Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 95107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
“What on earth happened?” Kevin asks his stricken partner.
“I’m not sure I understand.” Bruce looks to me, sweat beading on his forehead. “My French sucks.”
“You had one job, sweetheart. You two were barely gone an hour,” Kevin chides. “How did this happen?”
“We were sitting at the bar. That spot by the marina with karaoke on Thursday nights and the strong mai tais,” Bruce rushes to explain. “Short little man comes up and starts shouting at us out of nowhere. No idea who he was or where he came from. Couldn’t understand a word he said. He’s fuming, pointing his finger at Tucker’s chest. I step in and get him to walk away. Then about twenty minutes later, two cops walk in, put Tucker in handcuffs, and walk out. I paid a guy on a scooter thirty bucks to let me hop on and follow them here.”
“That’s it?” I ask in dismay. “He didn’t talk to anyone else? On the street? Sideswipe someone on the road? Tap a bumper?”
“Nope, not a thing. He didn’t even get up to use the restroom.” Bruce fans a hand over his forehead. Poor guy looks like he ran here from the other side of the island. Face red and shirt damp against his skin. “I’m so sorry, Sabrina. I don’t get it.”
“We’ll get it sorted,” Kevin assures me.
With his help translating, we find an officer to escort me back to general holding to see Tucker. He’s in a cell with about twenty other men. Mostly young, drunk, and American. Plus the loud Irish guy slurring at the guard, who ignores him while reading a cooking magazine at a small desk against the wall.
When he sees me walk in, Tucker jumps to his feet and hugs the bars. “Sabrina, I swear—”
“Two minutes,” the officer barks with a thick accent.
“Don’t worry, I know,” I tell Tucker. “Bruce filled us in.”
He releases a long sigh and slumps against the bars. “Hell of a vacation, huh?” He manages a weak smile. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have walked away in the middle of the conversation. That wasn’t fair.”
“It’s okay. We both got worked up.”
“I don’t want to fight anymore.” He shakes his head a few times, as if reprimanding himself. “I’m sorry I managed to make this trip worse.”
“Time’s up,” the guard announces from the doorway.
I glance over with narrowed eyes. “That was not two minutes.”
The uniform-clad man just smirks.
Turning back to Tucker, I give him a reassuring grin. “Baby, I didn’t spend three years at Harvard Law to let my husband rot in jail on my honeymoon. Watch your woman work.”
With Kevin’s assistance again, we get the shift supervisor to come out front to speak with us. Apparently he’s the only one around here who’s fluent in English.
I’m fired up before the man even says hello, demanding to see the charging documents and whatever evidence they have against Tucker.
In return, he tries blowing us off. “You have to come back tomorrow,” he says with a shrug.
“Absolutely not. You’re wrongfully holding an American citizen, and I’m not leaving until I know what he’s been charged with.”
We go around like this a few times until I make myself enough of a pain in the ass that he stomps off to collect the paperwork just to get rid of me. The report ends up being in French, so Kevin translates it for us. Essentially, it says the man who apparently accosted Tucker and Bruce waved down the cops to accuse Tucker of shoplifting from his store and causing some vandalism and destruction of property.
“There’s no way,” Bruce insists. “I caught Tucker before he left the house, and we drove straight to the bar. We didn’t stop anywhere else.”
I frown. “And Tuck and I haven’t left the house except to go to your place, the beach, or your fishing trip. We’ve literally been trapped inside since we stepped foot on the island. They’ve got the wrong guy.”
Once more, I tell the officer at the reception desk that I need to speak to the shift supervisor, who is trying to make himself inconspicuous while watching us from the other side of a door behind the desk.
“Listen, you’ve got my client locked up back there.” I narrow my eyes at the desk jockey. “If someone doesn’t come talk to me, I’m going to come back here with ten more lawyers and the U.S. Ambassador, and you’re going to explain why you’ve locked up an innocent man without evidence and refused to give him access to his attorney.”
The officer reluctantly gets up. An animated conversation takes place behind the door before the shift supervisor again approaches the three of us. And again he tries to shove us off, insisting they have to hold Tucker until his arraignment in the morning.
I cock my head in challenge. “You searched him, right? Were the supposed stolen goods on his person?”