Authors Note: Thank you to everyone left comments or sent me feedback about previous chapters of this story. Thank you to Margaret who proofread for me. I hope you enjoy this chapter. ~ellie
*****
"For fucks sake," Nik raged at the constables who approached her cell. "If my Uncle is here to bail me out, he is in no danger from me."
"Stand against the back wall please, Miss Donati," the constable repeated respectfully.
"I've done nothing wrong," she screeched at him. She couldn't believe her family had left her here over night, and she desperately needed Charles to get her out of here. She stepped back against the wall unhappily. She had learned last night that it was pointless to fight these fuckers. She just had to be patient. Donati's didn't go to jail. She would be out of here within hours, she reassured herself.
Nik complained bitterly as she was handcuffed and guided out of her cell into an interrogation room and sat opposite a middle aged gentleman who sat looking through a file.
"Would you like me to stay?" The constable asked the man who looked up from his reading and assessed the woman in front of him.
"Perhaps if you could stand outside the door while I get to know my client and lay down some ground rules," the man said looking back down at the evidence he had received via courier that morning ignoring Nik for the moment.
"Where is my Uncle," Nik demanded through gritted teeth her temper flaring at the disrespect of the man who called her a client.
"He isn't coming. None of your family have consented to be here with you. My name is Lawrence Kerrigan. Your family have engaged me as your lawyer," he said.
"You're not my lawyer," Nik spat, "Where is Jules?"
"Both Jules and Romeo have disqualified themselves from this case due to conflict of interest. I am happy to proceed, however, if you would like to engage a lawyer yourself, you would be well within your rights. I would caution you, though, that you are being charged with some very serious offences, and it would be unwise to attempt to defend yourself or engage a law student," Lawrence said in a short, clipped voice. "You may also want to consider that your family is prepared to pay my fees and on your own you would not have access to the documentation that portrays you as Nikita Mariskov, and therefore, you have no access to funds of any significance.
"Fine, just tell them to bail me out already," she huffed fidgeting uncomfortably and twisting her wrists within the cuffs. They may not want to be here in the watch-house with her, but they would post her bail and then she would make her overtures to her family until they made this all go away. Then once things had calmed down she could make good on her escape.
"Let's start with the charges then shall we," he placed a photo of the dead guard before her followed by a photo of Peri.
"Oh my God, what happened to them?" Nik said in feigned shock. "I didn't kill them if that's what you think!"
"Giorgio Antony," he pointed at the photo of the guard, "Was strangled and found dead in his office," Lawrence said unemotionally watching her reaction carefully.
"Poor Giorgio, he was my guard at the rehab facility," she said sadly. "It's awful," she said in a sad voice shaking her head.
"Perinique Andrea Wells," he pointed to the other photo and stopped talking as Nik snickered under her breath. "Are you finding this amusing, Miss Maris?"
"Her name is Perinique?" she laughed again. "I'm sorry I only ever knew her as Peri. She was dating my brother. How did she die?" she asked the laughter subsiding but the smile still playing around her lips and eyes.
"She's not dead," he announced. She was close to death when they found her and had she not been wearing a thick leather band around her neck at the time she would have been strangled too."
"She not dead?" Nik asked in genuine confusion.
"They found her below a window outside of the library, with numerous serious injuries, she is in intensive care but expected to make a full recovery." He informed her.
"No. She's dead," Nik argued. "Anna, another girl at rehab, was so desperate for drugs she killed Giorgio and then hid in the library and killed Peri when she saw her trying to escape out of the window." She rattled off her carefully prepared cover story in a rush, her mind not accepting that Peri was alive.
"She's very much alive and has made a statement to the Canberra police late last night implicating you as the person who tried to kill her," Lawrence said coldly
"She's obviously delusional then," Nik said. "I wouldn't do that to Peri. Look at her! I couldn't possibly have done that. I'm just a girl." She said meekly blinking her eyes as if she might cry. Her mind though was raging at the stupid, fat cow who couldn't even die like she was supposed to. She was a useless waste of space that existed just to annoy her.