and abetting criminal activity.”
    Agent Art drew a smaller circle.
    “ Some of those cases,”
Agent Art nodded to Wanda, “have already been fast tracked through
the system, like Wanda’s friend Frankie. These boys were willing to
give evidence to the assaults and pled guilty to their