Her Inconvenient Groom by Niomie Roland
Chapter 32
Well, this sucks, Dustin thought as he sat heavily down on a hard bunk. Although to be honest, sucks was understating it quite a bit, considering he was sitting in a French holding cell waiting on a state-sponsored lawyer to stand by his side during his police interview.
He was bewildered, barely understanding why they had bum-rushed him earlier that day in Chantelle’s hospital room. At first, the doctors and nurses had been giving him increasingly curious, creepy looks, and then it was as if the world had gone mad.
Men in uniforms arriving, shouting at him in French. When he had stared back at them uncomprehendingly, one of them had switched to English, but his command of the language was weak at best. His southern accent was thick, making it difficult for Dustin to grasp. He heard the words ‘arrest’ and ‘attempted murder’ and then he was on the ground with his hands being dragged behind his back. He felt the clink of metal as his wrists were clamped together.
And then, as they began dragging him to his feet and out the door, the machines surrounding Chantelle’s bed had gone mad. Beeping and shrieking. He saw movement on the bed, the sheets twisting, but his vision was cut off by a surge of doctors and nurses.
His puzzlement at being arrested for what, he didn’t know, was replaced by terror and uncertainty. What was happening to his wife? Why was everybody freaking out?
By the time they dragged him downstairs, in full view of shocked and curious visitors, and forced him into a police car, he no longer cared about himself. All he could think about was her.
There was a sound at the door, and he looked up from his cell, as did the two or three others sitting patiently in cells around him. Like lobsters in a tank, waiting to be chosen. Who had they come for now?
“Monsieur Spencer?” There was a uniformed officer standing at the grille, accompanied by a woman in a business suit and another dour-faced man who had ‘lawyer’ written all over his face.
The woman spoke, introducing herself, saying, “I’m your interpreter this evening, and this gentleman is your attorney. Are you prepared to undergo questioning at this time?”
“My wife. What happened? How is she?”
The woman looked at him blankly and then repeated, as if he hadn’t spoken. “Are you prepared to be questioned at this time?”
Dustin nodded warily. He’d do anything right now, if it would get him closer to some answers. “Yeah, whatever.”
She pressed her lips down, as if not too happy with his lack of appreciation for her presence, but nodded at the officer, who unlocked the grille and led him, still uncomfortably handcuffed, to a room down the hall.
He listened grimly as standard warnings were read, and answered distractedly when the same questions were posed to him again and again, sometimes phrased differently, sometimes verbatim.
All he could think of was Chantelle. Was she okay? Did she, like everyone else, think that he’d tried to kill her?
Was she even still alive? The possibility that she could be gone right before his eyes as he was dragged out of the room terrified him. His mind rebelled. Losing her was impossible. Not when he loved her, as he did. Not when she had claimed his soul the way she had.
“Monsieur Spencer, may I remind you that you are facing very serious charges?” the woman interrupted his thoughts impatiently. Apparently, she’d asked him a question that she hadn’t answered.
“I’m sorry. But as I keep saying over and over, I did nothing to harm my wife. She was carrying my baby. I would never have tried to harm either of them. And please, if someone would only tell me—”
The door was flung open, and another officer appeared. There was a rapid-fire conversation, and again, those looks fell upon him again. As if he was scum.
The officer, the lawyer and translator returned to the table, this time with the additional office in tow.
“You are a tattoo artist, correct?” the woman asked.
“As I have told you ten times—”
“Oui ou non?” The officer interrupted.
He sighed. “Yes.”
“And you own a blue metal tattoo kit? Full of tools?”
“Well, it doesn’t belong to the cat.”
“Monsieur Spencer!”
“Yes. The tattoo kit is mine.”
“The police have executed a search warrant on the property of Madame Moreau and found this kit.”
“So?”
“There was a small vial of a substance hidden at the bottom, under several tools.”
He was nonplused. “Vial?”
“Of poison. Poison that should be in the hands of military officials and not civilians. The exact same poison the doctors have determined was used on your wife.”