Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 83961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Another question mark. Maddox and Alissa both live in Uptown, and Aces is right in the Loop. Neither of them would have any reason to be traveling that far west. Most people only take I-290 when they’re headed to the airport. If they were driving to and from Aces when Maddox got the ticket, it would have been a cop from a different jurisdiction.
After a quick cup of coffee, I head to the police station and greet the officer manning the front desk.
“Morning,” he grumbles from behind a large mug of coffee.
“Good morning.” I flash a smile. “I was wondering. Is Officer Brillig in today?”
The officer raises his bushy eyebrows. “Who’s asking?”
I hold up the past-due notice. “I’m…housesitting for a friend who’s on a big vacation right now. This showed up in his mailbox. I guess Brillig wrote him a ticket that he forgot to pay. My friend is in a pretty remote location and I’m not able to contact him. I wanted to see if I could talk to the officer who issued him the ticket and get this taken care of before he incurs any serious penalties.”
The officer rolls his eyes. “All requests and appeals for overdue tickets will have to be made through the clerk of the circuit court in the county the summons was issued, sir.” He waves me off.
“Wait, no. Even if he can’t help me, I would like to talk to the officer. Is he in today?”
The front desk officer wrinkles his forehead. “You seem awfully concerned for a guy who isn’t on the receiving end of a past-due notice. What’s going on, son?”
“I’d rather discuss it with Officer Brillig.”
The officer narrows his eyes but picks up a phone and dials an extension. “Toby, you have a visitor. Something about a ticket you issued a while back.”
Pause.
“Yeah, I already told him. But for some reason, he still wants to talk to you. Are you busy?”
Pause.
“All right. Thanks.” He hangs up the phone and looks back at me. “You’re in luck, kid. He’s not too busy today.” He gestures to the offices behind the front desk. “Go on back.”
“Thank you, Officer. I really appreciate it.”
I walk to the back of the police station where a series of cubicles line the space. I snake up and down the aisles until I find one with Officer Brillig’s nameplate on the exterior. I poke my head in. “Officer Brillig?”
A man with a thick gray mustache looks up from his computer monitor. “Yes?”
“May I come in and talk with you for a second?”
He shrugs. “Be my guest.”
I cross into the cubicle and sit in a small chair in the corner. Brillig swivels his chair around to face me. “So, this is about a ticket I issued?”
“Yes, sir.”
Brillig sighs. “Look, son, I’m afraid my hands are tied. Once a ticket is issued, you can contest—”
I hold up a hand. “I’m not trying to contest it, Officer. The ticket isn’t mine.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Then why are you back here?”
I hold up the copy of the ticket included in the past due notice. “You stopped a friend of mine back in February. It would have been in the early hours of a Monday morning. Does that ring a bell?”
“I had a lot of night shifts last month. You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“You issued the ticket to Maddox Hathaway.”
Brillig widens his eyes. “Oh, yeah. The mayor’s son. I remember that evening. He was acting suspicious as all hell.”
“He was?”
“Yeah. He was with his wife.”
I cock my head. “His wife? Maddox isn’t married.”
“Right.” He scratches his chin. “He kept referring to her as his wife, or his fiancée, or his girlfriend. Couldn’t get the story straight.”
“The woman he was with… Was she a blonde? Fair skin, light-blue eyes?”
Brillig closes his eyes. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”
“And you caught them speeding in the dead of night?”
“Yeah. Very odd. Apparently the wife—or whatever the hell she was—is pregnant, and—”
I drop my jaw. “She’s pregnant?”
He shrugs. “That’s what they told me. Said she’d been experiencing some morning sickness and that late-night drives helped to settle her stomach.”
This can’t make sense. Maddox and Alissa would have been together for a week. Even if they’d fucked like bunnies the whole time—which, knowing Maddox, I’m pretty sure was the case—she wouldn’t know she was pregnant by that point.
Why would they lie to a cop about Alissa being pregnant?
They must have had some other reason for being out that late.
“Was there anything else that evening that tipped you off that something might have been up?” I ask.
“Let me think back. It was over a month ago.” He closes his eyes and rubs at the sides of his head. “Yes. They had an odd little box in the backseat.”
“A box?”
“Yeah. The kind you’d put a hat in.”
That’s not too strange. Maddox always wears a hat when he’s out and about.