Black Tie Event

Chapter Twenty Six

"Look," I said to Carrie promptly after leaving Allison alone with the Green Falls detectives. "I need you to take my affidavit, and find a judge - any judge - that will sign an arrest warrant. I need it before the night's out. Please."

"Kim, the courthouse closes in half an hour. You can't possibly expect me to--"

"Yes, I can," I spat, shoving my affidavit in her face. "You have to try. It's our only chance."

"And where's Clapp's affidavit?"

"He hasn't written one, but we're out of time. You have to make this work. Judges get emergency warrant requests all the time. They'll understand."

"You want me to take one affidavit to that judge, two minutes before he leaves for the day, and expect him to be happy about it? Kim, I have a lot on the line. The DA's office is all politics, and if I make a bad impression on a judge--"

"Please, just, don't talk," I urged. "Can we please just go?"

She sighed. "I'll do my best, but there's no way I'll make it in time."

"Then give me your keys. The way I drive, we'll make it."

"The way you drive, I'm not very much inclined to give you my keys."

Without further ado, I took them from her hands against her will and raced her out the door. 

"I am not running in heels," she carped behind me. 

"Yes you are, or I'm taking off with your car."

"That was a bad statement to make to an ADA," she warned. "Grand theft auto is a serious charge."

***

"You know, you have a damn nice car for someone who works for the state," I noted, pulling away as she crossed her arms in the passenger seat, pulling an Allison Beckett about having someone else drive her car. "How much does an ADA make?"

"Not nearly enough," she complained. 

"Then where did the car come from?"

"I stole it," she said flatly.

"That was a bad statement to make to a detective," I mocked. "Grand theft auto is a serious charge."

"Dear diary, she's funny too. Kim Hayden continues to amaze me."

I just smiled, smugly, as though she'd meant it. "I didn't know you wrote about me in your diary."

"Oh, yeah," she continued to bite, tersely and sardonically. "You should have seen it this morning."

"Dear diary, Kim Hayden rocked my fucking headboard last night? She is an erotic legend and a sapphic goddess, and I feel truly humbled to have been graced with her drunken bedroom prowess? Somewhere in that ballpark?"

"Verbatim."

"Really?"

"Do I look like the kind of person who has a diary?"

"Yeah, and pony stickers all over your bedroom. But the surprises never cease with you."

"See, you didn't know I was such an enigma."

"Not at face value, no. I presumed you were a stone cold heartless bitch through and through, like the way you came off."

"And now what am I?"

"A stone cold heartless bitch with a diary and a nice apartment."

She shook her head and let a smile begin to form, but it didn't fully come to fruition - they rarely did. "That's all I ever wanted to be in life."