Kowalski looked at Dempsey. "Did she tell you the boy was her boyfriend?"
Dempsey said yes, but added that he did not believe her.
Kowalski looked at his partner. The look they exchanged said more than either officer was willing to say aloud while standing next to Dempsey. Neither man had been present for the initial contact, so they did not pretend to know more than they knew. But they had a handcuffed teenager, a visibly distressed witness whose account was detailed and internally consistent, and an officer whose explanation kept changing depending on which part of the encounter he was describing. The first priority was no longer defending Dempsey's assumptions. It was figuring out whether there had ever been a lawful reason to put Austin in the back seat at all.
Kowalski walked to the cruiser and opened the back door. He helped Austin out of the back seat and removed the handcuffs himself. Austin stood on the road and rubbed his wrists. His face showed the full weight of what he had just been through, not anger yet, but something closer to disbelief mixed with pain.
His jeans had grass stains on the knees from where he had been driven into the ground, and his left shoulder was sore from the impact. Kowalski told Austin and Chloe directly that they were free to go and that he was sorry for what had happened. His partner said the same thing to Chloe.
Both teenagers accepted the apologies without saying much because there was not much anyone could say that would make the previous 20 minutes make sense. Austin called his father while still standing on the road. When his father answered, Austin told him what had happened in the flat, careful voice of someone holding himself together by concentrating on facts rather than feelings.
His father told him not to move and said he was coming. Chloe called her parents next and told them the same story.