The Liberation of Alice Love - Abby McDonald [85]
Alice shook her head again, exhausted. “I can’t help you,” she explained. “I need to see a lawyer.”
The officer scowled and pushed the pages at her again.
“No,” she fumbled, wishing there had been a section in her phrasebook for emergencies like this. “L’ambasciata. No signa…signa…” She trailed off, useless. The door opened, and another man entered the room.
“Is nothing,” an older officer told her in broken English. He loomed over her with dark hair and a thick moustache. “Just an explanation. What you say has happened.”
Alice quivered. “I’m sorry.” She swallowed, feeling utterly powerless. “I don’t understand it. I can’t.”
“But you must.” The man looked down at her, softening. “Is no importance, is just official.”
“No, please…” Alice felt the sharp sting of tears prick her eyes. The fact she’d been celebrating only hours before haunted her now. Nobody knew where she was. “I really…I just need to speak to…” Her voice wavered, but the man didn’t wait for her to finish. He scribbled his own name on the form and pushed it again toward her.
“See? Is not so hard. You sign, and we go call the embassy for you. All straight in a minute.” He smiled, encouraging. Alice felt a wave of tiredness pull on her bones. She just wanted to be back at the hotel, warm in the soft folds of that bed. She blinked again at the dense print, her head clouded. Why would he lie? For all she knew, it was nothing more than official procedure.
Her hand reached for the pen.
“Sì, good girl.” The man nodded approvingly.
But Alice paused, the pen inches from the paper. If there was one thing she’d learned from her years as a lawyer, it was that she never signed anything she didn’t understand. Never.
“No, thank you.” Her voice emerged calm, as if from someone else. And perhaps it did. Alice may be panicked and weepy, but she felt the memory of Angelique still lurking at the back of her consciousness, full of poise. Grasping at that new, unexpected reserve of strength, Alice gave the officer a polite smile. Angelique would not be bowed. “I’ll wait until my lawyer gets here, thanks all the same. And now, I’d like to make my phone calls.”
The man’s face darkened.
“My phone calls,” Alice repeated, her confidence returning. The panic that had fluttered in her chest since the sight of those first policemen seemed to melt away. She was innocent, and that was enough. She could handle this. Straightening her posture, she stared at him evenly. “International law is not so different, I think? I won’t sign anything.”
Although she had been making that same protest for what felt like hours, there was clearly something new in her tone that made the officer incline his head slightly and retreat. Moments later, she was led to another small room, identical to the last except for one precious fact: the table held an old plastic telephone.
Alice rushed over, not even waiting to sit down before she stumbled through the international prefixes: dialing the number she always called first, the one she knew by heart.
“Julian? It’s me. I need—”
“…Not around right now, but if you leave a message…”
Alice made a noise of frustration. Of course, it was the middle of the night. She waited impatiently for his amiable message to finish, and then gripped the phone tighter. “Jules,” she started finally. “It’s me, Alice. I’ve, umm, run into some trouble. I’ve been arrested. In Rome. Italy,” she added, in case that wasn’t clear. “I need you to call the embassy here, and find me a lawyer, and…I don’t know. Something.” She sighed, already realizing how futile it was. By the time he woke, she would have been languishing here for hours; and then the time it would take to rouse the embassy,