Jem said the magic words.“Am I under arrest?”
“What were you doing out here?”
“I was going for a walk.”
“Cut the bullshit.What were you doing out here?”
“Doctors say you’re supposed to take a walk after dinner.Helps with your blood sugar or something.”At least, that was what Tean said, and Tean counted as a doctor.
Right on cue, Van Cleave leaned in.Jem didn’t have anywhere to go, and the movement brought Van Cleave uncomfortably close—which was the whole point.A lot of people—most people—would have shrunk back, tried to get away, their animal brains telling them that Van Cleave was close enough to hurt them.Close enough to bite.Jem stayed where he was.He kept his body loose: joints unlocked, muscles slack.He pictured grabbing Van Cleave by the ears and bringing his knee up into his nose.
“You are fucking around with stuff you don’t want to fuck around with,” Van Cleave said.
Jem pulled a face.“Do you take the sacrament with that mouth?”
Van Cleave slapped the door.The sound cracked the air; out across the lot, a handful of the uniformed officers snapped to attention and pivoted, scanning for the source of trouble.“You dumb fuck.What were you doing out here?”
Jem raised his eyebrows.“I went for a walk.”
Red-faced, Van Cleave made a sound like he was trying to laugh.“All right.We’ll try this again in a few hours.Stand up and turn around.”
As Van Cleave took a step back, giving Jem room to rise, a familiar voice called, “Jem?”
Tean hurried across the lot.Instead of his usual button-up and khakis, he wore a sweatshirt and jeans—whatever he’d grabbed first, Jem suspected, after Jem had called him.The orange light from the sodium lamps danced in the lenses of his glasses like little flames.
When he reached them, Tean seemed to size up the situation in a quick glance.“What’s going on here?”
“I’m being arrested,” Jem said.“Did I get that right?”
“On what charges?”Tean asked.
“Let’s start with trespass,” Van Cleave jerked a thumb at the sign near the park entrance.“Your buddy here was ‘taking a walk’ after the park closed.”
“You’re out of your mind,” Tean said.“He just saved a boy from being killed—a boy who’s been missing for more than a day, and a boy who might be a valuable witness in an ongoing murder investigation—and you’re going to arrest him with a trumped-up charge like trespassing?”
“Go back to your vehicle, sir.”Van Cleave managed to make the words sound like a longer version offuck off.“Unless you want to be arrested for trespassing as well.”
Instead, Tean took out his phone and placed a call.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Lucy,” Tean said.“Jem found Daniel, and the police are arresting him.Can you get a hold of that reporter—”
“Hey!”Van Cleave barked and reached for the phone.
Tean twisted to keep the phone out of reach.Van Cleave caught his arm instead and yanked Tean toward him.
Jem moved without thinking, sliding out of the ambulance, sneakers hitting the pavement—he balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to move.
“What the hell is going on over there?”Trevino shouted.
“Give me that fucking phone,” Van Cleave growled, dragging Tean another step toward him.
“Let go of him,” Jem said.
“Call the reporter,” Tean was saying.
“Give me that!”