The first stop was to Aodhan’s house.
I knocked on the door, still in Wake’s T-shirt with his juices running down my inner thigh, and waited uncomfortably for him to answer.
He did with a shirt off, sweat coating his skin, and an angry expression on his face that had me taking a step back.
“What?” he snapped.
I swallowed hard, then pointed across the road at my house. “Um, we were there. Me and, um, Wake. We were there, doing… errrm, stuff. Outside. Stuff where we probably shouldn’t have been. And the sheriff came up and arrested Wake.”
Aodhan blinked. Once. Twice. Then said, “You were fucking outside, got caught, and Wake is now going to jail for it?”
I nodded miserably.
“You’re allowed to fuck on your own property,” he said. “You’re not in public. That’s not something he can be arrested for.”
I licked my lips nervously as I said, “Wake wanted you to get his bike and bring it over here. And I’m supposed to call his lawyer.”
Aodhan sighed and widened the door before saying, “Get in here. Let me grab a shirt, and I’ll walk back with you.”
I’d been so nervous and anxious earlier that I’d practically run over here without thinking. Duh. I should’ve taken my car.
Jesus.
He disappeared into a room and left me standing in his front foyer.
I couldn’t even take a single thing in seeing as I was so nervous.
In the meantime, I shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably.
I heard him muttering, and then came out moments later dressed fully with boots and a ball cap on.
He had his phone pressed to his ear, and he gestured for me to follow him.
I did, listening to his conversation as we made it back to my house.
When we got there, he hung up and shoved his phone into his pocket.
“I got his lawyer headed there. They will probably beat them to the station. In the meantime, you get your shit, lock up, and then head to the station. Only after you’re dressed, though.” His eyes went pointedly to my chest, then to my legs.
I felt my face flame.
Holy hell, could this day get any worse?
Yes. Yes, it could.
“You can’t just hold him for no reason, Sheriff,” Wake’s lawyer repeated. “This is against the law. And you’re not above the law just because you’re sheriff. In fact, if he’s not released to me in less than two minutes, I’ll be bringing this house down around you,” Sage Carmichael, Wake’s lawyer, said confidently.
“We got him on indecency with a minor,” Sheriff snapped.
The fuckin’ nerve of this guy. Out of everyone in the goddamn world, there’s no way in hell that Wake would be caught dead anywhere near ‘indecency with a minor’ when he went to jail for pedophiles hurting minors. The fuckin’ moron.
“What?” I shrieked. “You do not, you lying sack of…”
Sage caught my arm in a bruising grip, then guided me to the side of the room. “Calm down. I will handle this.”
I knew he would.
I just couldn’t believe the fuckin’ balls on the sheriff.
Indecency with a minor.
What a crock of shit.
“If anyone should be getting in trouble for indecency with a minor, it’s his fuckin’ sister,” I growled.
Aodhan, who hadn’t left, looked over at me sharply. “What?”
I felt his eyes more than saw them as I said, “Wake didn’t tell you? I had a patient, he is in Sheriff Graydon’s sister’s class. The kid had a whole lot to say about Annalise Graydon, and not a damn one of them was good.”
“Annalise Graydon, as in the teacher, Annalise Graydon?” Aodhan asked carefully.
Ruh-roh.
“Yes,” I confirmed quietly. “I’ll tell you everything when he’s not there studying me like I’m an interesting bug he’d like to squash.”
And Sheriff Graydon really was.
“That won’t happen,” Aodhan grumbled.
“How about you tell us exactly what you think you have on him,” Sage said carefully, seemingly curious but not overly so, like we both knew he was.
“According to a confidential informant, today, while at his house, he exposed himself to his daughter,” Sheriff Graydon stuttered.
I immediately had my hackles raised. “Well, that would not have been difficult if his daughter was actually at his house this morning. Which she wasn’t. Because she’s still living with her aunt because that’s where all of her belongings are, and where she’s been living since Wake was imprisoned. We did go over and see her today, together, but what we did not do was expose ourselves in any way.”
“Who did you say that you got this information from?” Sage questioned.
Sheriff Graydon’s eyes went slightly wide, as if he hadn’t realized that Lolo wasn’t living with Wake.
Well, maybe he should’ve dug for that information before he’d suggest such a heinous thing.
“Um, well…” Sheriff Graydon said. “His neighbor.”
“His neighbor,” I said carefully. “Well, he does have a lot of them. And I’m sure that you can confirm with almost every single one but the neighbor under question, that they’ve never even seen Lolo at our house.”