Cops Have No Idea Family BBQ PARTY Is Full of FBI — Cuff Black Man, Instantly Regret It
Chapter 3
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"You're with her?""We work together."A man in a black shirt approached from the umbrella, stopping beside Dana. He showed his own identification. "Luis Ortega. Same office. I watched him put the tongs down."Behind Luis, a woman who had been carrying plates identified herself. Another colleague near the gate did the same.Voss looked across the gathering, taking in the people he had counted without speaking to. "How many of you?""Six guests from our office," Dana said. "But Mrs. Avery already explained whose house this is."Harlan's fingers loosened on Malcolm's sleeve. "Well, why didn't you say something?""I asked you to look," Dana said.Evelyn watched Luis walk past the bowl of potato salad he had brought. Two weeks earlier, he had carried her laundry basket while she practiced the stairs with a therapist. Dana had sat with her during Malcolm's evening shifts. Now the officers were looking at them differently, though nobody at the table had changed."Those are my friends," she told Voss."Yes, ma'am. I said that before."He lowered Malcolm's wallet without offering it back to him yet. Voss took his radio off his shoulder. "Dispatch, hold transport. Need agency verification and a command officer at this address."Harlan leaned toward him. "He still came at me.""With what?" Voss asked."The tongs."Luis looked at the grill shelf. "They've been there since your first instruction."Harlan turned to him, then noticed the identification still in his hand. He turned back to Voss. "You didn't have my angle."Evelyn pressed a napkin flat against her knee. "Is he going somewhere?""No one is taking him out while we check this," Voss said."Then take those things off him."Voss hesitated, looking at Harlan.Dana's voice stayed level: "He's standing still. You have his identification. What requires cuffs now?"The sergeant reached for his key. "Harlan, let go."Malcolm held his arm steady while Voss opened the cuffs. When his hands came forward, he flexed his fingers once and stopped. A strip of apron fabric had been caught beneath the steel.Evelyn reached for him. He knelt beside her chair. "Did you catch your hip getting down?"She took his right hand and turned it over. A red indentation crossed his wrist. "I asked about you," she said."I'm here."Her thumb stopped just short of the mark.Around them, guests began moving again. Someone closed the grill lid. Someone brought Evelyn water. Nobody returned to eating.Dana asked Luis to contact their duty supervisor and explain that several agents had witnessed an incident involving a colleague. "We'll give statements," she said. "Someone who wasn't here needs to handle the review."Luis nodded and moved away to make the call.Dispatch came back with a request for names. Voss supplied them from the credentials, his voice quieter now. Harlan stood beside the flower table, adjusting the strap on his watch.