Alice felt a bit better with the visit with her lawyer and moved back toward the bench in the cell. Thankfully the cell was clean and she was the only one in it for the moment and that gave her some privacy, but that was about the only "good" thing about being in the jail at the police station. She was about sit down and rest to await whatever word Bob would be able to get for her when she noticed the weredog officer monitoring the jail that morning was still looking to her.
"Was there something you wanted?" Alice asked to the officer, trying her best to sound polite.
"You do have another visitor," the officer spoke calmly.
"Another visitor?" Alice raised an eyebrow, "I didn't ask for a visitor..."
"She arrived at about the same time as your lawyer did," the officer answered.
"Very well," Alice said as she moved toward the cell door, "we can head back to your conference, questioning, visitation area... or you can have her brought here. I am a bit curious as to who this could be..."
The officer nodded and backed away just enough for Alice to step out of the cell. She didn't run or bolt. She'd followed the story-line that followed Yvette Smith's rampage, first attempting to rape a college professor and then clawing a college student while trying to elude police. The werefox had made a daring escape from the jail, but all that did was make it pretty clear that she was criminal. Alice knew she was smarter than that. Running would only make her look guilty and add other legal issues that she wouldn't be able to get out from. So she walked forward and let the officer guide her into a small white painted room that was often used for questioning and when visitors came to the police station. It was smaller than the cell, but allowed for greater privacy and some decorum that was better than a cell. A wooden table ran down the middle and Alice was ushered to the side closer to the far wall, meaning that she'd have to go through the table if she were to try to run out the door, which she wouldn't do. As she sat down in a blue plastic chair the officer turned back to the door.
"If you wait here, I'll bring her in," the officer said to her.
Alice nodded as he went out the door. She waited a few moments before the officer returned with a lone woman, and one that was all to familiar to Alice. Megan Decrux came in and sat down in the chair opposite her. The officer stayed in the room for just a moment, but then retreated to just outside the door. Neither said anything until they heard the door latch shut.
"Hello, mother," Megan said calmly.
"How..." Alice began.
"The police called me this morning before they got going into their present business with this wedding," Megan answered, "and said something about you needing someone to potentially take care of things at home. So, I came in."
"Bah, this should be nothing," Alice dismissed it, "I should hopefully out before noon."
"And what did you do THIS time?" Megan asked with a frown.
"Accusing me of attempting to drug Harold Jenkins and drugging a Jack Morrison," Alice answered, "but the case is weak."
"And what was the drug?" Megan asked.
Alice only stared back with a frown. This seemed to be a repeat of the same arguments that she and Megan had had plenty of times over. Megan seemed to support some of Alice's pain regarding what happened in her days in High School, but Megan had also begun to pressure that Alice needed more help to get over it. She didn't support Alice's plan to make all the disloyal and irresponsible men pay. That only frustrated Alice given her commitment to her own cause. At times Alice got the sense that Megan did love her mother, but to Alice, it was the support that Alice wanted.
"If it was Love Potion Number Nine, you know that things like motivation, malice, or intention don't entirely matter," Megan said slowly, "Moon Lake has allowed it to be legal because of the drug isn't addictive and there have been no known physical effects counter to intense arousal in weres and normals alike. But because its effects as an aphrodisiac are so strong, you MUST have a warning of the drug's presence and its effects for those who don't know, that way you don't create a situation where a were forces him or herself on a normal because they're too aroused to control themselves and so on. If you sent out candy laced with Love Potion Number Nine and there was no warning... it won't matter what your intent was. You may be able to get out of a major prison sentence, but if there was no warning, be it verbal or written... they can and will get you... And your reputation may lead to them to want to throw the book at you to lighten their problems."
"And you came to give me a legal lecture?" Alice answered.
"No, I came to offer you help," Megan replied, "but the help you need. You can't keep this up, and eventually it WILL come back to bite you."
Alice frowned.
"What happened to you in high school wasn't fair and you didn't deserve the treatment you got then," Megan spoke, "but how does every other male deserve this punishment you've cooked up? How does someone like Harold Jenkins who has moved here deserve that?"
"And so every man is good?" Alice argued, "HA!"
"Not every man... but that doesn't mean that every man is like Archibald Tyree," Megan answered, "You can't keep treating every man like that. The fact that the police arrested you on trying to get you on drugging charges with Love Potion Number Nine shows just how much they are suspicious of you on general principle. I know you're good in your heart, mother, but you NEED to LET THIS GO."
Alice didn't say anything. She looked back at her daughter.
"Offer to talk with Doctor Twist, she can help you and it'd be better for you to get it off your chest to someone that knows how to help you," Megan urged.
"And what would a lesbian werecat know about the evils that men do?" Alice growled.
"It isn't about what she knows about men, it's what she knows as a psychiatrist," Megan countered, "she can help you come to grips with what happened in a healthy way that isn't leading to acts of revenge that will surely come back to bite you."
"I've never done anything that was truly criminal," Alice answered defiantly. The issue with Love Potion Number Nine might fall into that category, but that would only be on a technicality, not something that would be truly malicious.
"Things don't have to be criminal to be wrong," Megan warned, "and if whatever scheme you have with Harold Jenkins, keep in mind that he IS a weretiger, and a new one at that. If you do ANYTHING that remotely harms someone his instincts have decided to protect... he's liable to KILL you outright for that transgression. Weretigers are protective to a great extreme... and I've heard plenty of rumors at the college that campus security was stationed outside the Dean's office because of his frustration in the fact that one student forced herself on a professor and then on a fellow student on the fear that he'd hunt Yvette Smith down for what she had done."
Alice didn't say anything and looked down.
"You need help, mom, not revenge," Megan spoke, "and maybe that will let you be the good person that I know is within you."