Who: Thomas and Wren What: The Weatherman and awkward topics Where: Jail When: Recently-ish Warnings: None
Kings County Jail was cold. The correction’s center was operating on emergency power, generators keeping the public areas warm and lit, while keeping the cells and prisoner areas less hospitable. It was the snow, and the fear that the jail would go dark that had the facility operating under emergency guidelines, but it made little difference to the prisoners, and Wren was no exception.
Visiting hours were from 3-to-6, and when the guard came to collect her at 3:02, Wren wasn’t really surprised. She’d already met with her public defender again that morning, and she’d been informed that due to the weather her bail hearing was being postponed the 72 hours that the law allowed. The woman, still tired and still haggard, had been visibly displeased to hear Wren didn’t want to take a manslaughter plea. Wren was tempted, even if she’d promised Luke she wouldn’t give in, because the defender was throwing around sentences in the double digits as the alternative. She left Wren to think, and Wren had been doing just that when the guard came.
The visiting center of the jail for dangerous offenders was pretty much exactly like television and the movies said it was. A long row of chairs and cubicles lined the far wall, dividing from the room beyond by clear sheets of bullet-proof glass. Phones on either side allowed visitors and prisoners to talk, and visitors went through a rigorous process of being checked for weapons and anything that could possibly be used as a weapon. Wren padded in wearing the jail’s traditional reds and thick white socks, wrists and ankles in shackles and chains that met at her stomach. She expected Hayley or Kyle, and the guard led her to chair A2, where she sat down and waited for whoever had come to see her.
If Thomas had a choice, he would have worn something to attract less attention, but he didn’t know how to do that. While it might be (barely) possible to break into a community prison, he wasn’t going to do that just to have a talk with Wren. So he wore what he usually wore, and put up with the stares as he moved down the hallway.
The past several hours had been busy for Thomas, because he had done a great deal of illegal evidence gathering while being careful to preserve said evidence for the authorities. He’d also had to talk with the PR department again and he’d lost his temper, which hadn’t happened for a couple months now. He wasn’t surprised that Cassidy Moran had become a problem, but he was sure that, compared to all his other problems, Cassidy Moran could be solved easily enough. (Push came to shove they could just break a few bones and put him on a plane to Siberia. It would solve the problem for 6-8 months, at least.)
Thomas sat down, expression as opaque as ever, and picked up the phone. It smelled like disinfectant.
Wren’s expression turned to one of surprise, and she leaned forward and picked up the phone in one move, a tangle of chains and her hand on the divider glass, which earned her a command from the guard at her back. She sat back slightly, but she held the phone just as tightly, her features showing worry and concern. “What happened? Is he okay? Did something happen to him?” she asked, and him was Luke. She could think of no other reason for Thomas to be there, not when his presence would hardly go unnoticed. The prison was high security, and as such it housed men and women on different levels. His visit was not something he could wave away; not there.
Thomas shook his head slightly, and the telephone cord scraped and rattled. “He’s fine. They’ll release him soon, I’m sure.” He wasn’t as sure as he sounded, but Thomas didn’t have those kind of morals. “I came to speak to you.” Thomas’ eyes tracked the guard shifting back into position, unmoving. His own shoulders were straight and even.
“Why?” she asked, after a full minute of deep breaths and letting her heart rate slow. She’d been so sure he was going to tell her that something had gone wrong, that Luke was dead, in jail, not getting better, that she’d never seen him again. All of that flashed through her blue-gray eyes a moment, and then she swallowed nervously and said, calmer, “I thought you were going to say something had happened. Thank you for coming, but, why?”
“Several reasons.” He didn’t seem to be in a hurry to get to them, however, stretching his allotted time appropriately. He had a silver Rolex that kept glinting at the edge of his sleeve. “Are you being treated well? I heard about the power failures.” Slight frown, deep enough at the corner of his eyes to be visible.
She considered lying and making it sound better than it was, or omitting like she’d done for Luke’s benefit, but hardly seemed like a good idea with this man across the window from her. She glanced down at his Rolex, knowing enough to know it was very expensive, and then she looked back up at his face. “It’s not very nice here,” she said simply, and for someone who’d done the things she’d done that was saying an awful lot. She bit her lip, and she leaned a little further forward, careful not to draw the guard’s attention. “Is he home?”
“No,” Thomas said, calmly, eyes unmoving even when she leaned forward and his impulse was to watch the guard for a reaction. “As I said, I’m sure they’ll release him from the hospital soon.” He didn’t pause this time, realizing he was going to have to press her harder than he thought. “I did not think it would be pleasant. How bad?”
She realized she’d missed that in his response, and her fingers shook slightly. “I’m sorry. I was just nervous,” she said apologetically. “My lawyer wants me to take a plea, but I promised Luke I wouldn’t,” she said, tipping her head to the side as she looked at him. “I think it wouldn’t be so bad if I wasn’t in the place I’m in. They said the jail for women is a lot better, but the place we’re in is for murderers, and they don’t like us very much, the guards. Or some like us too much.” The guard took a step forward, and she glanced down at his watch again, staring at the way the snow-glare light from the high window made it glint. “I don’t like being locked up. It reminds me of that freezer,” she said plainly, watching the light.
“Of course.” When Wren’s eyes dropped down, Thomas’ eyes came up, and the cold gray gaze caught that of the guard’s with an almost tangible force. After a moment he said, “Luke is right. Do not take a plea; we are more than equipped to supply you with more vigorous legal advice particularly in light of self-defense... They tell me your bail hearing will be in a couple days. That’s not long.” It was meant to be bracing, obviously.
“My lawyer said I probably won’t get bail. I’m a flight risk, and I don’t have papers or a home or anything that makes someone stay someplace,” she said with a small shrug and a glance over her shoulder at the guard, who had moved back the step he’d taken forward. “You were right,” she said once she looked back at Thomas. “I got him hurt, and I got him in trouble. You were right.” A pause. “But it was an accident, I promise. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt him, and I wouldn’t hurt anyone else, not like that, not forever.”
“You have a job and a residence there,” Thomas said firmly. “And relationship ties, which I am sure Luke would be happy to confirm.” Once Wren turned back around Thomas’ eyes were casually on hers. “If I had thought you would hurt him on purpose, Wren, I would have ended that relationship a long time ago.”
“I get paid cash, and I don’t have a lease in the back of Edison,” she said, stopping for a second and looking confused. “No, Luke is just my friend. He doesn’t know I-” She lowered her voice. “He doesn’t know how I feel about him, and he’s still in love with Quinn,” she said with a shake of her head. “But I wouldn’t hurt him.” Small shrug. “I love him, so I wouldn’t.” She didn’t mind that he would have ended the friendship if he thought she was going to hurt Luke, but she thought it contradicted what he’d said once before. “But I thought you said I was bad for him.”
Thomas decided not to argue about the residence. There might not be official paperwork, but if he had to drag someone in front of a judge to talk about Wren’s job and residency habits, he would. There was a certainty in the back of his eyes that might remind some people of continents moving into place. The mountain-like look acquired a slight dryness that didn’t suit him as well. “Wren. I’m sure he knows how you feel.”
She shook her head. “He doesn’t,” she insisted. “I hinted, but he doesn’t.” And it struck her that having this conversation with Luke’s father in a high-security prison was something that no one would ever, ever believe. “We had a long conversation about how a boy knows if he likes a girl, though.” And she couldn’t believe she’d just said that, either.
Thomas stared at her through the glass. Abruptly he felt very old. “You can’t be serious.”
Wren didn’t understand why she couldn’t be serious. “I told him I liked someone, but I didn’t say who,” she explained, “and I asked him for help finding out if the person I liked liked me-” She cut herself off, and she shook her head. “If Luke was interested in me, he would have said something after the warehouse, right?” She didn’t realize she was asking for advice, or she wouldn’t have asked.
“I haven’t the slightest idea. But I think the fact that the two of you are quite willing to let the world think you murdered someone for the other is rather telling, don’t you?” Thomas didn’t usually have that sense of sardonic humor, but there was a first time for everything. “We’ll put that aside for now. Luke and I are prepared to assist you once the law allows. Write him a letter about it. ” Thomas still thought letters were a perfectly acceptable form of communication. “I also need to talk to you about Cassidy Moran.”
“But if he doesn’t like me, he’ll think it’s weird, and he won’t talk to me anymore,” she insisted. “How do you know when you like someone? And in the warehouse, when we were locked up, we did something. Shouldn’t he know after that?” She might be a prostitute, but the emotional part of a relationship was completely foreign to her, and the leap between sex and love was even more outside the realm of her expertise. She stopped, however, when he mentioned Cassidy. “What did he do?” she asked, and she sounded worried. A second later, she was glancing toward that frozen window, the one that was making the light glint off the Rolex.
“On the subject of Luke, I would think that if he hasn’t stopped talking to you about this, he won’t about something as small as a letter.” Thomas was fighting to keep his voice out of the desert dry region. When her eyes came back from the window, his did precisely the same. “I suspect you know.”
“I didn’t mean about the letter,” she began, and she pressed on a second longer before switching subjects. “I meant about liking him. You didn’t say how you know. He says he thinks it’s because you don’t want anyone else around the girl you like.” She looked back from the window, then. “Did he do it because of me?”
“Not entirely. But I’m sure it would ease his mind if you contacted him.” Thomas was going to have to talk with Luke about this absurd pseudo-relationship. If they both were going to go through all this hell--yes, hell--for one girl, then it better not be “liking.” He put it aside; Luke’s obvious feelings trumped any discussion, written or otherwise. “Moran, I mean. Luke as well, but obviously, people are dying, so Moran might be more urgent.”
“I talked to Luke-” she began, but she didn’t finish, because the mention of what Cassidy was doing made her go quiet. The snow had started when she and Luke had still been in the warehouse, which meant it had been going on for almost a week. “It hasn’t stopped? With the rain, he stopped,” she said.
“It comes in cycles. With his temper, it appears.” Thomas’ tone was not dry anymore, but something that sounded better coming from shadows and a mask.
“It’s my fault,” Wren said, hearing the guard move nearer this time, knowing he was listening. “I’ll make him stop,” she said, her voice going too old and too tired in that moment. “I told Luke I could call Cassidy about bail, anyway.” That she didn’t like the idea was plain.
“We will handle bail. But Moran is concerned about you and as he is now amounting to a terrorist with demands, I’m going to need to act. I would prefer he did not think I murdered you and hid your body.” His eyes slid a few degrees upward. “Again.”
Wren, who didn’t know Cassidy had filed a police report against Thomas all those months back, gave him a confused look. It was gone a moment later, and she nodded. “I’ll talk to him, and he’ll stop,” she said, “but I can’t take your money,” and somehow she didn’t think Thomas was going to take that argument as well as other people did. “I already told Luke. You aren’t responsible for me. I can’t take your money.”
Thomas gave her a look that was quickly cooling. “You aren’t taking it. You’re really going to let Luke feel helpless while you’re in here?” His gaze twitched to the guard and back down.
That argument had the effect that nothing else could. She sat back, and she bit her lip, and she looked very young and unsure. “My mother always said that taking things from people, it meant you owed them,” she said, thinking aloud. She looked at his face. “I may be a lot of things, but I’m not after Luke’s money,” she said, willing him to believe her.
“You don’t owe Luke. He would be upset if you did,” Thomas said, seriously. “I’m also familiar enough with Luke to know that it wouldn’t occur to him that you wanted his money. You’ve had more than enough opportunity to ask for some by now.”
“He’s really trusting,” she said, a small smile gracing her lips for a second, and mentioning Luke being upset was as useful as mentioning Luke being helpless. “If Cassidy insists on paying it?” she asked, and it was a strange question, loaded with something she wasn’t putting into words. “Do I let him?”
“No. It’s already paid, Wren. There’s not a need.” Thomas was going to fight tooth and nail if he had to, and when he spoke to Moran, it certainly wasn’t going to be about finances.
She was quiet a few seconds, and when she finally spoke it was with a confused tone. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
Thomas’ eyebrows lifted. “Did you go out with Luke with the intent to harm anyone?”
“No, we went to the planetarium the week before and-” she stopped herself, realizing she was babbling, and she shook her head. “I just wanted him to have fun. He’s been working a lot, and school has been hard, and he hasn’t been sleeping much.” Which was the best way she could think of saying that Luke had been stressed and tired and worn out.
Thomas smiled. Not a lot, but it was there. He nodded. “What happened was an accident.” The gray gaze shifted and watched the guard shift into movement. “A couple days. I’ll have the legal team get in touch with you immediately.”
She still couldn’t believe that she was having this conversation, or that this was happening at all, but she nodded. “I’ll call Cassidy,” she said, eyes going darker, more serious. “And I’ll get him to stop somehow, no matter what,” she promised. She glanced back at the guard, who was stepping forward, and she looked back at Thomas one last time. “I would ask you to take care of Luke, but I already know you will, so thank you.”
“Wren.” As the guard reached for the phone. “Ask him to stop. It is a request, not anything else. Make no deals, or Luke is going to make this a lot more complicated.” He didn’t have time for a farewell.
She watched him go, not really understanding how Luke could possibly make things with Cassidy any more complicated. The guard touched her shoulder, and she got to her feet, giving the divider and the empty chair across from it one last look before following the guard into the cold of the locked corridor.