Intaglio: The Snake and the Coins (29 page)

Escape with
Thomas – the melancholy hope she’d held since they’d left – was no longer an
option.

Jon stepped
closer, and she held back the urge to pull away.  (She’d become adept at
hiding her emotions these last weeks.)  She waited, eyes downcast, as he
leaned closer, his breath against her ear.

“Ava, I know
that you are missing your sisters, but will you… try to be happy when we
arrive?”  he asked.

She glanced
back, finding him watching her.  His face was hopeful and full of trust.

“I will… try,”
she said weakly. 

Up above, a sea
bird wheeled circles in the sky, free and alone.  Ava blinked back salty
tears seeing it.  Inside her pocket was a single token of Thomas’
love.  She wrapped her fingers around it, grasping so tightly she could
feel the wood cutting into her palm.

‘Away…’

The truth was,
she didn’t want to arrive at all.

Ava gasped,
coming abruptly awake.  She was someplace
different…
someplace
foreign. 
‘Not my bedroom…’
  Her body was still groggy, her
mind struggling with remembered images of a boat on water.  A bird flying
overhead.  Running a trembling hand through her hair, she glanced around,
regaining her bearings.  It was nine-thirty in the morning – she could see
the wire-covered clock on the cinder block wall – and she was in a cell at the
police station. 

Nothing had
changed.

She frowned,
moving back against the wall, wrapping her arms around her knees.  She’d
never spent the night in jail before.  She smiled bitterly, dropping her
chin down to her knees. 
‘I owe Chim fifty bucks,’
she
realized.  He’d been teasing her about getting caught for years.  He
was never going to let her live this down.

An hour passed,
then two.  She was just starting to worry about being forgotten when the
door swung open and Cole walked in, wearing a shirt, tie, and black slacks. He
looked like a waiter (or a very young lawyer).  She glanced at him
warily.  She hadn’t even made a statement yet, so she wasn’t quite sure
what to make of his arrival.

He walked up to
the bars, pausing.  His gaze moved through, gathering it all in, then back
to her face.  There was something unsettled about his expression, sad and
somewhat disappointed. 

He looked, Ava
decided, like her father.

Cole waited by
the bars of the jail cell, his face still poised in hesitant concern.  Ava
was nervous after the late call she'd made to him last night.  Not sure
where they stood anymore.  With this in mind, she walked toward him, hands
pressed deep in the pockets of her jacket.    Six hours ago
she’d been furious at him for yelling, but she’d had time to cool since
then.  To ponder what
she’d be thinking
if he’d been the one out
with someone like Morag and had needed to call
her
in the middle of the
night from the police station. 

She dropped his
eyes, guilt rising in place of rage.

“Sorry it took
so long to get here,” Cole murmured. “It just… took a bit of doing.” 
Ava's chest contracted at his words.  

“Cole... I’m
sorry I didn’t call before I went out,” she said anxiously, glancing up to see
him watching her.  His face was remote and distant, not angry.  It
gave her hope.  “I was painting at the studio... and I thought you were
going to stop by... so I left the back door open, and then Chambers came
up...”  Cole’s face twitched, as if he was smelling something distasteful,
but he said nothing, so she continued.  “He was there to check on the
collaboration piece we’re doing... the painting Chim thought looked like Lego
blocks.  But Kip kind of freaked out when he saw them and—”

“He what?” Cole
interrupted, stepping closer, grey eyes troubled.

“He
just...”  Ava sighed, closing her eyes as she tried to explain it. 
“He just panicked when he saw the panels... the same way I did after seeing
that Bacon painting in class.”

“But why?” 

 “God,
Cole, I have no fucking
idea
why... He went on and on about some dream
he used to have as a kid...”

Cole blanched, stepping
closer, one hand coming up to rest on the bars.  There was a line jumping
in his cheek. 
‘He shaved before he came,’
Ava noticed absently.

“…I just... I
needed to get him out of the studio, you know?” Ava continued.  “So he
could calm down... and he said he wanted to see my real work... and so...”

She let her
words trickle away, and Cole finished for her.

“And so you took
him out to the train yards.”

Ava nodded,
pulling her hand from her pocket and placing it on the bar directly under
his.  Close, but not touching.  They were on rocky ground here. 
She could feel it. She was immensely glad he
hadn’t
come to pick her up
right away, when her temper was still running full force.  She might have
said something she’d regret. 

‘Would
definitely have said something you’d regret...’
her mind
prompted helpfully.  She frowned.  That was for damn sure.

“It was kind of
a spur-of-the-moment thing...” Ava added, trying to keep her tone even. 
“We just went to look, that’s all... I should’ve called you, but it was already
late... and you hadn’t come by the studio so I figured you were asleep...”

Her words
disappeared.  She wished she could read people the way Oliver could,
gleaning meaning from the shadows; but that was his gift, not hers.

“When the police
took you in, did they talk to you about the charges?”  Cole asked. 
He sounded tired.  

“Trespassing and
public mischief,” Ava answered.  “We didn’t have any spray cans with us,
thank god. The last time I got charged was when I was a minor, but Kip has a
prior.  There’d be serious consequences if we’d been painting.” 

“Right.” 

Cole’s voice had
gone frigid once more, unimpressed.  She could see it in the taut lines of
muscle under his shirt, his white knuckles holding the bar, his narrowed
gaze.  Her fingers slid up the bar, almost touching, her eyes pleading.

“I’m serious,
Cole... there wasn’t anything to it.  I was just showing him my
work.  It wasn’t a date or something.”

Cole’s mouth
twisted as she said the word ‘date.’  For a moment he stared down the
corridor before turning back to her.   The silence spread between
them like a chasm.  Ava waited for him to react... terrified, but still
needing to know.

“I
know
it wasn’t a date,” he muttered, dropping his hand down the bar, settling
lightly on top of hers.  “I never thought that.”

“Thanks,” she
said, throat tight.

“
I trust you
,
Ava.  I do,” Cole said, the line between his eyebrows deepening, “but it
still pissed me off, finding out about it like that.”  His voice went hard
and she flinched. “God, you could have just called me!  You can’t
just...”  He shook his head, irritated.  “Look, it’s not
you.
You gotta understand that
I don’t trust
Chambers...
”

For a moment,
Ava remembered the two men at the gallery, ready to attack, though in her
memory it seemed like they
were
fighting.  She could imagine it
perfectly, the two of them throwing punches, attacking one another with
venom.  As quickly as it arrived, the not-memory faded.  Her eyes
went to their joined hands and she felt that pull of connection, the same as
when they met, when Cole had shaken her hand for the first time. 

It was there
again now. 
It was always there
...

“Sorry,” she
whispered.  “It was a bad idea... I should have called first and let you
know...”

Cole smiled, his
free hand reaching through the bars to tuck a stray hair behind her ear. 
His fingers lingered against her cheek and she leaned into the gesture, the
balance resettling, the tide shifting back the other way.

“It’s
okay.”  He answered, his eyes lingering on her face.  His hand
dropped away from her cheek but the one on her fingers stayed, squeezing hers
now, warm.  “Are you willing to call it even?” he asked. 

“What...?”

“The
dysfunctional Thomas Family Christmas for a two a.m. phone call from my girlfriend
getting busted for trespassing with a known criminal.”

Cole’s face
split in a wide grin, and the tension was broken.

“My god, Cole,”
she said with a giggle, “it sounds really fucking bad when you put it that
way.  It wasn’t—”

Her words were
interrupted by a metal door clanging open.  An officer came forward with a
black-suited woman with short dark hair and almond-shaped eyes.

“Miss Brooks,”
she said, waiting for the officer to unlock the cell door.  “I’m Mrs.
Quan, your lawyer.”

“Suzanne’s mom,”
Ava gasped, eyes flaring wide. 

Cole hadn’t
called Alexander Munroe... which meant her father wasn’t currently ditching his
last two performances to come home a day early, disappointed and angry with
her.

“Yes,” the woman
said with a warm smile.  “I’d like to be able to say ‘it’ll be good to
work with you,' Ava, but it turns out you
aren’t
going to need me after
all.” 

Ava glanced over
to Cole, then back to Mrs. Quan.

“What? Why?”

“I just talked
to the district attorney.” she answered, “I apologize for the delay, I had to
wait until regular office hours to have it officiated.  The charges for
you are being dropped altogether,” the older woman explained.  “The fines
for trespassing are being covered by a third party.”

The door of the cell
finally squealed open and the officer motioned Ava forward. 

“Why were they
dropped?” Ava asked as she walked through the doorway.

Suzanne’s mother
smiled at the police officer.

“Let’s head into
the meeting room first,” she said gently.  “You need to make some sort of
statement to the police in any case, and before that occurs, I want to go over
exactly what happened.  I’ll fill you in on what I know.”

Ava nodded,
looking back at Cole.

“I’ll be waiting
for you when you’re done,” he said with a crooked smile.  Ava paused and
Mrs. Quan did the same.

“Thank you,
Cole,” she said quietly.

He nodded.

“Anytime you
need to be busted out of jail...” he said with a smirk.  “I’m totally your
guy.”

The officer
scowled and Ava giggled.  She and Mrs. Quan headed out, Ava’s steps
lighter than they’d been in hours.

: : : : : : : :
: :

Cole slumped in
an uncomfortable plastic room chair, his eyelids drooping.  Ava and Mrs.
Quan were still with the police as Ava made her official statement.  Cole
was banished to the hallway, his head nodding as the minutes ticked by. 
It was after ten and he’d been awake since Ava had called.  He’d woken up
Suzanne’s mother on the phone minutes afterward; Mrs. Quan had directed him to
shave and dress in his nicest clothing.  As Ava's friend, he’d come to the
station as a character witness. His statement of her overall behaviour (minus
one spray-painted first date to those train yards a few months ago) now sat
alongside all of the other evidence in the D.A.’s file. 

His eyelids
closed once, then again, and again…

He felt like he
was standing on the deck of a boat, his eyes moving out over the water to where
another ship could be seen.  It was tiny in comparison to the ocean that
surrounded it.  A child’s toy bobbing on an endless—

Cole jerked
awake, his foot kicking in panic.  The clock on the wall read
ten-thirty.  He sat up stiffly, rubbing his hand along his neck and
shifting.  He didn’t think he’d ever been so tired in his life, but he
refused to leave.  He wanted to be here when Ava came out.  On the
far side of the room the door opened and Cole glanced up hopefully. 

It wasn’t her.

It was a group
of people arguing loudly.  The trio included Kip Chambers, Raya Simpson,
and a bald, grey-suited man who Cole assumed must be Kip’s lawyer.  Raya’s
thin arms were crossed, her heels clicking in a brisk staccato.  Next to
her, Kip grumbled, hand on her shoulder.  Raya was speaking with a venom
that made Cole blink and sat up taller, listening as they approached.

“...it was the
BEST opportunity to get that footage, Kip!” she snapped, tearing herself from
his grip.  “Don’t give me shit now just because you’re feeling guilty
about your part it.”

“I NEVER wanted
her involved,” he retorted, face hard.  “I already have a record – makes
no fucking difference to me – but she’s just a kid, Raya, she—”

Simpson spun on
her heel. 

“She’s no
goddamn kid!” she shouted, poking her finger into his chest.  “I've seen
the looks you give her.  God, I’m so fucking mad I could just...”

She left the
statement unfinished, breathing hard.  No one moved and it was only
because they were standing motionless that Cole was able to pick up Kip’s
answer.