A lawyer who believed her was critical. She swore that whatever it took, she would pay her mom back, every last cent, for the bail money too. She had no idea how much a thing like this would cost, but she was determined to do it.
Ronnie heard the clang of metal and it broke through her thoughts. She knew someone would be coming to pick up her tray soon, and perhaps take her to the showers. She popped the last bit of dry toast into her mouth. She was wrong about the shower. The guard who came to take her tray, left with a brief parting shot. “Hearing in ten minutes, someone will come get you.”
***
Exactly ten minutes later, a new guard entered the corridor and approached her cell. “Veronica Louise Sears?” she asked, checking her paperwork in front of her.
“Yes,” Ronnie confirmed, and the door slid open at the deputy’s nod to the man on the other side of the corridor through the glass window.
“Turn,” the female deputy commanded, and Ronnie automatically turned and put her hands behind her back. The woman placed cuffs on her, and holding them loosely steered her out of the cell. As she was led down the corridor, a few other inmates in the county holding facility called after, “Good luck, Blondie,” and “They gonna throw the book at you, drug dealer!” Inside Ronnie cringed, but she didn’t look back, and she held her head high, as high as her five foot four frame could be in prison issued tennis shoes. She was hoping this would be the last time she ever saw a jail cell, yet fearing it wouldn’t because she might not be able to make the bail. She knew real prisons from what she saw on the news and they were definitely worse than this.
After she was led out of the wing she was in, her thoughts once again turned to her predicament. Just how in hell had she gotten into this horrifying nightmare in the first place? Gary, she thought as her eyes narrowed suspiciously. The Sheriff’s deputy turned her down another corridor and down a flight of stairs that took her to an underground passageway out of the county lock up. They passed several more guards who examined the paperwork without a word and let them pass. Signs and arrows indicated they were going to the Courthouse across the street.
Just a week ago she was laughing on a beach in Jamaica with her friends, and her boyfriend, Gary. Ex-boyfriend Gary, she reminded herself. God, she had misjudged him! Her mother indicated he hadn’t called though she tried several times to reach him. Ronnie told her mother her suspicions of his possible involvement and Lou’s shock had turned to anger. His family was powerful, and she knew her daughter’s innocence would be even more difficult to prove. They both expressed those feelings, but Lou once again reminded her daughter that this is a fight they would endure to the finish.
Ronnie never should have gotten back together with him after their last break up. He had begun to bore her, and proved on more than one occasion that he was the spoiled rich kid who expected things to be handed to him on a silver platter. He fooled her at first though. But she had come back to school last year, lonely, still smarting over the “Nikko” affair that had tarnished her summer.
Gary, for all his faults, was tall, handsome, and athletic. He was Gary the hockey player who shared her interests and her love of the great outdoors. In the beginning anyway. As time went on, he turned into boring Gary, lazy Gary, help me study for finals, let me borrow your notes Gary, and spent more and more of his time playing video games and smoking pot Gary. But for their final year after the break up, he cleaned up his act a bit, needing to graduate he promised to focus on his studies and do better. He had a full schedule of courses he needed to pass. Hell, he wouldn’t even be graduating from University in a week if it weren’t for her help.
Then another thought occurred to her. Hell! Would she, she wondered for the first time. Surely, she would still get her diploma, all her course work was done, and she aced her exams! She hadn’t done three years of schooling, and two summers worth of work, so she could graduate early for nothing, had she?
Oh God, she hadn’t even thought about that until now. Would she get her Degree in Forrest and Environmental Sciences? Would she be employable as a forest or park ranger? The dry toast she had eaten threatened to come back up as she trailed behind the deputy Sheriff.
Gary! It all came down to him. Her anger rose, and she stiffened her spine as her rubber soles slapped at the parquet floors. What the fuck had he done! Smuggled pot, cocaine, and heroine on a cruise ship. What an idiot! And, the fuck-tard had stashed it in her belongings, her scuba gear! She was so level headed, planned everything out, and excelled in school, and outdoor activities. She prided herself on excelling, making the right choices. Dumping Gary the first time had been the right choice. Taking him back because he said he’d changed wasn’t. Now, she was paying the price.