by Geonn Cannon
Dale returned to her seat. “It’s hard not to. But I’ll try.”
“That’s all you can do.”
Dale stirred her spoon through the pale green soup. “I don’t like married couples taking each other’s name. It just seems stupid and possessive, and I hate it. But there have been times when I’ve said ‘Dale Willow’ to myself, and I didn’t exactly hate the way it sounds. I just wanted to let you know that I’d been thinking about stuff like that. Ari and I both have.”
Gwen said, “Well, that’s good to know.” She tapped her finger against the handle of her spoon. “And for what it’s worth, I think Ariadne Frye has a mighty fine ring to it as well. If you decided to go that route.”
Dale smiled. “Maybe if Ari was my wife, we wouldn’t have to lie and say I’m her sister just so I could see her.”
Gwen chuckled. “Yes, I got the feeling that’s a ruse you wouldn’t be able to maintain for very long.”
They fell into silence, eating and looking out the window. Gwen occasionally checked her phone but obviously didn’t see any news from the people she’d contacted. Dale looked out the window. She wondered if Ari’s cell had a window, if she could look out at the city or over the harbor depending on which side of the building she was on. All she could picture was a medieval cell, all iron bars and exposed stone bricks, with a mattress in one corner and a bucket in the other. She saw Ari in a black-and-white striped prisoner outfit, face against the bars, begging for help.
Dale closed her eyes to prevent herself from crying, then put her head down on the table next to her bowl. Gwen reached out and put her hand on top of Dale’s head, stroking her hair without saying anything.
#
Ari had gone to her bed, one arm across her eyes, because she had no idea what else to do. Segura kicked the bedframe. Ari looked up to see the con artist was standing up and buttoning her khaki shirt. She nodded toward the door.
“Grub time. Come on, I’ll show you around.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Segura kicked the bed again. “When was the last time you ate? I don’t care if you’re not hungry, your body needs food. Or the imitation of it that gets served here. Plus this is the best time for you to get a little tour. Come on. Up.”
Ari sighed and swung around to put her feet on the floor. “When do I get one of those snazzy brown outfits? Orange isn’t really my color.”
“A couple of days, probably.” She led Ari out of the cell and gestured to the right. A few of the women Ari had seen earlier were already on their way down a hall. “Cafeteria is at the end of this hall. Infirmary is down the other way, even though it’s pretty much just a nurse’s station with a first-aid kit. The gym is down here, too. There’s a TV in there, too, but there’s a hierarchy to using the remote control. I’ve never bothered to figure it out. Nothing worth watching, anyway.”
Ari stayed behind Segura. The other prisoners would glance her way, their attention apparently drawn by the orange jumpsuit that marked her as a new arrival. Segura used her chin to indicate an older white woman who had just picked up a tray.
“That’s Leona Seymour. If you need anything, she’s the one you have to go through. Just make sure you really fucking need it, though, because she’s not cheap. Try not to get on her bad side.”
“Noted.” They joined the line. Ari looked back and saw Elise, the woman she’d met by the elevators, standing in the cafeteria entrance. She waved and Elise waved back, joining the line. “So, uh, what sort of things can Leona get?”
Segura shrugged. “What do you need? Legal stuff is easier. You need to build a relationship with her before you ask for anything illegal. That’s just common sense. She’s not going to stick her neck out for someone she doesn’t know.”
“Makes sense. I don’t know what I’ll need. I just know I’m probably going to need something, and it’s not likely to be for sale in the prison commissary.”
“Yo, Shae.”
Segura cringed. “Oh, god. Brace yourself.”
The woman seemed to have come out of nowhere, clapping her hand on Segura’s shoulder but keeping her focus on Ari. She was at least six feet tall and broad in the shoulders. Her short blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail. “You have a new friend? What’s your name, new friend?”
“Willow.”
“Willow? Willow? Isn’t that, like... there’s a movie with, like, Val Kilmer called Willow.”
Ari said, “Yeah, that’s--”
“Will Smith’s daughter is named Willow, too. It’s not a very inspiring name, you know? What’s your last name?”
“Willow is my last name,” Ari said. “First name is Ariadne.”
The new arrival said, “Oh, that’s a lot better. Nice to make your acquaintance. Miriam Kunz.”
“Seriously? And you’re giving me shit for my name?”
There was a flash of anger in Miriam’s eyes, but it passed before Ari could tell how worried she could be.
“Your friend kind of has a mouth on her, Shae.”
Segura said, “Yeah, she’s new. Still learning the ropes.”
Miriam said, “I like when they’re new. Get to them before they form any bad habits.” She winked at Ari. “You come find me sometime, Willow. I’ll treat you better than this hussy.”
“I’m sure she’s grateful for the offer,” Segura said, “but how about for now we just let the poor girl have some dinner.”
“Sure.” She lingered a moment longer before she drifted away. “See you around, Willow.”
Segura watched Miriam leave. “Watch out for her. And be lucky she’s not your cellmate. That ‘love of my life’ stuff? I found it adorably and disgustingly sweet, but she would’ve taken it as a challenge. She doesn’t like to hear the word ‘no’.”
“Boy, this is a heck of a neighborhood I’ve moved into.”
“Yeah,” Segura chuckled, “but our schools are surprisingly fantastic.”
They got their food and found a seat. Segura looked around the room to see if there was anyone else worth introducing. Ari used a piece of bread to sweep up some gravy. It only took one bite for her to realize she was starving, and she ate most of the bread and half the mashed potatoes before Segura spoke again.
“I’m not going to lie, Willow, this is prison. It sucks. But for the most part, it’s okay. There will be people you like, people you avoid, and you don’t have much freedom. You have some, but not as much as you want. In that way it’s the same as working in an office, except you don’t get to go home at the end of the day. Once you find a routine, it becomes easy.”
“How long have you been in here?”
“Three years. I’m at the halfway point in my sentence. Plenty of time to pass on my wisdom to you before I go.”
Ari paused with the spoon in front of her mouth. The implication she would still be in jail in three years hadn’t hit her until that moment. But with Cecily Parrish working against her, it was a very likely outcome. The idea of going three years without transforming was terrifying enough before she realized it was probably going to be more like fifteen, twenty, or some other life-changing number. She dropped the spoon and put her fingers against her forehead.
“It just hit you, didn’t it?” Segura said. “How screwed you are.”
“You have no idea,” Ari said.
She’d never heard of a canidae suppressing the wolf for that long. She knew for a fact that other canidae had been imprisoned. Hell, she’d put a couple behind bars herself. But she never thought about how they managed to control their transformations. But twenty years? She could only imagine staying in one form that long would cause irreparable damage. What if, when she finally got out, she wasn’t able to transform anymore? Could the wolf die?
“Just breathe, Willow.” Segura chewed a bite of her bread and winked at Ariadne. “It’s the first day. You’re allowed to freak out a little bit. This is going to sound a little corny. But if you want to stop people like Miriam Kunz from walking all over you, you’re goi
ng to have to find the animal inside yourself and let it take over for a little bit.”
Ari groaned and slipped her hand over her face.
She was doomed.
Chapter Six
After dinner, Dale knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. Her phone was full of messages from Diana, so she called her back before it got any later. She explained everything that had happened and where they were, and Diana promised that she and Lucy would be there for anything they needed. When she hung up, Dale told Gwen she was going home.
“We talked about this...”
“I know,” Dale said, “and I’m going to take you up on it. But I need to get some things from home if I’m going to be staying here. Clothes, toothbrush, stuff like that. You can come with me if you’d like. I just... I mean, if you don’t want to be alone.”
“Thank you. But I think I’d like the time alone to process everything.”
Dale promised she would be back soon and left. Her first stop was the Bitches office. She wanted to be sure it was properly shut down. Sometimes Ari left her computer on sleep mode overnight, and Dale didn’t want that sucking up energy while Ari was... until Ari was back at work.
The lights in the antiques shop next door to the office were on, but Dale barely noticed this rare occurrence as she unlocked the office. Her desk was as she’d left it, just over a day earlier. Ari had come out and stretched, asked her opinion about Chinese versus leftovers, and then they got into a debate about how to pronounce pho. And then a few hours later, she got a call from the police station.
She walked forward so she could see Ari’s desk though the open door to the inner office. It was largely unchanged from the day she’d first seen it. The giant clock still hung on one wall, the filing cabinets had gotten progressively more beaten-up, and the old couch was where it had always been. The sight of it reminded her of how many times she’d straddled Ari there, rubbing the tension out of her shoulders after a transformation. She actually smiled remembering how long she had averted her gaze when Ari took off her shirt.
Dale leaned against the door frame. The first time she’d ever come to this office, she’d been broke, unemployed, and days away from using the last of her bank account to fly home and get a job in her father’s orthodontist office. Then she saved a dog from some asshole kids, took it home, and woke up with the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen in her bed. They went out to breakfast and Ari explained who (and what) she was. When she mentioned she was struggling with the business (“Not the detective part, but the boring office shit is killing me”), Dale pointed out that her unfinished degree might come in handy. She’d been hired for the day, just to get everything in order.
Dale knocked on the open office door. “Miss Willow?”
Ari grunted. “No. Absolutely not. Ariadne. Better yet, just Ari.”
“Okay. Well, I think I’ve got you pretty much situated here. It’s nothing fancy, but it should be easy enough to figure out.”
“Thank you. Seriously. I was about to set fire to every piece of paper in the office.”
Dale had already put on her jacket. “I did a pretty good job for one day, if I do say so myself, but there’s still a bit of a mess to clean up in your case files. You didn’t alphabetize any of them.”
“I have a method.”
“I could see that. I also saw that your method has evolved, and you didn’t adjust the old files to match the new version. It’s a mess. I couldn’t take care of it all in one day.”
Ari finally looked at her. “Oh. Do you want to come in tomorrow? Same price as today.”
Dale heard coins falling into her bank account. “Uh. Sure. I could do that. It’s not really a one-day job, though.”
“As long as it takes. I obviously need the help.”
“Yeah,” Dale agreed, chuckling. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Dale was almost to the door when Ari called to her. “Would you want to grab some dinner?”
One hand on the knob, Dale had almost said no. She was tired. But she liked Ari, and she was intrigued at the possibility of getting to know her better.
“Sure,” she said. “Dinner sounds great.”
They didn’t become lovers for another three years. She used to think of that time as wasted, but now she knew it was anything but. She spent that time learning who Ari was without sex getting in the way. Their relationship - professional and platonic - was the best Dale ever had. Ari quickly became the most important person in her life. Falling in love was an evolution of what they’d painstakingly built. She thought about their first night together as a couple, ironically in the aftermath of Ari being accused of murder the first time. She thought about being shot in the head, fighting alongside Ari and a pack of British canidae against the hunters. It wasn’t the life she would have chosen for herself, but only because she wouldn’t have known what to ask for. There was no other path she would take in exchange for the one she was currently on, no matter how it might end.
She went into the office and turned off the thermostat, then sat behind the desk and opened the laptop so she could turn it off. It came to life and revealed a lock screen image of herself and Ari at a Seattle Totems game. They were both bundled against the cold, but Ari had pulled down Dale’s scarf to kiss her cheek. Lucy had snapped the picture just as Dale laughed because Ari’s hand had crept under her jacket to tickle her hip.
“We’ve come a long way, puppy. But we’ve still got a lot of road left. So don’t give up on me and I won’t give up on you.”
She pressed two fingers to the image of Ari’s cheek, then shut down the computer. She would take it with her just to make sure it and the sensitive files it held were somewhere safe. The computer’s bag was in the closet and Dale slung the strap over her shoulder. She put her hand on the light switch and turned to look at the office one last time.
“We’ll be back.” She didn’t know if she was talking to the room or to the fates or god, but she knew it needed to be said. “We’re not going anywhere.”
The room remained silent. But Dale knew that this wasn’t the end of Bitches Investigations. She turned off the light and left the office, confident she would be back before long.
#
Lights out was at eleven o’clock, although they were supposed to be back in their cells by nine. After dinner, Segura took Ari to the library so she’d know where it was. Ari checked out a book but didn’t pay much attention to what it was until they were back in the cell: Wuthering Heights. She held it up so Segura could see the title.
“Is this one of the good classics?”
“I think they made a movie of it.”
Ari said, “That doesn’t mean it’s good. They made, what, ten Transformers movies.” She tossed the book to the foot of her bed and put her head down on the pillow. “I don’t really feel like reading anyway.”
Segura was standing by the door, watching out into the common area. “Worried about your people? What’s the love of your life called?”
“Dale. And she’s a woman. People always think Dale is a boy’s name.”
“Dale is a chipmunk’s name,” Segura said.
Ari smiled.
“I’m sure Dale is out there getting ready to kick some ass and get you out of here.”
Ari said, “You sound pretty sure about that.”
“You called her the love of your life. In my experience, people don’t throw that phrase around lightly. The way you said it, I don’t know, I just instantly got this picture of someone who isn’t going to give up on you.”
“Yeah,” Ari said softly. “You pretty much nailed her.”
Segura walked to her bed and sat down. “So, if you don’t mind talking about why you’re in here... it might be nice to know I’m not about to fall asleep next to a murderer.”
Ari sighed. “I’m a private investigator. A lawyer decided she wanted to hire me for her firm, I said no. She took it personally and came after me. I thought she’d let it go, but apparently she was planning all
of this. She killed someone or had her killed, and she made sure I was accused of it.”
“Damn. That’s pretty devious.”
“This lady isn’t someone you want to mess with. Then again, neither is Dale.”
“I get the impression you aren’t, either.”
Ari looked at her. “You have a lot of impressions of people.”
Segura shrugged and held her hands out. “Con artist. It’s my job to read people as quickly as possible. If I met you in a bar, I wouldn’t even think about trying to scam you.”
“That makes me feel good.”
“It should.”
A guard appeared in the doorway. He clicked a device on his belt twice and started to move on, but Segura whistled to make him stop.
“Where’s Vogel tonight?”
“She’s taking care of a fight that happened in the gym earlier. Guess one of you ladies prefers game shows to reality crap.” He moved on.
Ari said, “Who is Vogel?”
“No one.” Segura pivoted and brought her feet up onto the mattress. “One of the guards. One of the good ones.”
“Ah. Nice to know who those are, just in case.”
“Jaekel is good. The guy who just left, Sessions, is an asshole. Burke is kind of an asshole, but it’s really just because you can’t negotiate with him. I’ll make you a list tomorrow.”
Ari said, “I appreciate it.”
Segura retrieved her book. “I have this little lamp if you want to turn off the overhead light.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. You’ve had an enormous day. Get some sleep, Willow.”
“Thank you.” She reached for the switch, but stopped before she touched it. “I’ve had a lot of bad luck in the past twenty-four hours, but meeting you almost makes up for it. Makes up for some of it. A little bit of it.”
Segura grinned. “Oh, so many people have said that right before I took ‘em for everything they had. Better be careful, Willow.”
“I’ll keep an eye on you.”