On The Run: Part Two

Chapter Twenty-Nine - "The Means To Whose End"

Sarah

“WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?” I yelled at Barbara Farrow, as she began to dig into her bowl of soup at Marlowe’s Diner, a few blocks from her office.

I felt gazes draw to me, as the place went silent. She stared up at me with a very bored look. It pissed me off even more.

“Miss Barron, join me, would you?”

“Listen here, you are not putting my daughter on the stand, you hear me?”

She smiled and let out a sigh, “I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do about that. You interfere, and you could both be arrested.”

I grit my teeth, “What are you playing at, Farrow?”

She gave me an innocent look, “I’m winning; that’s what I’m doing.”

“Chloe doesn’t even know anything!”

“Well, we’ll see about that, won’t we?”

I glared at her, feeling an immense powerlessness seep in.

“You want to make this personal? I can do personal.”

“You’re the one taking it that way. I’m just doing my job. It’s a job. Your daughter’s involved with the defendant and I feel that she might know something that could help. You’d do the same thing in my position.”

I glared at her, “You are not putting my daughter on the stand,” I said, and made my way to the door, past the curious glances of the rest of Marlowe’s.

“See you tomorrow, Barron!” she called aloud to my back.

I slammed the door behind me, a little too hard, that the glass shook.

Why the hell did I ever quit the NYPD?

*

I paced up and down in James’s office.

“This has got to be some kind of conflict of interest,” I muttered.

He leaned back in his chair, “Not really.”

I sighed, “I just don’t want her involved.”

“I get that, Sarah, but she doesn’t know anything, right? It should be pretty smooth.”

I sat on his couch, “Farrow’s going to be really hard on her.”

“What did Chloe say? Is she worrying?”

I shook my head, “She thinks its funny. She was like ‘I’ve been served?’ and she wouldn’t stop laughing.”

He smiled, “She’ll be fine.”

“I have no idea what Farrow’s playing at.”

“She thinks this will help her win.”

“But that’s my point. She seems so hell bent on winning this. Fitch is so irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.”

“Yeah?”

“So why have we been working on this for nearly two months? I’d think the state’s attorney would be very unconcerned with a murder that happened in California, with everything else going on.”

He frowned, “I see what you mean. Do you think we’re being played?”

“I don’t know.”

“Somehow, Fitch is seeming more crucial to them than he seems to be from our point of view.”

“Isn’t he connected to that Benjamin guy? The one who’d being investigated for drug trafficking, several counts of murder and associations to the mafia?”