Educational Experience

Part III--Chapter 12

The last chapter was the beginning of the end. This one...well...just...read on and try not to freak out too bad, okay?

I called out, "I'm fine!' toward the door to the private room at the back of the jet.

"Open it then," Aisha yelled back.

"Just...gimme a few minutes."

I knew that wouldn't work. She started jiggling the door handle so hard I decided I'd better get up before she tried to judo kick the door down.

I knew why they were so worried. Let me backtrack a little, to what had happened at the cop shop earlier.

I was sort of dozing off in a chair when Hugh rushed into the waiting room with Big Man right behind him.

I sort of startled awake, when I heard them coming. And Big Man took a bead on me and went, "Git on up outta here," in a voice I'd never heard before.

I have never seen that man so mad at me before or since. I stood up so he wouldn't come over and throw me against a wall or something. That's how mad he looked.

And he went, "We're gonna go out through the employee lot. Somebody'll come for the car. Safer here than it was out wherever the hell they found you."

And I said, "She's not."

Hugh smiled and said, "And of course you want to make sure she is."

"I just want to know the charges and all."

"I don't give a damn what they charge her with!" Big Man said. "And you need to quit pickin' these bitches don't know if they're comin' or goin'! One runs off, the other one runs off with you and a purse fulla heroin! What's wrong with you, boy?"

Hugh gave him a pat on the back the way you do to remind someone they're acting out in public.

And then he put his hands on my shoulders and said, "Are you all right?"

I said, "I'm out here chillin'. But I can guess how it went down with the girls."

Big Man took out his cell and found an article to show me. They had her mug shot already. And in the little paragraph beneath it, it said:

"Her companion, young adult entertainment mogul Colton James, was released after authorities determined that he did not know about the drugs and had no illegal substances in his possession."

"How the hell did they get that mug shot so fast?" I asked.

"Oh, it's on son," Big Man said. "Photographers heard it on a damned police scanner one of 'em had on his cell. Started a stampede tryin'a beat each other over here. And then the one cop told 'em you and her was out there foolin' around together. So you know that's all over the Net'n' everywhere else by now."

I just sighed, looked at Hugh and said, "So what now?"

And I didn't like how he looked when I said it. Like he was afraid to say the next thing.

But he finally sighed, too. And said, "We've got a meeting with the judge at 1 p.m. Chase tried to find out exactly what was on the agenda but no one would budge. But he's obviously heard the news."

I sort of deflated and shook my head.

And Hugh peered into my eyes like an optometrist and said, "I need you to sleep on the way back. You've got to be firing on all cylinders."

"CPS wants to talk to you, too," Big Man said. "Soon as you get outta this other thing, since they're just in that next building over."

"They let me go," I said. "I didn't have anything on me."