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Chapter Six

"Maybe I'll go driving just to drive

Maybe I'll go riding just to ride

Maybe it meant nothing

When I threw another coin in the fountain at the mall"

MATT MALTESE - 'Driving Just To Drive'

.                                   .                               .

"Officer Lance knows."

Everything kind of... tilted a little.

Cali had hoped, foolishly, that somehow nobody would ever find out. Had hoped that leaving the house, leaving Michael, would just be the end of it, tied up with a little bow. And maybe it could have been that easy if she hadn't sent Cassidy over to get her stuff. If she hadn't been so horribly sentimental and materialistic and possessive.

But she owned things from Tommy. From Janet. And she'd rather die than let Michael get his hands on them.

"Where is Officer Lance now?" She croaked into the phone, eyes darting around her empty room as though he might pop out of the shadows.

Cassidy was quiet for an agonisingly long moment, hesitant, and Cali's heart sank as she realised what he would tell her seconds before he actually started to speak. "He's already on his way to the Queen Mansion," Cassidy said regretfully. "He's not happy, Miss Cali."

'Of course he's not happy,' Cali wanted to snap, but that wasn't fair. Not to Cassidy and not to Lance and not to herself.

"I'm sorry," she apologised, allowing one brief minute of weakness before tangling a fist in the swarm of emotions buzzing around her chest and cramming it all into a box. She needed to be in crisis mode if she had any hope of surviving the day. "Where are you now?"

"Outside the police station," Cassidy answered, promptly and alert, responding to the change in her tone almost instinctively.

Cali nodded sharply, even though he couldn't see her. "Alright. Are my things with you?"

"They're still at the house, but they're all packed and ready to transport."

"Is the car with you at the station, or is it at the safe house?"

"It's at the safe house, ma'am."

Cali sighed at the title, but didn't allow herself the time to correct it. "Call Parker. Have him take you back to the house to get my possessions. Bring them here, please. Is Michael out too?" The tiniest flicker of something that might be fear fluttered across her cheeks like a butterfly.

Cassidy, though, squashed the feeling like a bug when he said, almost smugly, "Mister Martin was not released from custody. Officer Lance intends to charge him with breaching a Domestic Violence Order and breaking his parole conditions. He will be returned to prison, Miss Cali."

Michael was going back to prison.

Cali waited for the wave of knee-shaking relief, for the sudden rush of victory or the briefest taste of glee.

Except everything inside her was hollow and silent, drenched in cobwebs.

"Thank you, Cassidy," she said woodenly. "That will be all."

"Of course, Miss Cali," he murmured, his desire to challenge her mood swing clear in his tone before he clicked off the call.

Cali set the phone down very carefully on the bed beside her.