took a deep breath and made herself say the words. “I’m here to see i-inmate Wren.”
The uniformed woman behind the Plexiglas rolled her eyes upward to glance over her bifocals. “Spell the name, please.”
Carlotta did, glancing around the crowded waiting room nervously, hoping she didn’t run into anyone she knew—or anyone who knew her. The place held bad memories; she’d been arrested once a couple of years ago for taking a tire iron to one of Wesley’s bookies, but the charges had been dropped. And just before Christmas last year she’d been hauled in for questioning in a murder case. It turned out to be a big fat misunderstanding, but the experience had scared her straight. No more lying…no more pretending.
She frowned down at her outfit. One thing was certain—even in her last-season Diane von Furstenberg sundress and midi-jacket, she was a tad overdressed for the occasion.
The woman wrote down Wesley’s name. “And you are?”
Carlotta lowered her mouth to the little hole in the Plexiglas and whispered, “I’m his sister, Carlotta Wren. And there must be some mistake. My brother would never break the law. At least not a big law.”
The woman appeared to be unmoved. “Yeah. Have a seat and someone will be with you.”
Carlotta cut a glance to the waiting room and noted the sagging bodies, the yawns, the general restlessness of people who had been waiting for hours. She looked back and flashed an ingratiating smile at the woman. “Look—” She peeked at the woman’s name tag, then frowned. “Your parents named you Brooklyn?”
The woman smirked. “Everyone calls me Brook.”
“Okay…Brook, I don’t mean to be pushy, but I had to take a break from my job at Neiman Marcus to come down here, and I really need to get back ASAP.”
The woman blinked slowly. “I need a million dollars and a good man. Have a seat, Ms. Wren.”
Carlotta sighed—there went her overtime pay this week. As she turned toward the teeming waiting room, she made eye contact with a tall, striking man wearing a badge around his neck, pouring coffee from a corroded glass pot. A frown furrowed his brow.
“Did you say your name was Wren?” he drawled, hinting at his roots. South Georgia, she guessed, or maybe an Alabama boy. He was block-shouldered with black hair, a strong nose, fortyish, with bloodshot eyes, bad taste in ties and an apparent aversion to ironing. His haircut was rather good, she conceded, in her split-second scrutiny, reminiscent of George Clooney in his E.R. days. But this guy didn’t seem to have much of a bedside manner.
“Yes,” she said warily. “I’m Carlotta Wren.”
He drank from the cup, then winced. “I’m Detective Jack Terry. I brought your brother in,” he said and blew on the top of his coffee.
His nonchalance was beyond irritating. “May I ask why?”
He was still blowing. “I’ll let him tell you. Hey, are you two any relation to Randolph Wren?”
She clenched her jaw. “He’s our father. What does that have to do with this?”
“Nothing that I know of,” he admitted, then took a slurpy drink. “I just wondered.”
“When can I talk to my brother?”
“How about now?” He nodded at the woman behind the Plexiglas. “Brook, I’ll take care of Ms. Wren.”
Brook shook her finger. “Behave, Jack.”
He grinned and Carlotta frowned. Judging from the woman’s comment, some women apparently found his good-old-boy charm appealing. There was just no accounting for taste.
He waved his badge in front of a card reader, then opened a door that led to a noisy bullpen of cubicles. As he held the door for her, she stepped inside and was immediately engulfed by the clatter of conversation, the whir of machines and the drone of announcements over a public-address system.
Carlotta followed the detective through the obstacle course of overflowing desks, jutting legs and fast-moving bodies to an eight-foot-by-eight-foot cubicle marked with a nameplate that read, Det. J. Terry, Major Crimes.
Major crimes? Dread mushroomed in her stomach. This sounded serious.
Stacks of files and papers occupied every square inch of surface in the man’s cubicle. His trash can was spilling over. A bag from the Varsity, Atlanta’s famous fast-food joint on North Avenue, sat in a dusty corner on the floor, emitting iffy odors. The detective rummaged next to his computer, mumbling under his breath, until he found the phone, then yanked up the receiver, punched a button and said, “Janower, it’s Terry. Bring the skinny computer jock to interview room two, will you?” He hung up the phone and gave Carlotta a flat smile. “It’ll be a few minutes, if you want to have a seat. Here, let me clear a spot.”
He leaned over and dumped the stack of files sitting in his visitor’s chair on the floor, but at the sight of the dark stain on the dingy yellow upholstery, Carlotta swallowed. “Thanks, I’ll stand.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself.” Then he dropped into his own stained chair and took another drink from his coffee cup.
“So does my brother’s arrest have something to do with computers?” Wesley had been tinkering with them since he was ten. He’d begged for his own PC, and later, when Carlotta couldn’t afford to upgrade the machine, he’d rebuilt the old one himself. Over the years, he’d made spending money by upgrading computers for his friends and their parents, and had even helped some small companies with their software security. He had no less than six computers in his room at any given time, and sat rooted in front of them for the better part of every day, wearing headphones and generally oblivious to the outside world.
Possible scenarios whirled through her mind. Had he stolen computer components? Or could this have something to do with his gambling problem? He was supposed to be on the wagon, but maybe he was running a bookie service or an illegal poker site. She held her breath and steeled herself for the bad news.
The detective worked his mouth from side to side. “Guess it won’t hurt to tell you—it’ll be a matter of public record soon. Your brother was arrested for hacking into the database of the Atlanta city government, specifically, the courthouse.”
Panic blipped in her chest. “How much trouble is he in?”
“A lot,” he said, his voice sober. “We’re talking a felony here. And records tampering and identity theft is high on the department’s priority list. Hackers are vigorously pursued and prosecuted. Accessing the records is bad enough, but we think he might have changed some things while he was in there.”
Carlotta frowned. “Like what?”
“We’re still trying to determine the extent of the tampering.”
She stifled the spike of pride that Wesley was so damn smart—this wasn’t the time to gloat.
“We’re guessing that he might have been planning to sell the information.”
Carlotta’s jaw hardened. If money was involved, that damn Chance Hollander probably had something to do with it. That overgrown brat had been a friend of Wesley’s
