23.
Z ANE
I had just shimmied out from under a car that was stuck in a ditch when I heard a motorcycle come to a stop. I stood up as I heard footsteps on the gravel, so I brushed my hands off and turned to see Uncle Jace coming toward me with his forehead creased by a ferocious frown.
“What’s wrong?”
“Some shit went down with your old lady. She’s fine, but . . .”
“Are the kids alright?”
“You’ll find out if you let me fucking talk!” Jace snapped. “They’re all okay. The kids are safe at your house with your sister, but Courtney’s in jail facing a couple of assault charges.”
That didn’t sound completely out of the realm of possibility, so I asked, “Whose ass did she whoop?”
“She just about beat the wheels off of her mother and her mother’s boyfriend. The fucking rookie that worked the call wrote it up as a domestic and arrested Courtney while the ambulance took the assholes to the emergency room.”
“What?” I yelled in outrage.
“Now, before you get your panties in a bunch, let me finish. Your mom called Nick and explained the situation, and he’s gonna do what he does to fix things. But right now, your girl is being booked for two counts of assault.”
“You are fucking kidding! They let her mother go and arrested Courtney?”
“Your mom explained everything to Nick, and then he had Zoey call to give him the details. He’s already got someone with her at the hospital where she’s currently cuffed to the bed.”
“How bad was the fight?”
For the first time since he got here, Uncle Jace smiled. “She fucked her up, man,” Jace told me as he pulled his phone out. “It’s all over the internet already. Wanna see it?”
“What?”
Jace laughed again before he said, “The fucking rookie wants to get her on assault with a deadly weapon!”
Jace stood beside me and started a video on his phone. I watched as Courtney went in swinging, but she wasn’t using her fists - she was using the fucking bowling bag she carried around all the damn time.
“Holy shit,” I whispered as I watched Courtney kicking and stomping her mother and then saw her flip her over and start pounding her face.
And then my dad was there, trying to hold onto Courtney who was twisting and squirming in his arms. As if a switch had been flipped, she suddenly stopped and he let her stand on her own.
But even when the cop spun her around and cuffed her, she never lost her defiant smile. “That’s fucking amazing!”
“I know, right? She’s a prizefighter, that’s for sure.” I glanced over at the car in the ditch and then back at Jace. He read my mind and said, “Take my bike, and I’ll finish up here.”
“Thanks,” I said as I took off my gloves and handed them to him. I fished the truck keys from my pocket and handed them over, too, before I got my phone out of the cab and slipped it into my pocket. “Just take it to the garage, and drop it in the yard. The paperwork . . .”
“Who do you think trained you to do this shit in the first place?” Jace asked with his eyebrows raised in disbelief. When I didn’t answer, he scoffed before he said, “That’s what I thought.”
“You’re getting cranky in your old age, Uncle Jace.”
“Move your ass. It’s almost visiting time at the jail, and your badass girlfriend might need some money for commissary."
“Fuck off,” I said with a chuckle as I walked toward his bike. Jace was still laughing when he blew me a kiss as I drove past.
Uncle Jace was a great man who I admired and always would, and he had always been the comedian of the group.
I owed him a big thanks for coming to find me when I wasn’t answering my phone.
I owed my Dad an even bigger debt of gratitude for pulling Courtney off of Jill so she didn’t end up getting charged with her murder, because I was almost positive that she would have beaten that old bat to death with her bare hands.
From what I’d learned about how she treated her children, nobody in their right mind would have blamed Courtney if she had.
◆◆◆
COURTNEY
I tried not to smirk as the police officer who had arrested me dumped my purse out on the table and started taking inventory of the contents. I hoped that I didn’t have to sit here and watch the entire time because I knew better than most that it was going to take a while.
I had everything in that purse, from tampons to Tic Tacs. I smiled as he picked up a chopstick and looked at it curiously, but when he asked me what it was for, I just stared at him.
“At some point, you’re going to have to talk to me, Miss Banks.”
Other than giving him my name, I hadn’t uttered a single word since the pimple-faced asshole put me in cuffs.
I knew without a doubt that I was his first big arrest, which was pitiful, considering that the second I got my phone call and could get in touch with a lawyer, they were going to rip his case to shreds.
Surely, there were witnesses who had seen Jill and her boyfriend running up on me. Although they had pulled me by the arm, I’d been the one to hit first. I wasn’t sure that my reaction was completely warranted, but damn, it felt really good.
I, once again, wondered if I should join a gym and start boxing to release some of my pent-up rage, but I would need a heavy bag customized with my mother’s face on it.
“Really?” the cop muttered as he stared at his hand and then tried to blow the glitter off that was stuck to his fingers.
He started mumbling under his breath, and it took every ounce of restraint I had not to burst out laughing. He thought that was bad? He should have seen my purse when the damn canister broke in the first place.
A handsome Hispanic man with sexy silver streaks at his temples stomped toward the desk where we were sitting and stopped next to the officer.
I took a few seconds to admire the older man and then tilted my head when I realized I’d met him before.
I couldn’t place his name or where we’d been introduced, but I knew that he was one of the senior members of Zane’s motorcycle club.
It wasn’t surprising that he didn’t look familiar at first, because he was smiling and cheerful when I met him. Right now, he was frowning so hard that I wondered if it might be hurting his face, but the fire in his eyes and my own sense of self-preservation stopped me from asking.
“Dotts, I’d like to speak to you in my office,” the man said in a growl so low that I almost couldn’t understand him.
“Chief! I’m just getting the inventory . . .”
“Right.Fucking.Now.”
“Yessir!” the officer said as he stood up so quickly that the chair he was sitting in hit the desk behind him.
The chief, who I remembered now was named Nick, pointed at someone behind me and then at me before he said, “Fix this. I’ll be out in a minute.”
A man walked past me and pushed the chair back toward the desk. The second he sat down, I saw that I knew him.
“You’re a cop?” I whispered as I looked around to make sure no one could hear us. “Do they know you’ve . . . Well, that you’ve been . . . How does that work?”
“How does what work?” the officer asked.
“I didn’t think they let ex-cons be police officers,” I whispered.
He threw his head back and howled with laughter.
He was still laughing when he pulled a tool out of his breast pocket and unlocked the handcuff that had me attached to the desk.
“Are you breaking me out or something? Is this even legal?”
“My name is Corey. I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure of meeting you yet, but I’m sure that you’ve met my twin brother, Garvey, since you’re dating Zoey’s brother.”
I leaned back in my chair with a sigh of relief before I said, “Thank God. I thought we were both about to get in trouble.”
“Aren’t you worried that you’re already in trouble?”
“It was worth it,” I said with a shrug as I rubbed my sore wrist. “If I’m under arrest, why did he have you uncuff me?”
Corey ignored my question as he studied the pile of random items on the desk in front of him. He picked up a screwdriver and then looked at me in confusion before he dropped it and then picked up a glue stick with a plastic knife and a Q-tip stuck to it.
“What is all this shit?”
“He was taking inventory of my purse.”
“Why were you carrying a glue stick in your purse, and why is there glitter all over it?”
“You never know when the urge to craft might come over you,” I answered.
The officer started laughing again before he asked, “Do you want to organize all this before we put it back?”
“Nah,” I said as I shook my head. “There’s no point.”
Corey grimaced before he asked, “How old is this Corn Nut?”
I wrinkled my nose before I said, “I don’t remember the last time I even ate a Corn Nut.”
“Would you like me to throw it away?”
“Yes, please.”
“I’m not sure I want to touch any of this,” Corey said as he leaned back in the chair. “Go ahead and put it all back if you want. There’s a trash can over there if you need to throw some things away.”
“I should probably sit down and go through it all at some point, but right now is not the time.”
“Looks like the perfect time since it’s out already and you’re not exactly free to leave.”
“Fuck it. Why not?” I asked as Corey picked up a toy car and rolled it across the desk.
“I get paid by the hour, so go right ahead.”
Corey was counting my change as I was trying to organize the things I had decided to keep when a female officer walked up and perched on the corner of the desk. She looked over at me and extended her hand before she said, “Hi! I’m Marley. You must be Courtney.”
I shook her hand before I said, “It’s nice to meet you.”
She looked at Corey before she said, “You do realize that Zane is out front losing his shit, right?”
“I figured as much,” Corey said with a grin as he leaned back and looked at Marley. “Let him stew for a bit. It builds character.”
“Sometimes, you’re a complete dick.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“Zane’s here? Can I see him? Will you let him come back? Am I allowed to go up front and tell him I’m okay?”