Chapter 16 #2
“I would tend to agree with her,” Lynn said. “Seeing as when Calliope Hodges found Ms. DeGraw, she was beaten to a pulp in Cedrick Hunt’s spare bedroom. Also, have you questioned the child yet?”
My stomach knotted. “Beaten to a pulp?”
Calli growled when the man nearest her jerked, causing the handcuffs around her wrists to tighten.
“Jesus Christ, you big oaf. Watch what you’re doing.”
The police officer looked bashful for all of two seconds before he realized what he was doing and scowled.
He didn’t like that Calli had corrected his behavior.
“Someone better tell me what the hell is going on,” I snapped. “And if you continue to hurt her, I’ll have every single badge in this station revoked faster than you can blink.”
“Sir…” the closest officer said.
The door behind us banged open a second time and another officer leading Cedrick entered, with Cedrick’s child following behind with a female officer.
“Ahh, the man of the hour,” Lynn said. “Why is he not in cuffs?”
“It’s standard protocol to…”
“Ahh, standard protocol.” Lynn snorted. “Yes, that’s exactly what’s going on here.
The man was about to lash out against his child, and that woman right there saved her.
Yet, you arrest her for some bogus charge because you don’t like that she had to save your asses.
And he’s not even in handcuffs despite the fact that he is accused of beating his girlfriend so badly that she had to go to the emergency room.
A girlfriend who had to be brought in by Calli.
It’s understandable that she wouldn’t be in the best state of mind to watch y’all be inept at your jobs. ”
There was a lot of shuffling from foot to foot as Lynn’s words hit home.
“Let me see your hands,” the officer closest to Cedrick ordered. “He’s right. You should be in cuffs since you’ve been arrested.”
Cedrick’s eyes came to me and he sneered. “Ahh, the golden boy has arrived to make this all disappear for perfect little Harlow.”
I ignored him and instead said, “Why is she being detained if she helped de-escalate a situation?”
The cops looked at each other.
“I think it’s best that you let her go,” I suggested. “Otherwise I’ll go ahead and get my lawyer here, and we’ll do this the hard way.”
“Is that a threat?”
“No,” Lynn answered for me. “He’s frustrated, just like we all are. We should be at the hospital worrying about our friend. And instead, we’re here, dealing with y’all arresting a woman for doing nothing short of being a hero.”
The doors to the police station opened for a fourth time and a frazzled looking woman came barreling through the door.
“Mommy!” the little girl, Simone, cried out. “Oh my god. Mommy!”
The girl’s mom dropped down onto her knees beside her daughter and picked her up.
Only, when she did, she cried out in pain.
“What on…” The mother picked up the edges of her daughter’s t-shirt and my breath caught in my throat. “Oh my god.”
Oh my god was right.
The little girl’s torso—what little of it we could see—was covered in bruises.
“Oh, baby, no.”
She stood up and whirled on her ex-husband, her finger pointed in his face. “I told you if you ever hurt her, I would kill you.”
Cedrick snorted. “I didn’t hurt her that bad.”
“You didn’t hurt her that bad…” the angry mother hissed and stood up. “Is being covered in bruises not considered that bad? I’m sorry, but I think our definitions don’t match.”
I didn’t think mine did, either.
This little girl had no affiliation to me whatsoever, and I was about to throw down for her.
The only thing stopping me was doing this in front of a police officer.
I could do this somewhere private once he got out and settle it a hell of a lot better than I could in the middle of a police station.
“Now, someone here better tell me what the fuck happened, and why this piece of shit isn’t the one getting arrested instead of that woman.” The mom pointed at Calliope.
The man trying to get the watch free of Calliope’s wrist turned, cheeks blazing.
With her hands free, she ripped the watch off of her wrist and tossed it at me.
I caught it and slipped it onto my hand without thought, then crossed my arms over my chest and decided to wait this one out.
I’d like to see how this worked.
I’d be bailing Calli out if it came to it.
Hell, I’d probably fight the whole damn room of cops if it came down to it.
The fact that she put herself into danger to save my friend…
I was beginning to have a whole lot of inappropriate feelings.
I was also pretty fucking close to pointing out that they were shit at their job. I had plenty of years of policing under my belt, and I could smell a clusterfuck from a mile away.
Whatever the fuck the Paris Police Department had going on right now smelled worse than a clusterfuck. It smelled like an entire department cleanse.
“Ma’am.” A man came out of the side room. “Please, come to my office.”
The chief, then.
“Not before you let her go,” the woman seethed.
“Christian, I swear that I didn’t do anything,” Cedrick said.
“You didn’t do anything?” Christian’s voice rose to an octave that pierced all of our eardrums. “Are you delusional?”
He paused.
“Don’t answer that. I already know you are. You beat our child. Then, when the woman you were dating tried to save her from that beating, you beat her, too. She’s in the hospital with several broken ribs, Cedrick. Did you know that?”
Cedrick’s smile turned brittle. “She means nothing to me.”
This bitch…
“She meant enough for you to bring her to my wedding. She meant enough for you to introduce our child to her. She meant enough that you wanted her added to Simone’s school pick-up list.” She pointed at him.
“I hope you realize that your entire world just changed, and you were the dumbass to make it that way.”
Cedrick tried to say something more but the man who’d come from the office in plain clothes said, “Officer Daniels, get Cedrick booked. Officer Moore, please release that woman before we have another lawsuit on our hands.” He looked around the room.
“I’m on vacation for two seconds, and you forget how to be police officers? ”
They all looked sheepish. “He’s one of ours.”
“I don’t give a fuck if he’s my goddamn wife.
You will not overlook the overwhelming evidence that’s right in front of your face.
You were both literally in the same room when he went to take his child hostage.
His child whom he beat, and you were aware that he beat.
And when a citizen stepped in to do your job for you, you arrest her?
” The man laughed, but it wasn’t a good laugh.
“You’re both on unpaid leave after you finish getting them booked.
Pending investigation, of course. But from where I’m standing, it’s not looking too good for you. ”
The officers moved then, taking a struggling Cedrick into custody.
Calliope arrived at my side at the same time that Christian and Simone went into the pissed off man’s office and closed the door.
I decided to grab Calli’s hand and pull her out of the station before anyone could change their minds.
When she was in my truck, I said, “What the fuck happened?”
She spent the next ten minutes telling me exactly what happened, ending with, “And then I was arrested.”
I pulled up into the hospital parking lot and stopped, scraping both of my hands down my face for a long second before I said, “Thank you, Calli.”
She patted me on the hand. “Contrary to what you might think, I’m not that bad of a person.”
I snorted. “I never said you were.”
She got out of the truck and hopped down to the ground. Before she closed the door, though, she looked at me and said, “If you say so.”
With that parting comment, she slammed the door closed and walked to her truck.
I waited to see her drive away before I headed into the hospital.
It took everything I had not to die a little as I entered.
If I never saw another hospital again, it’d be too soon.
Spending months upon months in one, unable to talk or relay my fears and concerns, made them feel like a prison to me.
I’d just made it to the hospital doors when they parted for a person exiting.
My breath hitched when I saw Harlow standing there.
Or, more accurately, her best friend’s husband, Laric, supporting her.
He had his arm under her, holding her up.
She looked frail against the large man.
“What the fuck?” I hissed.
“Did you get her out?”
I nodded. “I did. But she was almost arrested.”
“Fuckin’ fools,” Laric muttered.
I grunted out an agreement.
“Cedrick was getting arrested as I was leaving,” I said. “He won’t be leaving until the twenty-sixth since it’s a holiday.”
Harlow’s relief was palpable. “Good.”
“Maybe he’ll accidentally hang himself at the police station and those poor excuses for cops will miss it,” Catori, Harlow’s best friend, grumbled darkly.
Laric looked over at his wife, his eyes gleaming. “I could definitely see what I can do there. I can always get Hunt to mess with the feed for a bit…”
“Discussing this outside of a highly surveilled hospital seems like a bad decision,” I surmised, my gaze returning to Harlow. “Where do you want to go?”
She smiled. “I’m heading to their place for the night.”
I stepped forward and cupped her cheek. “You’re okay, though?”
She nodded. “I’m going to be just fine, Jazz. Enjoy your club party, and also, you might want to follow that woman that you’re trying not to have feelings for home. She muttered something about her truck acting up when she was driving me to the hospital.”
I sighed, swiping my scarred thumb over the bruising under her eye. “You’ll call me if you need me, though?”
“I did today,” she pointed out.
I groaned. “I ran a marathon.”
She blinked. “You what?”
“I ran a marathon,” I repeated.
And my legs were about to die.
In fact, the thought of having to get into a vehicle and drive for two more hours sounded like the worst kind of torture.
I needed food, a Dr. Pepper, and some water.
“You’re fucking nuts.” Harlow giggled. “Go home, big guy.”
I walked with them to the car, and only when she was settled inside with the door firmly closed did I turn to Laric and say, “You need any help with that police station…”
His eyes gleamed. “I’ll definitely let you know.”
I offered him my hand, which he took.
Unbothered by the scars, he slapped the back of my hand and said, “I’ll take care of her.”
I gave him a grateful smile and waited for them to pull away before I got into my own truck.
A cramp caught me by surprise when I bent to get inside, and I had to rest against the steering wheel for a long moment before it passed.
I was so focused on not dying that I didn’t see or hear the person walking up to my truck until I looked up and they were right outside my window.