Page 38 of Handcuffed to the Bear

“If you’re questioning me, why are you handcuffing me? I want my lawyer.”

“I think you just gave us an ample demonstration of why they’re necessary,” Eva said, hauling her to her feet.

“I’m not saying anything without a lawyer,” Debi spat.

“Really? We’ll see if you still feel that way after we make you a very exclusive and limited-time offer to escape prosecution.” Avery holstered his gun and buttoned up his shirt. His hands were shaking slightly—partly from adrenaline, but mostly from the awareness of how close to the edge they were running this entire operation. They couldn’t keep Debi out of communication with her siblings for very long, not legally at least, and Jack’s life might depend on how they handled the initial stages of their interview with her.

* * *

Debi had not ceased her demands for a lawyer by the time they hustled her into the SCB’s op center.

Avery had pitched the idea of taking her somewhere more relaxed and less intimidatingly jail-like, such as a restaurant, but Eva pointed out that given half a chance, she was certain to a) run, b) yell for help, or c) call her lawyer and/or one of her siblings. They needed to keep her out of contact with the rest of the world for as long as they could, which hopefully would be long enough to get through to her.

Still, rather than taking her into their usual suspect interview room, with its bare metal table and uncomfortable chairs, Avery and Cho escorted her to the much cozier lounge they used to debrief witnesses. Due to the SCB’s ongoing budget shortfalls, it also doubled as the employee break room; twelve hours ago, Avery had been napping on one of the couches.

Now he sat on the same couch across from her after helping Cho get her settled into a comfortable chair, made slightly less comfortable by the fact that her wrist was handcuffed to the chair’s arm. She’d been allowed to get dressed in the backseat of Eva’s Ford Explorer, flanked by two agents to make sure she didn’t try shifting while the cuffs were off.

“I’m Agent Hollen, Ms. Fallon,” Avery said. “This is Agent Cho. Can we get you anything? Coffee, maybe?”

Debi twitched a crease in her charcoal slacks back into place, then sat ramrod-straight in a frosty silence.

“I know you think we’re hassling you, but we’re actually trying to help you,” Avery said. He leaned forward, putting on his warmest and most sympathetic bonding-with-the-witness face. Avery tended to be good at this. Hedidgenuinely empathize with most of the people they dealt with. Even now, half out of his mind with worry for his partner, he appreciated that Debi had to be scared as well as angry.

He reminded himself, however, that even though she’d stayed home rather than out helping her brothers and sister tear an innocent victim apart, she was still just as guilty as they were.

“Some ‘help’,” Debi said coolly, looking down her aristocratic nose at him. “Were you also ‘helping’ me when your nasty little friend there bounced my forehead off the pavement?”

“I see lots of hard surfaces in here to bounce other parts of you off of,” Cho said, cheerfully swinging into her favorite ‘bad cop’ role without consulting Avery.

“Look, Debi,” Avery said, getting her attention back on him. “The reason why we wanted you in here without a lawyer is pretty simple. We know what you did. We know what your entire family, your pride, has done. And we have evidence.” This last part was the only lie. They didn’t have a shred. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be a lie for long. “We brought you in here alone to give you a chance to save yourself.”

Her eyes had gone wide for a moment; now they narrowed. “Save myself at the expense of my pride?” she sneered. “You must be joking.”

“Your pride put that rope around their own necks,” Avery said, keeping his voice calm. “And you did too. But we’re offering you an opportunity to get out of the noose before it closes around you.”

“And what, exactly, are these heinous crimes you think we’ve committed?”

“Murder,” Cho said, her voice cold.

Again a quick flash of shock, her eyes wide; then the veneer of calm settled over her again. “Oh, because we’re large predator shifters, you assume we’ve killed someone? Do you level these accusations at every predator shifter you meet? I saw you’ve got a few on your team. And what aboutyou, Agent Hollen? You know some of the stories they tell about werewolves, don’t you? Even—” Her contemptuous gaze flicked to his leg. “—acrippledwerewolf.”

“Are you listening to anything we say, ice princess?” Cho demanded. “Did you hear me say the word murder? Because that’s a big word. Murder. A big, tough word. A word that can take away your whole world, all your nice things and your private yacht and your family and your freedom. And we can prove you did it. All of you.”

Debi snorted and inspected her nails as if she hadn’t a care in the world. Avery recognized the tension she was trying not to display, though; her shoulders were stiff.

“You have no idea who you’re dealing with, you fools. Whatever outrageous accusations you’ve concocted, our lawyers will make sure we never see jail time.”

Avery forced a laugh. He looked at Cho. “Hey, she thinks we’re going to put her in jail. Isn’t that cute?”

“Adorable,” Cho said. She grinned, showing small white teeth.

“Oh, is this the part when you try to intimidate me with threats of violence?” Debi asked. “Because our lawyers willburyyou stupid g-men.”

“Hon, we’re not the FBI,” Cho said. “We’re the SCB. If you want to compare us to a different agency, you could call us the shifter CIA.”

This time the flash in her eyes was fear. Avery pushed on it.

“You haven’t seen the news erupt in 24/7 headline bulletins about shapeshifters, have you?” he said. “No, because we’re the people who make sure that doesn’t happen. Which means, very quietly, taking care of shifters who commit crimes before they can be discovered. If you aren’t interested in our offer, you aren’t going to get a chance to talk to a lawyer. Ever.”

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