GATOR: Wolves MC (Riding With Wolves Book 2) by Faith Winslow Page B

the light appeared bright, and I had to rub my fingers over them to mute it a little. “I ain’t expecting no visitors—and I already told ya, I ain’t talkin’ to nobody ‘cept Detective J.T. Knowles.”
    “It’s your lawyer,” the guard clarified.
    “My lawyer ?” I asked. Last time I checked, I didn’t have one.
    “Yeah, you heard me,” the guard answered. “Your lawyer’s here, and he wants to talk to you in private. So get your ass up and come with me. I don’t have all day.”
    I stood up and slowly walked over to the door. The guard was much smaller than I was, and he seemed intimidated by my physical presence.
    “This way,” he said, shutting the door behind me.
    “My lawyer is here?” I asked again.
    “Are you stupid, boy?” the guard asked, abusing his power. He was obviously banking on our difference in status to outweigh our difference in stature. “I told you— twice —that your lawyer’s here.”
    I decided to bite my tongue and swallow my pride, and I followed the guard around a corner to another hallway where a stuffily dressed man sat on a heavily stained chair. The clock above his head read 2:42 p.m., which meant I’d been in holding for just a little less than three hours.
    “Mr. Struthers?” the stuffily dressed man asked, rising to his feet.
    “Yes,” I replied. “And you are?”
    “Mike Adams,” he replied. “I’m your lawyer… and I’m here to advise you before you talk to the police on this matter.”
    “I don’t got a lawyer,” I said. “Didn’t call one and don’t need one.”
    I was just about to ask the guard to take me back to the holding sell when this Mike Adams guy coughed dramatically and reached up to scratch his cheek. He scratched it with three fingers—his index, middle, and ring fingers—and kept his pinky finger and thumb tucked under his palm, like the padding of a paw.
    “Well, come to think of it,” I said, picking up his signal, “guess I should talk to counsel before I talk to the po-po.” When he scratched his check the way that he did, he threw me the Wolves’ signal, which is our way of communicating a Wolves’ affiliation when we can’t otherwise directly say it.
    The guard didn’t pay any mind to the attorney’s strange cough or gesture, or to my sudden change of heart. He shrugged it all off and opened the door to a private room, or cell, and Mike Adams and I entered it.
    Adams pulled out a seat and sat at the small table in the room, then motioned for me to do the same.
    “Who sent you?” I asked, taking a seat.
    “You know who sent me,” he answered, speaking under his breath as he thumbed through the files in his briefcase. He extracted a manila envelope, pulled it out, and reached into it.
    “Here,” he said, sliding a small, thin flask across the table towards me. “It’s whiskey.”
    “No thanks,” I said, pushing the thing back towards him. I sure could’ve used some hair of the dog to fight off the headache I had from the two beers I’d drank earlier, but I never drink whiskey.
    “Why are you here?” I asked, leaning over the table.
    Mike Adams picked up the flask and took a drink from it. And from the looks of him, he sure needed it—and it probably wasn’t the first drink he’d had all day. He wasn’t just stuffily dressed, he was—what’s the word?—disheveled…and he looked nervous and shaky as all hell.
    “You’re about to talk to the police,” he said. “And I’m here to make sure you don’t tell them any more than you have to.”
    “I might look and sound like a big lug from the bayou,” I said, “but rest assured, I ain’t an idiot. I’m not going to say anything to incriminate me, or my brothers, and I don’t need you sittin’ there, keepin’ watch over me.”
    “Fine,” Adams said, taking another hit from his flask. He held it out to me again, but I declined.
    “If you don’t want me here with you during the interrogation, that’s fine,” he went on. “Your call.