Vicious Carousel (Suncoast Society #25)(14)

“Ms. Lambert,” the detective said, “thank you for coming back in this morning.”

“Did you arrest him?” Ed asked.

“He’s in jail right now. He’ll be arraigned later today.”

“Will he make bail?”

“That depends on the judge. The case is…complicated.”

“Complicated how?” Betsy asked, her stomach churning. She suspected she knew exactly what “complications” would get thrown in her face.

“Let’s go talk in private.”

He led them to a conference room and had them wait there while he grabbed his laptop and some files.

“Turns out that Mr. John Bourke, aka Jack, has been in trouble with the law before, about twenty years ago,” the detective said.

Her stomach fell. “He was?”

“He had four years’ probation for assault on one Mrs. Jill Bourke. They were in the middle of a divorce at the time.”

“That’s all?” Ed asked. “No outstanding or recent cases?”

“That’s where it gets interesting. He was the subject of two calls for service in Detroit, for what sounded like domestic disturbances, but no charges were ever filed in those cases. Those happened just a couple of months before he moved down here. There was another complaint filed against him six months before those, but the witness withdrew her complaint and refused to testify. Prosecutors had to drop the case due to lack of evidence.”

“The son of a bitch is going to try to use BDSM as a defense,” she said. “He’s going to threaten to release pictures he took of me to try to get me to recant.”

Then again, she’d heard Tony say something about finding a camera last night. Wouldn’t surprise her if that had also ended up with her stuff.

She could only hope it had.

“He is claiming the two of you had a consensual relationship,” the detective said. “That you agreed to the chain.”

“I didn’t agree to it. I was scared to refuse it. I was ordered to wear it. So no, I didn’t fight him, but the fact that I clawed it off my leg yesterday, along with a good chunk of my own skin, should be proof that I wasn’t willingly wearing it.”

The detective walked her through her story again, checking his notes as he went. Now, without fear pressed against her spine like a straight razor, she was able to take her time, be reasonably cogent, remember details she might have forgotten to tell them the night before.

There was a knock on the door and a woman stuck her head in. “Barbara Stallings, state attorney’s office.”

The detective waved her in. “Perfect timing.”

Betsy let Ed and the detective get the attorney up to speed. Then Stallings looked from Nolan to Kenny. “And you two gentlemen are?”

“Her friends,” they said together. “And,” Nolan added, “she’s staying with us for now.”

“I’m filing for the TRO after we’re done here,” Ed told Stallings. “Mr. Bourke doesn’t have any idea where Mr. Becker and Mr. Yates live, so she’s safe with them.”

The government’s attorney sat back and eyed them all. “Between you and me and the fencepost,” she said, “I don’t care what people do in their bedrooms. You’re all ‘friends in common,’ as they say, aren’t you?”

Ed glanced at the two men before focusing on the attorney again. “We all have a lot of friends in common, yes. It was other friends who vouched for these two men as a safe place for her to stay while she tries to get her life back together. If she goes to a shelter, she’ll only be there for a short while anyway. Her friends wanted to step in to help her get her life back in order. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“No, there’s not. I just want to know what I’m dealing with. I’m no stranger to alternative lifestyle dynamics. I’ve seen a lot, and I don’t judge. I can see this is obviously not a consensual level of injury here. But the ankle chain is going to come into play, that she wore it for several weeks before all of this happened.”

“He didn’t even know I’d taken it off when he beat me,” Betsy said. “I was sitting on it. I heard him drive up and hid it under me.”

Stallings leaned forward, arms crossed in front of her and resting on the table. “Miss Lambert, if you had the chain off, why didn’t you run when he started beating you?”

“I couldn’t,” she said. “He would have seen I had gotten free. I was afraid he’d catch me and hurt me worse. I didn’t know he was going to attack me the way he did. And, hello, I was naked at the time, so it would have been difficult getting away without clothes.”

Stallings nodded. “Okay. That makes sense. Just remember, if this goes to trial, his attorney will be asking you questions like that. I will not tell a witness what to say, but I’m sure Mr. Payne here will be able to help you understand the kind of character assassination you’ll be subjected to if you’re forced to testify against Mr. Bourke. I’m going to do my best to get him to plead out to something reasonable, but I can’t promise that will happen.”

“Bail?” Ed asked.

“Felonious assault, false imprisonment, battery, extortion—I’ve got a grocery list of charges I’m going toss at him when he’s arraigned. Not all of them will stick all the way through to trial, especially if he pleads out, but the more I throw at him, along with his previous conviction for assault, I’m going to ask for two-fifty.”