Page 74 of Let It Breathe
Reese’s knees buckled and she grabbed the cold brick doorframe to keep herself upright. Larissa’s words slurred in her ears, and Reese leaned against the side of the building, not trusting her legs anymore.
“Clay is in jail,” Reese repeated. “Are you okay? What happened? Do I need to come get you?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know who else to call.”
“Are you hurt, Larissa?”
“No,” she sniffed. “But Clay might be.”
Reese closed her eyes, hating the sick feeling in her gut almost as much as she hated the familiarity of it.
“I’ll be right there.”
Chapter 10
Reese clicked off the phone and hurried back inside, cursing herself for not driving her own car. Now she was going to have to ask Wally to take her to the police station on their first date.
And this is why I’m single, she thought.
Wally was standing by the door when she walked in, a frown making deep brackets around his mouth. “Is everything okay?”
“No,” Reese said. “I hate to do this, but is there any chance you could take me to the police station?”
“Police station?” He frowned, and Reese stood up a little straighter, braced for judgment.
“I don’t know what’s happened, but my cousin is in trouble and my friend Clay—my old friend from college? He—he?—”
She stopped, not sure how much to say. Hell, she didn’t know much more than that, did she? “Please?”
“Absolutely, let me get our coats. I’ll head off your grandfather’s friend if she comes back. Why don’t you wait right here?”
Reese stood there in the doorway shivering until Wally brought the thin black trench coat she’d borrowed from Larissa. He set it over her shoulders, giving her a second to shrug her arms into it and cinch it around her waist before he led the way to his car.
Wally was quiet on the drive there. Maybe he sensed her need for silence or maybe he was second-guessing the wisdom of dating a woman who’d had two brushes with illegal activity in the twenty-four hours he’d known her.
That was hardly Reese’s biggest concern at the moment. Her mind buzzed with questions. Was Larissa okay? Had Clay been drinking? Part of her raged in silence—he’d slipped off the wagon, she knew it, she knew it.
Part of her just wanted to cry.
This isn’t the first time you’ve bailed Clay out of jail, whispered a voice in her head.
By the time they pulled up in front of the police station, tears stung the back of her eyes. Reese unbuckled her seat belt and threw open her door.
“Do you want me to wait here or come in?” Wally asked.
She hesitated, not sure what etiquette called for when making jail visits on a first date.
“I’ll come in,” he said, unbuckling his seat belt. “You might need someone who’s not emotionally invested.”
“Thank you,” Reese said as she hustled to the door.
She pushed her way inside, blinking hard against the white walls and fluorescent lighting. A uniformed officer leaned against a doorframe writing something on a clipboard. Behind a glass wall, a woman spoke rapidly into a telephone receiver. The room smelled of stale coffee and unwashed bodies.
On a bench across the room sat Larissa. She had mascara streaks running down her face, and her shirt looked rumpled and beer stained.
Reese hurried toward her and dropped to her knees in front of her cousin, brushing her hair back off her face. “Larissa, my God, are you okay?”
“Oh, Reesey—thanks for coming.” She sniffed, looking up with red-rimmed eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
