Warning: Strong Language and Sexual References!
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Chapter Six: New Jobs and New Secrets
Ary arrived at the police precinct just moments after Detective Wilcox and Keller arrived. They were waiting outside for her.
"Now can you tell me what's going on?" she demanded as she stormed up the steps to meet them.
"Inside," Wilcox assured her. "Right this way, Miss Harper," he said, opening the door for her.
Thankfully, Ary wasn't taken to an interrogation room. Detective Wilcox led her to his office. Clearly she wasn't being brought in as a criminal, but then why bring her down to the station at all? Or were they just trying to get her defenses down by making her think she was safe? That put her on high alert.
Wilcox and Keller left her alone in the office for a good ten minutes. She had to resist the urge to start snooping around. Even though the blinds were pulled over the windows and there were no mirrors that could possibly be taken as a two-way-mirror, Ary couldn't help but to feel like she was being watched. She did not feel safe at all in the police station.
"Well, Miss Harper, I bet you're wondering why we've brought you in," Detective Wilcox said once he had finally graced Ary with his presence once again.
"I'll admit, I'm a little curious," Ary replied, trying to play it cool. She didn't want to seem anxious around any cops.
"Two months ago you and your cousin were held captive by Michael Radcliffe, correct?" Wilcox asked her as he took a seat across from her at his desk.
"I don't know. You're the detective. Why don't you tell me?" Ary questioned, instantly going into defensive mode at the mention of Michael's name.
"Prewitt was right; you are defensive," Wilcox said as he leaned back in his chair.
Prewitt had been the lead detective on her kidnapping and murder case. What reason did these two have to talk about her? As far as she knew, Wilcox hadn't been anywhere near that case and she was pretty confident in her ability to remember the names and faces of people that could potentially get her locked up for murder.
"Look, instead of beating around the bush here, why don't you just tell me exactly what you want from me?" she demanded.
Wilcox smirked a bit as he searched through the files on his desk. "Do you know about the Bloodbaths, Miss Harper?" he asked, looking up from his files to stare directly at her.
Ary tried her hardest to keep her face composed, even when she was having a mini panic attack on the inside. The jig was up. They must have suspected that she had been involved with the gang and Mason's presence at the club and his sudden defense of her was all they needed to confirm it.
"Who doesn't know about them? They're one of the worst gangs in Chicago and are on the news at least once a week," Ary shrugged, still fighting to remain calm.
If Wilcox thought she was lying, he didn't let it show. He just continued with his questions. "Your cousin, Lucas Lawson is a Bloodbath, isn't he?" Wilcox proceeded to question.
"He was," Ary said, putting and emphasise on 'was'. "If you talked to Prewitt, you should know all of this already," she stated, sounding just a little bit irritated. She had every right to be irritated by useless questions.
"I'm just making sure you know all of this," he replied, an overly sweet smile on his face. He was purposely antagonizing her. Well, two could play that game.
Ary rose to her feet without a word and turned towards the door.
"Miss Harper, where do you think you're going?" Wilcox asked, getting up from his seat.
"I'm bored and since I'm not under arrest, I'm going to leave," Ary replied, giving him a gracious smile.
"Okay, okay," Wilcox sighed, giving in. "I get it. Please take a seat and I'll tell you the reason I asked you here," he pointed at the chair that she had previously been sitting in.
Ary smiled in triumph. That tactic had always worked for her when her parents had tried to grill her for information about what he's sisters had been up to. She knew that if she refused to play the game then the actual reason for the game would come out faster. She wasn't a fan of wasting time for any reason.
"So, what did you want to talk about?" Ary asked, once she had settled back in her seat.
"I want to talk about the Bloodbaths," Wilcox said. Ary's stomach immediately dropped.
"Why do you want to talk about them? I told you, my cousin isn't involved with them anymore," she assured the detective.
"I know. We've already questioned him about this," Wilcox said, nodding his head.
"Then why are you asking me about it?" she asked. She knew she sounded defensive. It was hard not to. She thought that her days of talking about and dealing with the Bloodbaths were over.
"We know that someone knocked Christian Donovan around pretty good and handed him over to the police on a silver platter," Wilcox said.
"And? What does that have to do with me?" Ary inquired. She shifted nervously in her chair. She couldn't get in trouble for bringing down a criminal like Christian, right?
"I'm not quite sure yet," Wilcox answered honestly. "Normally, I'd chalk that up to a rival gang taking care of some business, but it's highly unlikely that any gang member would have left him alive."
So that was her mistake? Leaving Christian alive? She'd have to remember that for next time. Never leave a man alive.
"I don't know why we're talking about this. This guy is in jail, right? So what's the problem?" she asked, folding her arms across her chest in a defensive manner. Was it wrong to put criminals behind bars now?
"Look, Miss Harper, we know that a woman fitting your description was seen at Donovan's house around the time he was discovered and we also know that you weren't at the hospital with your family," Wilcox said, giving her a very serious look.
"Okay, you caught me," Ary sighed, throwing her hands up in defeat. "I took down a gang leader all by myself. I'm a vigilante hero and on the weekends I team up with Aquaman to help rid the oceans of evil," she spoke with absolute seriousness in her voice.
Wilcox didn't smile, he just kept staring at her. He was studying her in that way that cops do. Intense stares, trying to get the perp to buckle under pressure. Is that what she was to these cops? A perp that they were trying to get to confess to a crime.
"You're a pretty strange young woman, Miss Harper," Wilcox said after a few moments of awkward silence.
"Excuse me?" That statement had caught her off guard.
"Prewitt told me about how you were after your cousin and been shot and after you killed Radcliffe. He said you were calm and cool," he said.
"I'm sorry, was I supposed to burst into tears and act hysterical?" she asked, her words dripping with sarcasm. There was nothing Ary hated more than being thought of as weak and incompetent.
"A lot of people in your position most likely would have gone into shock the minute they had been kidnapped. Very few would have been able to overpower their attacker." If Ary wasn't mistaken, Wilcox was actually praising her.
"What are you getting at?" she asked, eyes narrowed in suspicion. When people started to praise her she knew something was u.s.
"The Bloodbaths have been acting up again; they probably have a new leader already. I was just thinking that maybe you'd like to help out on a few cases. I know you have your P.I. license," Wilcox said.
"Are you offering me a job?" Ary's mouth dropped open in surprise.
"More of a trial run consulting gig, but if it happens to lead anywhere then we could make it a permanent thing," he shrugged.
"I, uh, I'll have to think about it," Ary stuttered. She could barely form a coherent sentence, her mind was racing from all this information.
"Take your time. Here's my number. Give me a call once you make your decision," Wilcox handed her his business card.
She took it and slowly got out of her seat. What the hell just happened? She had expected to get grilled about her past and all the things she had ever done wrong, but instead the cops were offering her a job. No one had ever thought her worthy of anything before. She didn't know how to process this information.
"What the hell happened!?" Rave demanded as soon as she stepped into the club.
"You told him?" Ary looked past Rave to glare at Mason. Mason just shrugged and that's when Ary got a closer look at his face. There was a bluish bruise starting to form around his eye. She turned back to Rave. "You hit him!?"
"He lied to me about where you were," Rave shrugged, carelessly.
"So you just, what, beat the information out of him?" she asked, in frustration.
"He lied to me," Rave repeated, emphasizing his words.
"I lied to you. Are you gonna hit me too?" Ary challenged.
The silence in the room was deafening and Ary was pretty sure that all three of them held their breaths. It was a stupid move on her part to ask a question like that, but she was annoyed and pissed off. She talked with the cops. It wasn't like she had gone off on her own to hunt down a criminal mastermind. Rave was overreacting. Like always.
"That is not the same thing," Rave said, through gritted teeth. It was obvious that he was trying to control his anger.
"Yes, it is the same thing! Mason is your friend and you have no problem beating the crap out of him. Who's to say I won't piss you off to the point that you feel the need to smack me around a bit?" she demanded.
Now she was just antagonizing him and she knew it, but for some reason she couldn't stop herself. She was intentionally baiting him with things that she knew would piss him off. It wasn't all her fault, though. If Rave could just act like a normal guy and give her a few hours of freedom, she wouldn't get so pissed off at him. She was gone for barely three hours!
"Rave," Ary sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose, trying stave off a headache. "I can't do this with you every time I leave the club," she told him.
"You can't do what?" he asked, eyes narrowed.
"Fight with you. I don't get on you when you leave, and please don't say it's different, because it's not," she said.
"I was worried about you," he told her, fervently.
"You don't think that I worry about you too? You don't think that I wonder about what you're doing when you're gone, if you're getting back with the Bloodbaths now that Christian is out of the picture!" she shouted. Crap. She hadn't wanted to let that out of the bag just yet.
"What?" This question came from Mason, who had been quietly listening to them fight. He looked absolutely shocked by this information and looked over at Rave with wide eyes.
Rave shot a warning look at Mason before he turned back to look at Ary. "I'm not back with the gang. I willingly left them in the first place, remember?"
"I know," she sighed. She hugged herself. She was getting worked up for no reason.
"What's going on? What did those cops say to you?" Rave asked, stepping towards her. He was angry and defensive, which put Ary on her guard.
"They said that Bloodbath activity has skyrocketed in the past couple of weeks. They think the gang has a new leader or something," she shrugged. She was trying to play this down and avoid another fight with Rave.
"And you just automatically jump to the conclusion that I took over the gang again?" Rave demanded. He looked hurt.
"What am I suppose to think? You're gone for half the day and you're hanging around with all your old buddies from the gang!" she accused him. "No offense, Mase," she added, giving Mason an apologetic look. He shrugged, not offended at all.
"I'm gone for work! I don't have to be at the club all the time," he said, loudly. He was trying his hardest not to shout.That was something at least.
"Oh, that's rich," Ary laughed, rolling her eyes.
"What's that supposed to mean?" he demanded.
"You expect me to stick around the club all day! You freak out when I leave for ten minutes!" she exclaimed. Unlike Rave, she wasn't above shouting.
"I'm not the one who goes out looking for trouble by spying on married guys and breaking into people's houses!" Rave was actually lecturing her. He used to beat the crap out of people just for the fun of it and now he's was lecturing her about staying out of trouble.
"It's my job, which I happen to like, and besides for that one time it's mostly boring," she defended herself. It really was boring. Half the time she wished some crazy guy with a gun would show up just so she would have something exciting to deal with.
"I don't see why you can't just get a normal job," Rave sighed in frustration.
"A normal job!?" Ary snorted in disbelief. "Oh yes, let me go apply as a saleswoman at the fucking Hot Topic at the fucking mall, because that so wouldn't make me want to dig my eyes out with a rusty spoon!" Unable to deal with him anymore, Ary turned on her heel and walked away.
"Where are you going?" Rave asked her.
"Upstairs to throw knives at a picture of your face. Because that is what I like to do," she snapped, giving him her most seething glare. "And unless you want to give me a real life target, I suggest you keep your chauvinistic male ass down here with your boyfriend!" she shouted before disappearing into the back room, slamming the door shut behind her.
"Well, she seems to be in a good mood," Mason said a few moments after Ary made her big exit.
"She'll get over it," Rave shrugged, unconcerned.
"Man, why don't you just tell her the truth?" Mason inquired.
"She doesn't need to get involved," Rave replied, going back over to the table he had been working at. There were loose papers scattered everywhere.
"Come on, boss, it's Ary. Either you tell her about it yourself or she'll go out on her own and find the answers. Which is more dangerous?" Mason gave Rave a cold look before heading back behind the bar.
Mason never liked going against Rave, especially since it usually came with a black eye or something even worse, but he liked Ary. She was kind and had a wicked sense of humor. He didn't want to see her get hurt and he especially didn't want her to leave Rave. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, Ary was the best thing that ever happened to Rave and Mason didn't want to be around if Ary left and Rave went back to his White Raven habits.
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Will Ary accept the offer and join forces with the cops to bring down the Bloodbaths? Where does Rave really go when he leaves? Is he lying about his involvement with the Bloodbaths? What's his secret?
Stay tuned to find out!