“Ashley,” the aging lawyer says, getting up fr
om his seat and motioning toward mine. “If you’ll close the door and have a seat.”
I do.
“Am I getting out of here or what?” I ask.
“First off, let me tell you how deeply sorry I am that you are in the position you’re in right now,” he says.
“I’m glad someone’s going to apologize,” I respond. “Did my parents tell you I was actually involved in their little scheme?”
“I can’t talk about other clients,” the lawyer says. “First off—”
“You already did a ‘first off,’” I interrupt.
“So I did,” he responds with a painfully fake laugh. “Well, second off, then,” he says. “My fees are taken care of, and I will be your attorney throughout this unfortunate business. Let me assure you, they have no case. All that’s happening is that enemies of your parents are trying to hurt them by hurting you. There is no justification for what they’re doing and it is absolutely criminal, criminal that they would attempt to hurt my clients by setting their sights on—”
“Mr. Witherton?” I interrupt. “Is someone listening in on this conversation, or did you forget that me and my parents do, occasionally, talk?”
The lawyer stops and takes a breath. A beautiful smile comes over his face and he says, “Your bail will be processed here momentarily. There was a little hiccup, but things are all squared away. I just didn’t want to have you sitting in that cell a moment longer than you had to.”
“One cell for another,” I say. “Great.”
“I’m going to go make sure everything is taken care of, and when I come back, I want you to walk with me. There are some people I think you should talk to before we go too much farther,” Mr. Witherton says.
“Where are my doting parents?” I ask.
“I don’t keep track of my clients’ whereabouts twenty-four hours a day!” he comes back, almost yelling.
I blink a few times. “Mr. Witherton, who are you talking to right now?”
“I’m very sorry,” he says. “It’s just stuff like this makes me so mad!”
Okay, this guy’s in on it. I don’t know what part he played, but from the bizarre way he’s acting, he’s got to be in this deeper than just knowing about it.
“Mr. Witherton?” I ask.
“Yes?” he returns.
He’s not inspiring a whole lot of confidence right now.
“Two things: My bail and my parents,” I answer. “Which one do we want to discuss first?”
“I’ll go take care of your bail here,” he says. “Just wait in here. I had to pull some strings to get you some privacy while I’m taking care of getting you out of here.”
My suspicions that my parents are going to try to pin this all on me somehow are only growing. I mean, the man ended his last three sentences with the same word. Who trusts a person like that?
“The faster you go, the faster I get out of here,” I tell him and he finally leaves the room.
I lean up against the wall as there’s nowhere to sit other than the floor. Given that this room smells unmistakably of urine, I’d like to avoid that if possible.
Okay, so the lawyer’s in on this to some degree or another, and with as nervous as he seems to be around me, I’d say he knows that something pretty bad is coming my way. Maybe I’m just paranoid from being in the joint, but the world’s so much different than I remember it.
For one thing, I’m making jokes to myself while standing alone in a concrete box.
Johnson B. Witherton VI, Esq. comes back into the room after a few minutes, and I’m wondering why he didn’t just get this taken care of already. Still, I’m happy enough to get out that I’m not going to start asking too many real questions until I’m outside this building.
“I’m going to take you to see some people now,” Johnson says.