Hotline Fling

37: That's Cliché

Juneau's POV

"I don't like it, Juneau." Aunt Margaret's eyebrows, forehead, the bridge of her nose, and the corners of her mouth creased with lines etched with the same concern that soaked through her voice. "We should take you home to Clinton to recover."

Uncle Joseph stood silent while she berated me over my 'predicament.' After a few oral lashes, I realized she didn't mean the incident that left me in the hospital but my entire life. Best I didn't tell her where I worked, provided I still had a job on Monday. "I'm fine," I assured her as we waited across an intersection from the charming building.

After giving Gus his shot, they arrived an hour before my discharge, thankfully with a change of clothes. The NYPD hadn't returned my belongings so here we were. Armed with determination and edible bribery because I had no fucking identification except a hospital bracelet and freakish tracks of staples in my shoulder.

Unlike the worn brick on the 34th Office, the 1st's building was a quintessential New York historical architecture. I arched my neck back at the all-stone building and its small charming details like basket-shaped banners etched into the stone above windows and book-binding pattern blocks along the corners. It was dwarfed by newer adjacent buildings and boxed air conditioning units hung in every window. Pollution tinted the stone exterior a grimier shade of gray, and the only hints of color were a hunter-green molding on the roofline and pops of bright blue on the doors. The same blue splayed on parked cruisers.

Behind those doors was my stuff. As soon as the traffic light released us, we needed to enter.

"You should be at home, resting," Aunt Margaret's insistent voice tightened into a whine. She huffed and crossed her arms. "Tell her, Joseph."

"We both know she's gonna do whatever she damn pleases, Margie." Uncle Joe's words were crass, but his smile gave away his softer, true feelings.

"I didn't get stabbed in the legs." I strode across the intersection. "After my ass laid in that damn hospital bed for almost a day, I want to walk around. Plus, I need my wallet and phone."

Thirty-seven dollars aside, I needed to know if Damian called me. The benefit of being forced to stay in the hospital room, if wanting to claw the bare wall with my fingernails was beneficial, was the time I was forced to think. Think about my life, including a job I no longer wanted and the man that I did.

Uncle Joseph's eyes dropped to the box of frosted deliciousness in my hands. "What if they find that offensive?"

"Then we'll take them home."

A nondescript lobby greeted us. Dusty, stale air hung in the space, and an older uniformed officer sat at a desk behind a floor-to-ceiling plate of glass. "How can I help you?" His voice crackled out of a speaker, and his eyes dropped to the box I set down within view.

"I need to pick up some personal items taken from a crime scene," I said to the glass. His eyes rolled, then he pointed at the 'Please use the call button' sign clear as day an inch from my eyes.

"I need to see some form of ID, please," even with the static, his voice came out flat and disinterested.

"They were taken as evidence," I said. "I'm here for my purse and phone. Two officers visited my hospital room and told me to come here. So, I'm here. Juneau Corrine Olstead...umm, the mugging victim from Saturday night in Tribeca." The incident had to be in their system, right?

After a few clicks on his keyboard, his gray eyebrows, fringed with white, lifted. "And the box?"

"A thank you gift." I patted it and dropped my eyes to his nametag. "Officer Sherman."