Playing with Bad Boys

Darren glared at her with hatred. "You fucking bastards," he cursed.

"You stupid schmuck, you should be thanking us!" the agent shot back. "If we hadn't arrested them, your friends the Russians were planning to off the two of you as soon as you got the money out of the storage locker. We've had you and them under surveillance for a long time -- we heard them plan it."

Shannon gasped and Darren's bravado evaporated.

After a while, Shannon meekly asked, "Where are we going now?"

The agent looked at her for the first time. "Why the Essex County jail, of course," she said. "What did you expect?"

Shannon's face drooped to her chest, and the agent gazed back and forth at the pair in the backseat for a minute. Finally, she got a puzzled look on her face and turned to Shannon. "Why in the world would you leave Robert Cunningham for this little piece of shit?"

Shannon couldn't look her in the eye. "I guess I always had a thing for bad boys."

"What bad boy?" the agent asked contemptuously. "You mean that little coward with the wet pants where he pissed himself?"

Shannon glanced over and saw that the crotch of Darren's jeans was soaked. When he saw her looking, he turned his face away to stare out the window.

The agent driving the car swore. "He pissed himself? Damn, I'm gonna have to clean the back seat again."

The female agent laughed and then turned back to Shannon. "You wanted a bad boy?" she asked scornfully. "You were married to one of the baddest FBI agents on the East Coast. That man already has more decorations for bravery than most agents hope for in an entire career. Your ex-husband has busted mob bosses, bank robbers and serial killers -- and you wanted a bad boy?"

"I never knew," Shannon said in a small voice.

"Yeah, you didn't know," the woman said harshly, "and you nearly killed him. A lot of us thought that he wasn't going to make it after you ran out on him. That man loved you so much and you treated him like he was a piece of trash on the street."

She took a deep breath to calm herself. "But after tonight I think he'll be okay. And when he's back on the market there are a lot of single ladies in the Bureau who are gonna be after him. And you know what: I might just be one of them."

The agent behind the wheel gave a mock groan. "Damn, Alice, I thought you were hot for me!"

The female laughed and playfully cuffed his shoulder. "Shut up, Ray. You know your wife would skin you alive if she heard you talking like that."

Before she could say anything more, the driver announced, "We're here," and made a sharp turn into the admitting area of the blue-painted complex of the Essex County Correctional Facility. Shannon and Darren were escorted into the building and led down a corridor. As they walked along the fluorescent-lit hallway, the female agent took Shannon's arm and pulled her off to the right away from Darren. They came to an empty holding cell, and after the agent directed Shannon inside, she slammed the door shut and left.

Shannon slumped down on the cot that was chained to the wall and began to try to process everything that had happened to her. The extreme events she'd experienced -- from the adrenaline rush of the sting on Sesterman to the terror of imminent death, from the flood of relief when she realized she would live to the shame of Robert's confrontation-- had left her emotionally exhausted.

Thinking about how Darren had abandoned her to try to save himself, she felt glad to be separated from him. "Even if he hadn't tried to abandon me," she thought, "his Russian 'friends' would have killed us. How could I ever have been tempted to run away with someone like him?" she reviled herself.

Then she recalled what the female FBI agent had told her about Robert. It was clear that the woman had a completely different view of the man she had married. "She thinks he's a hero," Shannon marveled, "she thinks he's hot."

A clang from somewhere in the building caused her to look up, and the sight of the barred door reminded her of the future she faced. The thought of spending years of her life in prison was deeply depressing, and the worst of it was that she had no one to blame but herself.

Suddenly the female agent reappeared at the bars. She unlocked the cell door and beckoned to Shannon. "Come on," she said, and led Shannon down a corridor that ended at a door. When she opened it, cool night air hit Shannon's face. They were in the parking lot, and a car was waiting with the engine running.

Shannon looked back at the agent in confusion. "What's happening?"

But the agent simply motioned her toward the waiting vehicle. Then the door opened and a familiar figure got out.

"Daddy?" she cried out in disbelief, and when she saw that it was in fact her father she dashed to him and threw her arms around him, sobbing into his lapels. "I'm so sorry, Daddy. I'm so sorry for everything," she sobbed.

"Let's go, honey," he said in a voice choked with emotion, and she let him lead her to the passenger side of his car.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"We're going home, honey," he said gently.

"But I don't understand," she said plaintively. "Why am I free? How did you know to come get me here?"

As her father pulled out onto Doremus Avenue and headed toward the onramp for the New Jersey Turnpike, he glanced over at his prodigal daughter. "Robert called me," he said. "He asked me to give you a message. He said, 'Tell her this is a parting gift from SpongeBob.'"

Shannon gave a little cry of pain and began to weep again. She couldn't decide whether her unexpected and wholly undeserved redemption was an act of kindness by Robert or the harshest punishment he could have inflicted on her.