From the way the loony policeman had been acting, Baker wouldn’t put it past the man.
“What are you in here for?”
Baker moved off of his cot and walked back over to the bars. He had thought he was down here alone in the row of cells. Apparently someone else was forgotten about as well. “Parking ticket,” he admitted.
“Really?” the deep voice asked in what sounded like stunned disbelief. “They arrested you for an unpaid ticket?”
“I guess so.”
“Then I’m really screwed,” came the sullen voice.
“How long have you been down here?” Baker asked, wondering if it was just him, or if the cops in Brac Village intentionally forget about their prisoners. With this being the first time Baker had ever been arrested, he wasn’t sure how things were done.
“Two days,” came the reply.
There was no way Baker was staying down here for two days. It was one lousy ticket, a parking infraction for his car sputtering to a stop in the middle of traffic. He hadn’t done it intentionally. The damn car had just stopped on him. What was he supposed to do?
In all honesty, Baker had forgotten about the ticket. He was more worried about getting his car fixed. But now here he sat, in the slammer for not paying it.
“Is that a normal time?” he asked. “Two days?”
“Never been arrested for a ticket. I’m not sure how long they’ll keep you. Your lawyer should be here soon, or whoever you called. You can find out then.”
Baker gripped the bars tighter. “I wasn’t allowed to make a phone call. I was brought straight down here.”
“Huh,” the man said. That one word worried Baker. It didn’t sound promising. “That’s odd. The cops here are pretty good at making sure you get your call and you are usually processed into the system before being locked in a cell.”
Baker hadn’t gone through any of that. Now that he thought about it, Johnson had brought him in through the back door and down the steps. Baker hadn’t seen another soul since walking through the door. He was starting to suspect that maybe Johnson was stashing him down here.
But why?
What were his intentions?
The guy was creepy as hell, but Baker wasn’t sure what he was up to. Officer Johnson had a strange obsession with Reno, but he couldn’t figure out how being locked up fit with anything going on. Baker needed to get someone down here, pronto. He had a feeling he was down here illegally.
“How do you get the cops’ attention?” he asked.
A soft laughter filtered toward him. “You really don’t want to know, kid.”
Baker shivered at the deep sound. “No, I mean how do I talk to one of them?” Baker glanced around, but there was nothing he could use to draw their attention. There was a bed that jutted from the wall with a thin, plastic mattress on it, a toilet that grossed him out, and a window with bars on it. Nothing else was in the cell with him.
Moving away from the bars, Baker climbed onto the bed and looked out of the window. The parking lot was just beyond the bars. He spotted someone walking to his car. Reaching through the bars, Baker pounded his fist on the glass. It was thick, absorbing the sound. That told him shouting for help would be futile.
But then the dark-haired guy who reminded Baker of someone with Italian in their heritage turned, glancing down toward him, his thick eyebrows furrowing. Baker waved his hand around, telling the man with light-brown eyes to come over to the window. He thought the guy was going to just walk away, but instead, he pulled something from the inside pocket of his brown leather jacket and stared at it. The object looked like a sheet of paper.
Baker damn near cried in relief when the man began to walk back toward the building. He jumped down, hurrying over to the bars. He waited but soon knew that whoever the man was, he wasn’t coming to rescue him. Baker wasn’t sure what the man was doing, but coming down here wasn’t one of the things on the guy’s list of things to do.
Feeling dejected, Baker moved away from the bars and took a seat on the cot, pulling his legs to his chest and hugging them. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but he hoped like hell he didn’t spend days down here. He wondered what Reno was doing, if he had even noticed that Baker was gone. As he thought about his mate, Baker began to yearn to feel Reno’s strong arms around him, the man telling him that everything was going to be all right. Baker was aching for Reno to tell him that he was here for Baker, and that nothing bad was going to happen to him.
What if Johnson returned and took him from the cell, out the back door, and someplace no one would be able to find him? His stomach knotted at the thought.
Baker’s ear perked up when he heard footsteps getting closer. His heart began to slam behind his ribs, as he thought that maybe Johnson had returned. He would fight the man tooth and nail not to be secreted away. Baker wasn’t going to let the man take him.
But that wasn’t who showed up in front of his cell. It was worse. His father stood there, disappointment in his eyes as he stared at Baker.
“Arrested?”
He wasn’t sure how his father knew he was here. Baker hadn’t been able to make a phone call.
“Miss Fortuna called me,” his father answered Baker’s thoughts.
“The old lady across the hall?” he asked. Baker wasn’t even aware she knew who he was, let alone his father. He had said hello to her in passing, but had never stood there to have a conversation with her.
His father nodded. “She was my grade school teacher. She keeps me abreast of what you are up to.”
Baker was mortified to know the little old lady across
