Outside the Law. Kara Lennox

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СКАЧАТЬ for a lot of reasons, but involving sweet Beth in this mess wasn’t one of them.

       The bailiff put Mitch back into the same stinking holding cell in which he’d spent the night, and he sat there for another hideous three hours. What the hell was taking so long? Though coming up with two million dollars wasn’t something that happened in ten minutes, if Daniel had made the decision to bail an employee out of jail, he would make things happen quickly. So either Mitch should get out, or they should take him to Bernadette Parish lockup, where prisoners awaiting trial were kept.

       At least there he would get a shower and a clean jumpsuit.

       His cell mate, with the unlikely name of Canthus, had been affable last night when they’d thrown him in here because he’d been drunk. Now he was good and sober…and mean. He’d already taken a swing at Mitch, and the only thing that had prevented Mitch from flattening the guy like a roach was a reluctance to add more charges to his record.

       Canthus was currently crouched in a corner, twisting a dreadlock. “You gonna make bail?” he asked, apparently having forgotten their argument of ten minutes ago over who got to sit on what bench.

       “I don’t know yet. You?” He didn’t even know what Canthus was in for.

       “Naw, no one’ll bail me out. A few days would be okay, if they feed me. But I’d seriously rather sleep under a bridge.”

       Mitch hadn’t seen any signs of food this morning, and he was getting pretty hungry. Didn’t prisoners have rights? Then something Canthus had said sank in. “You homeless, man?”

       Canthus straightened his spine and stared at Mitch with dead, obsidian eyes. “You want to make something of it? I suppose you live in a mansion on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain.”

       “I didn’t mean anything,” Mitch said affably. He had no desire to duck any more punches by the increasingly sober man. “I was just wondering if you might know a guy used to be a friend of mine. Larry.”

       “Just Larry?”

       That’s all Mitch had ever called him. But Addlestein had mentioned Larry’s last name…Montford? No, Montague. “Larry Montague. I used to hang with him. Back then we called him Crazy Larry ’cause he’d do anything for a laugh. Scrawny guy, long blond, curly hair, real pale skin. He has a tat on his upper arm of a snake and a heart.”

       Mitch remembered the night Larry had gotten the tattoo, on his twenty-first birthday. Mitch, only sixteen, had watched in fascination as the needle had puckered Larry’s skin, and marveled at how Larry hadn’t even winced.

       Suddenly the light of recognition dawned in Canthus’s eyes. “That Larry! He is crazy. Saw that guy jump off a railroad trestle once when we was running from the cops.”

       That sounded like Larry. “You happen to know where he is?”

       Canthus shook his head. “No, man, ain’t seen him for months. He might’ve said he was going to New Orleans for the winter. Huh, kinda stupid. It’s not much warmer there than here in the winter.”

       If Larry had gone away for the winter, that meant he might be returning soon. “If you see him, do you think you could let me know? I really need to talk to the dude.” Mitch pulled a card out of his pocket. He always kept a few there, though he seldom needed them since his work usually kept him at the office, behind a computer.

       “You work for Project Justice? I’ve seen those dudes on TV, man. At Brewskies, they’re always watching those crime shows on the TV over the bar. You got it made, man. Hey, think they could get me off? I’m looking at sixty days.”

       “I can’t make any promises, but if you find Larry for me, I’ll see what we can do.”

       “That’d be cool, man.” Canthus started cleaning his nails with the corner of Mitch’s business card.

       Mitch didn’t hold out much hope. How would Canthus locate Larry from jail?

       Finally, the bailiff returned. “Looks like you got some friends in high places.”

       “I made bail?” Praise be.

       “Yeah, but there’s a small complication. Remember, the judge said you had to stay in Bernadette Parish?”

       “Sure, no problem.” Once he was out of this place, he would worry about how to get around that rule. He’d get Raleigh to talk to the judge again. Maybe the judge would remand him into Raleigh’s custody. Or Beth’s.

      No, not Beth’s. He gave himself a swift mental kick, but that didn’t stop a forbidden fantasy from popping to mind involving handcuffs and a riding crop. He ruthlessly squelched it. Beth wasn’t that kind of girl.

       “See, the thing is, the judge won’t just take your word for it. So you have to be fitted with a monitor.” The bailiff got the cell door unlocked, but Mitch just stood there.

       “You gotta be kidding me. Where am I going to stay? I don’t live here anymore.”

       “You got kin here, right?”

       “I’m sure as hell not staying at my brother’s house.” He’d rather be thrown into a cold dungeon and starved than endure living under the same roof as Dwayne and Linda. Dwayne was bad enough, but Linda—she had obsessive-compulsive disorder. Dwayne’s high school sweetheart freaked out if she couldn’t count her French fries before eating them. Mitch could remember her making Dwayne clean her hubcaps with a toothbrush.

       The bailiff shrugged. “All I know is they got something worked out.”

       Ten minutes later, Mitch was the proud wearer of a black cuff around his ankle that appeared to be made of Kryptonite—indestructible and designed to rat him out if he tried to tamper with it.

       “The cuff is equipped with a GPS signal that will report your exact location to a monitoring center,” Raleigh explained. Beth, who for unknown reasons was still hanging out in Coot’s Bayou, sat nearby watching somberly. They were in a small conference room at police headquarters, where they had cuffed him to a chair while the technician from the monitoring company did his thing.

       “If you set foot outside Bernadette Parish,” Raleigh continued to explain, “the police have the right to arrest you and return you to jail to await trial.”

       “This completely sucks,” Mitch objected. “I have to be able to move around. I have things to do. Obligations.”

       “If you’re worried about work, don’t be. Daniel is having your entire computer system moved down here so you can telecommute.”

       “From where? Where exactly is it that I’m supposed to stay? Do I rent an apartment? Stay in a motel? And who’s paying for that?” He had a sinking feeling Raleigh hadn’t told him the worst news. “What?”

       “You’ll stay at your mother’s house, of course. It looks good, shows you’ve got support, and it’ll save you some money.”

       Horrified, Mitch shook his head. “There’s no way. We don’t get along, and anyway, she’d never agree.”

       Beth picked that moment to speak up. “She already has.”

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