Chapter 149: Not Guilty

"You’ve got the wrong person."

The officer sitting across from him didn’t appear particularly moved.

Andrew tried again.

"I was just passing by."

"At midnight?"

"I couldn’t sleep."

"So you went for a ride?"

Andrew paused.

"Yes."

"Near a closed workshop?"

"I didn’t know it was closed."

The officer wrote something down.

Andrew hated that.

He hated the police station. He hated the uncomfortable chair. He hated the fact that no one seemed particularly interested in accepting the perfectly reasonable explanation that he’d simply happened to be riding through the area when Alexander Vance’s workshop caught fire.

Most of all, he hated that he still didn’t know exactly what they had on him.

They’d stopped him as he tried to leave. That was suspicious, certainly, but suspicious wasn’t proof.

At least, that was what Andrew kept telling himself.

They’d stopped him as he was leaving the area. That was suspicious, certainly, but suspicious wasn’t proof.

So Andrew stuck to his story.

He didn’t know anything about a fire.

He hadn’t broken into anything.

He had simply been passing through the area at an unfortunately suspicious time.

When that failed to get him released, Andrew tried something else.

Money.

He lowered his voice.

"Look, I’m sure we can settle this without making it complicated."

The officer looked up.

Andrew leaned slightly closer. "I can make it worth your time."

The silence that followed should’ve warned him.

Instead, Andrew mistook it for consideration.

"How much?"

The officer’s expression changed.

Not in the encouraging way Andrew had hoped.

A second officer standing nearby turned toward them.

Andrew immediately realized he’d made a mistake.

"That wasn’t what I meant."

"What did you mean?"

"I meant..." Andrew searched desperately for something that didn’t sound like what he’d very obviously just said. "A fine. Bail. Whatever I’m supposed to pay."

"That isn’t what you said."

"Well, that’s what I meant."

Unfortunately, no one seemed interested in letting Andrew rewrite the conversation.

Fine.

If money wouldn’t work, perhaps reason would.

Then pleading.

Then a combination of both.

"I didn’t do anything. You can’t keep me here just because I happened to be nearby. I have rights."

The officers were considerably less impressed by this argument than Andrew thought they should’ve been.

By the time they placed him in a holding cell, indignation had replaced most of his confidence.

"This is illegal detention!"

No one responded.

"I want a lawyer!"

That finally received a response.

He would be allowed to contact one.

Andrew gripped the bars.

"And I want it recorded that I’ve been mistreated."

An officer looked at him.

"No one has touched you."

Andrew stared back.

That was precisely the problem.

He didn’t even have anything useful to point to.

Hours passed.

The longer Andrew sat there, the worse his thoughts became.

He needed something.

Anything that could shift attention away from why he’d been arrested and onto what the police had supposedly done to him.

His gaze dropped to the bench.

Then to the wall.

A bruise would be enough.

Maybe more than one.

If he could make it look as though someone had gotten rough with him while he was in custody, his lawyer could use that. Police brutality sounded considerably more serious than Andrew Callahan happened to be walking near a burning workshop at midnight.

He waited until no officer appeared to be watching.

Then he deliberately tried to hurt himself.

It wasn’t particularly dramatic.

It also wasn’t particularly successful.

Andrew didn’t know the holding area had its own surveillance system.

The officers weren’t required to stand directly in front of the cell to see what the people inside were doing.

One of them appeared almost immediately.

"What are you doing?"

Andrew froze.

"Nothing."

The officer looked toward the camera mounted beyond the cell.

Andrew followed his gaze.

His stomach dropped.

Of course.

Cameras.

Why did every damn place suddenly have cameras?

By morning, Alexander had considerably less interest in Andrew’s excuses than Andrew apparently had in inventing them.

His lawyer handled the formal complaint.

Alexander provided everything they requested, including copies of the security recordings, photographs of the damage, preliminary reports, and the information from the night of the fire.

Alexander had no reason to confront Andrew personally.

He’d already spent enough of his life dealing with problems connected to Dominic Sebastian.

He wasn’t interested in adding Dominic’s former boyfriend to the list.

The recordings could speak for him.

And they had plenty to say.

The camera facing the road had captured Andrew approaching the property.

Another recorded him entering.

The interior cameras captured what happened afterward.

The footage established the unlawful entry and deliberate damage to the workshop, including Andrew setting the fire.

Then there was the damage itself.

The firefighters’ response.

The police finding Andrew near the scene.

Everything had been preserved and turned over through the proper channels.

The workshop had eyes and ears.

Apparently, Andrew had never considered that they might’ve been installed after his little visit.

He found out soon enough.

Andrew sat beside his lawyer with considerably more confidence than he’d felt inside the holding cell.

He’d already explained everything.

Mistaken identity.

Wrong place, wrong time.

No direct evidence.

His lawyer had listened without saying much, which Andrew took as professionalism rather than skepticism.

Then the recording was played.

Andrew stopped breathing.

The first image showed the road outside the workshop.

A motorbike approached.

The image was clear enough to identify the rider.

Andrew stared.

"No."

His lawyer turned slightly toward him.

Andrew didn’t notice.

The footage continued.

Another angle.

Another camera.

His arrival.

His movements around the property.

Andrew’s face slowly drained of color.

"That wasn’t there."

No one answered.

Andrew leaned forward.

"The camera. That wasn’t there before."

His lawyer’s head turned toward him much more sharply this time.

Andrew realized what he’d said.

Too late.

The recording continued.

No one needed to explain what they were watching.

The cameras had captured him entering the property and deliberately damaging it.

Then came the fire.

Andrew sat completely still.

He remembered inspecting the workshop.

He remembered looking around.

There hadn’t been cameras.

He was certain of it.

Except there were cameras now.

And they had recorded him.

His lawyer leaned closer.

"You told me you were passing by."

Andrew swallowed.

"I was."

The lawyer stared at him.

On the screen, Andrew Callahan was very clearly doing considerably more than passing by.

"I can explain."

His lawyer closed his eyes for a moment.

Andrew suddenly had the distinct impression that his explanation was no longer the most urgent thing in the room.

The evidence would now go through the proper process. The authorities would determine which charges the facts supported, and Alexander’s complaint would become part of that case.

Andrew still had the right to defend himself.

He still had the right to counsel.

And when the time came to enter his plea, Andrew Callahan exercised another right.

"Not guilty."

His lawyer’s expression didn’t change.

Neither did the recording.

For now, Andrew remained in custody as the case moved toward trial.

Alexander didn’t need to decide Andrew’s punishment.

He didn’t need revenge, either.

He’d filed his complaint, handed over the evidence, and left the rest where it belonged.

The workshop had already told its side of the story.

Now the court had to listen.