26

Chase

Other than never being able to look Dr. Berger in the eye again, today’s going pretty well. Bro’s talking to me. Her legs aren’t broken. Neither is my back. And we’re heading in to talk to the police chief.

“For the record, I am two seconds from texting Eloise and asking her to spread a picture of your diseased dick all over the internet,” she hisses as I drag her along.

“You don’t have any pictures of my dick,” I murmur.

“Doesn’t matter. Everyone knows I’m in your pants. Plausibility is all I need to ruin your sex life forever.”

“My sex life is with you. I don’t care what you tell the world about my penis.”

She’s getting the eyeball of disbelief from her mother, the chief, and the chief’s secretary. “Ambrosia, we do not talk about men’s penises,” her mother hisses.

“First of all, he’s talking about his penis too. And second of all, you wouldn’t blink if he talked about my vagina,” she hisses back.

All this hissing is getting annoying.

“I could talk about her vagina if you’d like,” I offer.

The chief clears his throat and gives me the don’t be a sexual predator look.

I remember this guy. Met him a time or two the last twenty years, mostly in my teenage years, usually accompanied by the Berger twins. He’s a thinner and grayer on top now, thicker around the middle, and more bow-legged in his gait. When he gestures us into his office, Bro’s trembling.

I squeeze her hand.

“Mr. Jett,” the chief says, “what can we do for you today?”

“Mr. Jett,” Bro mutters.

“You can call me dickhead,” I tell the chief. “All my best friends do.”

Bro snorts. She’s shaking still, but I suspect it’s turning into a good shake.

“My grandchildren are going to be brainless delinquents,” Dr. Berger sighs.

“Zeus might come through for you, ma’am,” I offer.

Bro snort-cackles, and I turn to the chief. “I’m here to turn myself in,” I announce.

Bro chokes on her snort-cackle. The chief gives me a bored quit wasting my time look. “For what?”

“Defacing and attempted robbery of an official visiting vehicle of Baloney Fest ten years ago.”

Bro sinks into a chair. She’s blinking almost as fast as her chest is rising and falling.

I hope my bank account can write me a check out of this, because I have plans for that woman. Tonight. Tomorrow. Every hour for the next month, year, decade.

The chief looks between me and Bro. “The statute of limitations has run out on any crimes that may have occurred ten years ago.”

I hold out my wrists. “I insist you arrest me. Now.”

“Mr. Jett—”

“Dickhead,” I correct. “I terrorized this town for almost twenty years, and I left it after doing heinously unspeakable things to an honored vehicular guest. We don’t need to stand on formality simply because I made a few bucks.”

He rubs his forehead. “Son, I can’t arrest you.”

“There are very few people in this town who would’ve claimed me as a son before I was a billionaire.”

Bro grabs my wrist and tugs my hand down. “Chase. Stop. This isn’t necessary.”

I fucking love it when she says my name. “Either you arrest me, or you clear Ambrosia’s record,” I say.

No one’s laughing now, and Dr. Berger has joined Bro, squishing into the same chair with her daughter like her sons used to squeeze into a single bus seat.

The chief glances between me and Bro. “It’s an honorable thing you’re doing, son, but the law’s the law.”

I hunch over the chief’s desk, resting on my knuckles. “The law fucked up, and one person took the fall for two people’s crimes. You’re going to tell me the quickest way to solve this, or I’ll be calling a press conference to discuss every case this office has mishandled in the last twenty years.”

Two-thirds of those cases involve officers letting me and the Berger boys off with warnings for shit we should’ve been jailed for. They put me in front of a camera, I’m spilling it all. And if you think the Twin Tanks won’t be tripping over themselves to make up even more shit than we actually did, you don’t know them very well.

Judging by the way the chief is turning green at the gills but purple everywhere else, he knows it too. “Let me make a few phone calls,” he grits out.

Bro gasps. She slugs me in the back, which I interpret to mean thank you, you ugly, rich bastard.

Inspiration strikes. “While you’re doing that, is your holding cell empty?”

“Joe Gus Johnson’s back there. Caught him terrorizing a hog last night.”

“Why is it always the hogs?” Bro mutters.

“I’m sorry,” Dr. Berger interrupts, “but did you just say he was fornicating with a pig?”

“Don’t say sorry,” Bro hisses at her.

“That’s the charge, ma’am.”

“A man was caught with his peepee in a pig, and my daughter is the one they’re gossiping over?” She leaps to her feet, bends over the desk, and grabs the chief by the earlobe. “Why is no one talking about this man corrupting a sheep?”

“Hog,” I correct.

Bro snuffle-snorts like her upstairs neighbors back in the city, and I almost lose my shit.

“Ma’am, I don’t control the gossip,” the chief says. “Please unhand me before I do have to arrest someone in this room. Namely, you.”

“Give it a good tweak first, Mom,” Bro says.

She drops the chief and shoves herself to the door. “Excuse me. I have gossip to spread. And a subpoena to file for any pictures you might have.”

“I’m going to need you to release Joe Gus on bail,” I tell the chief. “And I need to use the holding pen. With the cameras turned off. And the doors locked.”

“Chase,” Bro whispers. “You are not putting yourself in jail.”

“Nope. I’m putting us in jail.”