Free What He Protects (What He Wants, Book Six) (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) by Hannah Ford Page A

around.   “Excuse me?”
    “Central Booking.   It’s where they take people after
they’ve been arrested.   While they
wait to be arraigned.”
    I took in a deep breath through my nose
and resisted the urge to scream at her for not telling me that sooner.   Obviously she knew I was waiting for
Noah and Professor Worthington -- I’d told her that when I’d gotten here.   So why would she let me sit here like
some kind of fool, wasting time when Noah wasn’t even here?
Although it wasn’t entirely her fault.   Of course I knew clients didn’t speak with their lawyers at the police
station, that once they were arrested and had their information recorded, they
were sent to Central Booking.   I
should have known better -- when Professor Worthington had said ‘I’ll meet you
there,’ he’d meant Central Booking -- but I was so frazzled I hadn’t thought of
it.   My total lack of forethought
definitely didn’t bode well for my law career.
    Get
it together, Holloway, I
told myself.
    I ran outside and hailed a taxi while
looking up the address for Central Booking on my phone.   I had a frantic energy about me, and I
tried to force myself to calm down, but my hands were shaking as I opened the
door to the cab and gave the cabbie the address.
    By the time we pulled up in front of
Central Booking, I’d calmed down a little, but not much.   There were a bunch of people loitering
on the steps of the building, smoking and talking on their cell phones.   Men in hoodies wandered around the
sidewalk, looking me up and down as I walked up the front steps.
      I thought about calling Professor Worthington to ask if he
was here yet, ask him to come outside and walk me in, but then I told myself
there was no reason to be intimidated.   If I was going to be a lawyer, I was going to have to get used to doing
things like this.   And besides,
there were tons of cops right inside the front doors -- it wasn’t like anything
bad could happen to me here.   The
irony wasn’t lost on me – here I was, going inside to voluntarily look
for a man who’d been accused of murder, all the while being afraid of the people
outside.
    No one gave me a hard time as I walked
past, all of them busy on their cell phones, probably calling lawyers or bail
bondsmen as they tried to help their relatives and friends on the inside.
    The inside of Central Booking was nothing
like the police station.   At the
police station, even with the curt receptionist, you could sense a certain kind
of order, a certain kind of safety.   The people at the police station were there to fill out reports, or
answer questions, or provide information.   The police station hummed with activity, but it was a kind of controlled
activity.   You could tell whatever
was going on there was serious and somber, but at the same time, it had a
certain rightness to it that made it feel like it was the normal order of
society.
    Whatever was happening at Central Booking
had nothing to do with normalcy. The walls were grey and the paint was peeling
badly, the linoleum scuffed and in serious need of repair. I could smell the
stench of urine and hear the clanging of bars coming from somewhere far away.   Down the hallway, about a hundred feet
or so, I could see the shadow of a man in handcuffs being led into a cell.  
    “I didn’t do that shit!   I’m high, man, I’m on the junk!” he was
screaming as two officers held onto him.   His skinny limbs went akimbo as he twisted and turned as the officers
threw him into a cell.   The sound
of groans followed the clink of the bars, the people already in the holding
cell obviously not approving of their new neighbor.
    “Can I help you?” a uniformed office
asked from the other side of the metal detector.
    “Yes,” I said.   “I’m here to see Noah Cutler.   I’m part of his legal team.”   I purposefully left out the part about me not being a
lawyer.   I wasn’t going to make
that mistake again.   I