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and launches himself toward the fence, hooks his fingers into the fence, and pulls himself. He’s over in six, maybe seven, seconds. But the perp has a serious lead on him—he’s already halfway across the field. Wildey pumps his legs, run-limping like he’s suddenly developed a tumor in his left knee.
    “Freeze! Police!” he yells, huffing way too much to sound authoritative.
    The perp either doesn’t hear him or doesn’t give a shit. He moves like a streak, kicking up dust from the field like a cartoon character zipping across the desert.
     
    I’m thrilled for a few seconds to see D. escape until I remember that the cop is going to be crazy pissed. And then he’s going to come back for me. I sit behind the steering wheel contemplating my options. Just pull away, some meek little voice tells me. Put the car into drive and pull out into the street and go right home and pick up your dad in the morning and then your brother and eat Thanksgiving dinner and hope this just all goes away …
But that would be stupid. The cop has my license, my registration, my whole fucking life in his hands.
I feel weird about rooting for D. now. It would honestly be easier for me if poor D. came back in cuffs, and I got tagged as an accessory or some such shit. Granted, Dad would go nuclear, but it wouldn’t be as bad as taking this one alone. Just a case of wrong girl at the wrong place at the wrong time. I’d recover … right? Because what did this cop really have on me? Someone—anyone—could have put a jacket stuffed with drugs in my backseat, right? And yeah, that crap might work, if not for the fact that this cop saw me drive up with D., saw D. go up to that house, saw me pull away.
After a small eternity the cop returns, limping, out of breath, looking like a bull that ran through a red cape. I steel myself.
—Get out of the car and put your hands on the hood.
My mind goes numb. I try to remember more from those YouTube videos about getting pulled over but my mind goes blank, like someone’s cut the Wi-Fi.
—Out of the car. Now.
I unbuckle my seat belt, open the door. A gush of cold air, chilled by the nearby river, hits my body just as I take a step out. Guys in oversized coats watch me from across the street. I don’t know where to put my hands. Should I be standing in the street alongside the car, or in front of it? Someone catcalls.
—Hey, honey, you holding?
The cop yells back.
—Shut the fuck up and move along.
The cop directs me to the front of my car, tells me to put my bare hands on the hood. The metal is warm from the engine but as I press my hands down the heat vanishes instantly. I hear a car door slam and realize it’s my own door, which I’d forgotten to close. I hate it when real life supplies you with a super on-the-nose metaphor for how badly things are fucked.
     
    Lieutenant Kaz is in the hallway when Wildey returns to headquarters, leading Honors Girl by the arm. The poor thing refuses to make eye contact the whole walk up here, as if keeping her gaze fixed to the floor will make this all go away. Sorry, honey, you’re caught now. You should have listened to your teachers in school. Be Smart, Don’t Start.
    “Well, if it isn’t my Wild Child!” Kaz calls out.
    Wildey tries to keep his face appropriately stern. “Hey, Loot.”
    Lieutenant Katrina Mahoney’s unit knows to never,
ever
call her “Lieutenant Mahoney.” It’s either “Lieutenant” or “Loot” or, if they’re feeling unusually chummy, “Kaz.” That’s because Mahoney is the name of her ex, who is also on the force, and they hate each other with the fury of a thousand blazing suns. After the divorce everybody expected her to change the name, but she kept it just to spite his cheating ass. (Another pro tip: Married to a cop? Don’t cheat on her with another cop.) A few years after their scorched-earth divorce the ex ended up in Internal Affairs, Kaz in Narcotics, and the whole recent D.A. probe made it so that the two