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“Yes, Nora. We already got there.”

There was another loaded-feeling silence.

“So?” The lawyer, presumably Nora King, folded her arms.

She glared around at all of them again.

“Are we ending this charade tonight? Or am I filing charges for racial discrimination before I go to bed tonight? And calling up every politician I know in New York and the nearby regions to see what they think about their police officials conspiring to hold the country’s most famous and beloved vampire fighter with no evidence? And that they’re doing soentirelydue to his race?”

“Nora––” Acharya growled.

“He never should have been picked up!” She hissed the words, losing her cool for the first time. “You damned well know it, Jag! This is a fucking outrage! It’s anoutrage!”

Huh. So some peopledidcall him Jag.

Interesting.

But the red and white-haired lawyer wasn’t finished.

“If he was human there’sno f’ing waythey would have brought him in the way they did! Tasing him repeatedly! Forcing him into handcuffs! Applying intimidation tactics including threats of death! Forcing him to answer questions from his knees! Barging into hisfriend’shouse while he’s officially on paid leave due toinjuries received in the line of duty. Not to mention the fact that this all happened with no lawyer present! I’m surprised they didn’t douse him in holy water and make him eat garlic!”

She glared pointedly at handlebar and pompadour.

“Goddamned hillbilly bigots! How either of you got plum jobs out in rural Long Island is completely beyond me. I have friends out there, you know. Friends who would be very interested to know how their sub-regional tax dollars are spent––”

“Nora!” Acharya snapped. “Stop threatening my guys.”

“So they’re your guys now, Jag? Interesting that you’d want to take responsibility for this, given what I just said. Maybe I should be complaining to the board aboutyou?”

She glared at mustache and pompadour.

Then she glared back at Jag Acharya, who she clearly knew socially.

She sounded genuinely angry.

It surprised Nick a little, truthfully.

He wondered if it was an act.

“It’s inexcusable!” she snapped, still glaring at Acharya. “It’s an open and shut discrimination charge, and you know it!”

From Acharya’s expression, he did know it.

Then handlebar mustache had to reconfirm to Nick just exactly how stupid he was.

He interrupted the lawyer and the chief.

“Hey, it’s his word against ours.” Mustache drawled the words, but his eyes shone with hate as he glared at Nick. “You can’t believe a damned thing that piece of shit bloodsucker said, lady. You don’t fuckingknowthese animals…”

Nora King turned to stare at him, her enhanced eyes blazing.

“Thank you for making my point, detective.”

“I’m just saying. Whatever he told you… he’s lying. They all lie.”

“We have it allrecorded,idiots,” she hissed. She gestured angrily towards Nick with a manicured hand. “I haven’t exchanged asingle goddamned wordwith my client about any of this yet. I haven’t talked to him aboutanythingyet. How could I have? You kept me waiting outside while Detective Morley here interrogated him without me present!”

Nick glanced at Morley. He quirked an eyebrow.