39. Chapter 38
There's a clock ticking that we can't see so love who you want, and enjoy your life.
“Sit.” The sheriff’s deputy, whose name tag read L. Manning , nodded at the chair in front of a judge’s desk.
He didn’t pull out his pistol—he didn’t have to.
Because once they’d stepped into that courtroom, he’d strapped a small vest rigged with explosives over her chest, then given her a purple and yellow LSU sweatshirt to put on over it. And he was holding the trigger in his hand.
She wouldn’t have come with him if she’d known about the bomb, she’d have taken her chances. Now it was too late and she had to get out of this.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked, keeping her voice pitched low.
She’d tried talking to him before, but he’d put her in the trunk of his cruiser.
And then once he’d taken her out in what turned out to be a parking garage, he’d told her to shut her mouth or he’d put a bullet in her and anyone she tried to ask for help.
Not that it had mattered. They’d passed by exactly two people on the way up to this floor. He’d bypassed security, using his badge to take an elevator that must be reserved for law enforcement and judges .
When he didn’t respond, she tried again. “Is this about Killeen? Or Sheriff Crow? Some kind of revenge?”
He glanced over at her, and that was when she saw the rage, the hate.
“Are you with the men who broke into my family’s house?” she whispered.
“I had nothing to do with that,” he finally snapped. “There’s been corruption in this town for years and I never understood why so many people kept getting let off. But now I know—the corruption went all the way to the top.”
“I know . I helped reveal that corruption.” She wanted to humanize herself, get on this guy’s good side. He had a wild look in his eyes that told her it likely wouldn’t matter, but she still had to try. She wasn’t going to go down without a fight.
He frowned at her again as if she was stupid. “That’s why you’re here.”
“It is?”
“Your father was part of it. Part of this whole corrupt machine,” he snarled.
“Hank was?”
His eyes seemed to glaze over for a moment, his knuckles going white as he clutched onto the back of one of the judge’s chairs. “My sister…sweet Georgia.”
“Georgia was your sister’s name?” she asked softly, trying to get something out of him.
Jaw tight, he nodded. “She was killed by a drunk driver. Sheriff said the Breathalyzer came back negative. And your father,” he snarled again, “testified that Quenton had been sober, had just left one of those meetings. But I know they all covered it up. Including the judge. I hadn’t been sure before, but after everything that just happened…
” He was vibrating with rage now, his dark eyes filled with a manic sort of look she’d seen in zealots be fore.
“You’re going to help me expose the rest of the corruption in King’s Creek. ”
“How are we going to do that?” She used her soothing journalist’s voice and held his eye contact. She didn’t think he could be reasoned with, but she still had to try.
“My…we know what you did to help trap the sheriff, but it’s not enough. Not enough to pay for what your father did. For what everyone else did.”
Okay, who the hell was this we ?
“The Feds don’t know everything,” he continued.
“What is it they don’t know?”
“Steve had multiple judges in his pocket.”
“The sheriff?” she asked, wanting to clarify, and also just keep him talking. If he was talking, he wasn’t letting that switch go.
“Yeah, who else?” he snarled.
She nodded gently, wondering if Bradford had realized that she’d been taken yet. If anyone could find her, it was him and his people. “I just wanted to make sure that’s who you meant. He’s been arrested. I know that he’s giving up the names of everyone involved in their criminal organization.”
“You actually believe that?”
She did, but wasn’t going to tell him that.
Steve Crow was a self-serving coward who’d rolled over on everyone so he could get into WITSEC.
He wouldn’t break that contract and risk going to prison.
He’d die there and knew it. “Why are we in…Judge Yardley’s chambers? ” She read the plaque on the table.
“The Honorable Penny Yardley let my daughter’s killer go free. And your father and Steve helped her do it.” He hit himself in the head once, as if trying to make himself focus, and she forgot to breathe as she waited for the vest to go off.
When nothing happened, she quietly breathed out. Though she wanted to ask more questions, something told her that the time for that was over.
“You’re going to question her, make her admit what she did. How dirty she is,” he snarled even as he looked at his watch again. Excitement rolled off him now and she knew the judge must be taking a scheduled break from court if his reaction was any indication. Her time was almost up.
“Okay. Do you have a list of questions I should ask?”
Nodding, he pulled out a folded-up paper from his back pocket. As he stepped forward, she thought she saw the door handle behind him move.
“Are we going to be recording this, like in an interview?”
“Yes, yes. I want all her crimes recorded. Once she’s admitted to what she did, then it’ll all be over.”
Oh, hell. By all over, she had no doubt that he meant he’d blow them all up.
“What’s this little symbol?” she asked, even though she knew what it was.
On the top of his neatly typed list of questions (which weren’t real questions at all, but accusations), was the same symbol on the manifesto and bomb instructions that Bradford had found in Wesley Jones’s workshop.
“It’s not important.”
Okay, the door handle had definitely moved. “This is kind of smudged, can you tell me what this says?”
He stepped forward, his boots thudding over the hardwood floors as Bradford slipped in behind him.
Her heart stopped, the world coming down to a pinpoint of this moment in time.
It took everything in her not to react or to look at him.
“Tell me why I should even question her.” She changed tactics as she dropped the piece of paper. “Especially since you’ve strapped a bomb to me.” She needed Bradford to know exactly what was going on, what they were up against. “You’re just going to kill me when this is all over. ”
“I’m not. I just want her to tell the truth! She owes me that much. But I swear I’ll let you go once she does. I know you’re not your father.”
He leaned down to pick up the fallen paper and Bradford moved in behind him like a wraith, blade up.
He must have made a sound because Manning turned at the last second, eyes wide. “What—”
Bradford slashed out, slicing across the man’s carotid in a savage, killing move.
Blood arced over her and the desk in a warm wash of liquid.
A short scream escaped as she dove forward, reaching for his hand. “Dead man’s switch!” she shouted as she wrapped her hands around Manning’s own.
Bradford grabbed onto her hands as they all fell to the floor. “I’ve got you!”
Tears streamed down her face as she waited for the pain, for the explosion…but they’d done it. Oh god, they’d stopped him. She was holding on to the man’s trigger finger and Bradford had his own hands wrapped tight around hers.
She let out a sob of relief. They were alive.
“What the hell is going on in here—”
“This man brought a bomb in here,” Bradford snarled at the wide-eyed, white-haired woman in dark judge’s robes.
Judge Yardley.
“It’s on a dead man’s switch. Evacuate the building. Now!” he continued.
She still stood there, staring at the three of them.
“Judge.” Hope’s voice was calmer. “This officer strapped a bomb to my chest. It’s underneath this hoodie. He says you let his sister’s killer go free, that you covered up the crime. ”
She stared down at the body. “No, no, no. It was a tragic car accident—”
“That doesn’t matter. I’m just letting you know so you understand that this is real. You need to leave and make sure the building is evacuated. Can you do that? We need everyone out of here now.”
“Yes, yes…” She hurried from the room, the clicks of her heels fading as she raced away.
“Feds are on their way,” Bradford said, still holding on to her.
“Really?” Relief slammed through her.
“Yep. Berlin is in my ear. She’s on it. They’ve got an office an hour away and left in a helicopter not too long ago. They’ll be here soon.”
Tears pricked at her eyes but she blinked them away. Now was not the time to start crying. Not when a dead man was on the floor between them as they held on for dear life.
“I love you,” she blurted. “In case…in case things don’t work out here.
I just want to tell you that. I knew I loved you when I ran out of that hotel room.
It’s actually part of why I ran. I don’t know how to love or be loved, but I want to learn.
I want…you. I want a future with you. I want our marriage to be real, not just something on paper.
I want to live in a house or a condo or a van with you.
You are my home. I want to wake up to your gorgeous face every morning. I just want you, Bradford.”
“You’ve got me.”
“That’s it?” He just… accepted her?
“You’ve always had me, Hope. I love you.”
And for him, it was as simple as that. Maybe it could be as simple as that for her too. She probably needed therapy to deal with all her childhood trauma, but…yeah, it was as simple as that.
“We’re going to make this work,” she whispered.
“I know.” His voice was a lot more confident than hers. “And Berlin says we’re getting married again in front of everyone. And that she’s going to be one of your bridesmaids.”
“Pretty sure I’d give her a kidney if she asked at this point.”
“She says she approves. And for the record, I really want to kiss you right now,” he whispered.
“This is a weird conversation to be having over a dead body.” And with a bomb strapped to her.
“I’m trying to distract you.”
“Well it’s working… You hear that?” The whop-whop-whop of the helicopter.
Relief flooded his expression and he nodded.
They really were going to be okay.