CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR Cole
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Cole
“ W hat are you doing here, Cole?” Gemma asks, arms folded across her chest. The front door sits partially open. “I’m in the middle of making dinner.”
She flips her hair over her shoulder. She’s nervous, but I don’t want her. I want her slimy boyfriend.
“Where’s Brent?” I say, my jaw set, my tone easy. I’m nothing but calm and she can sense it. It’s making her uncomfortable. Good.
“He’s … sick,” she says, her voice faltering.
“Uh-huh,” I say as I push the door open and breeze through it. “This will only take a second,” I assure her.
I stalk through the house I know well—the house I lived in miserably for years. And when I hear the sound of eighties rock coming from the backyard, I follow it.
Sure as shit, looking not the least bit sick, is Brent, drinking a beer and working on a dilapidated dirt bike.
“Feeling better?” I ask.
He smirks—the snide motherfucker.
“Hey, Sheriff. Or should I say, soon-to-be Deputy?” he asks. “I’ll be feeling much better after your resignation letter is handed in. I’m guessing that’ll be by the end of the day?”
He points toward a cooler.
“Beer?” he asks, sipping his.
“Nah.” I grin and take a seat on one of the chairs at the dusty patio set. The table is littered with flyers and a few beer caps. “I wouldn’t share a beer with you if it were my last,” I tell him, extending my arms behind my head. I’m too relaxed and he’s hating it, but he does his best to fake his confidence.
“Why are you here?” he says slowly.
“Thought you’d never ask,” I reply with a wide smile. “You really had me over a barrel all night and all day. That is, until my wife told me that, while she was waiting to bring me lunch, she noticed you rifling through the mailboxes.”
“So?” he says, folding his arms over his chest. “I’m allowed to get my mail. That’s not a crime.”
I look down. “That’s true. But the funny thing is that she said you were picking up mail from Box 2, which is my box.” I pause for a beat but don’t wait long enough for Brent to chime in. “And stealing my mail … now that is a crime.”
He gulps down a good portion of his beer. His plan is foiled and he knows it. But he hasn’t even heard the best part yet.
I stand and start to wander the overgrown yard.
“So then I got to thinking. What if those cameras I installed last month to catch the kids that keep spray-painting the side of the building could also record someone rifling through my mail through the side window?” I’m in full flow now and Brent is silent. “And the fucking craziest thing is, it can. Technology is so good these days, it even picked up my name on the envelope.”
I toss a thumb drive onto the table and stalk toward him, gripping him by the collar.
I keep my voice low as I look straight into his eyes. “Every day, right around the same time, there you are, rummaging through my mail when you think no one is looking, stuffing anything you think might be interesting into your pockets just so you can try to push me out of the job I earned, the job I’m good at.”
I let him go, giving him a little shove, and he slumps down on the chair below him. I reach into my pocket and toss another thumb drive on the table. I should’ve known this fucking guy was into nothing good when he was so adamant about monitoring me.
“Funny thing about cameras is they not only catch when you steal mail, they catch everything,” I say, nodding toward the second drive. “You remember Holly Shaw? The nineteen-year-old we brought in for possession? Meth, if I’m not mistaken.”
All the color drains from Brent’s already pale face as I continue.
“She was brought in last week again, after being picked up by Deputy Davis for soliciting at the Husk.” I mention the local truck stop off the highway, which is notorious for drug activity and prostitution.
Brent is a statue as I plough on. “You can have a look if you want to confirm. But I’m pretty sure this is her with you, early the next morning, right before you released her, no charges filed. Doesn’t show you doing anything corrupt per se, but it does show her getting up off her knees and leaving you to do your fucking pants up in the corner of the hallway.” I shake my head. “Guess you gotta know your camera angles, you sick fuck.”
It’s a video I can’t unsee. I stumbled across it while looking for proof that Brent was stealing my mail. It shows Brent’s back and bare ass at four a.m., and him moving out of the way to reveal Holly standing and straightening herself out, wiping her mouth.
“Sexual favors for no charges laid? Seems like something the town might care about a lot more than my marriage,” I say. “And now it makes a lot of sense why you’re so hellbent on proving I’m doing something wrong. To cover up your own wrongdoings.”
Brent chucks his beer bottle across the patio. It shatters everywhere and Gemma comes to the door.
“S-so what are you gonna do about it?” his voice booms, but he’s waiting for his fate. He’s all bark and no bite. What’s meant to intimidate me, I just find funny. I rub my jaw as I think.
“ You are going to resign and get the fuck out of here. You will never work as a cop again, and if I find you anywhere near the station, Ginger or Mabel, so help me God.”
He snatches up the thumb drives and puts them in his pocket. I have two other copies if he tries to pull anything—Bev made sure of that.
“You … you’re gonna tell them anyway. You can’t make me leave town,” he barks.
I move closer to him and flex my fists to keep calm.
“Brent, you have no idea what I’m capable of when it comes to the wellbeing of my wife and my daughter,” I say.
He shrinks with my words a little more, knowing I mean them. He knocks his beer bottle off the table and it smashes on the patio before he storms past me into the house, and I follow behind.
“I’ll be making the announcement that you’ve left our district first thing in the morning. Feel free to go somewhere else. If another county is stupid enough to hire you, you’re their problem,” I lie. There’s not a shot he’s working as a cop anywhere again. I’ll see to that. But I need something from him first. “I expect all copies of my property back before you go. You can set up a time to clear out your office, supervised. Aside from that, I don’t want to see you again.”
It’s now that Gemma decides to come storming out of the kitchen, cutting Brent off from leaving.
“You son of a bitch,” she shrieks at him. “You weren’t supposed to do anything that would hurt Mabel. You said you would get him out fairly . This isn’t fair.”
She pushes at his chest and he swats at her hands to move past her.
“She never would’ve known. And you’re the one that told me I’d make a good sheriff,” he says, before blasting through the front door, leaving us with a “fucking shithole town.”
I breathe a slight sigh of relief when I hear his Bronco start up. I look down at Gemma who is crying, or doing a good job of pretending to. At least she doesn’t appear to have been in on the blackmail plan, although I’m pretty sure she was involved in the rest of it. It’s not about her fear of being a shitty mother; she just hates that the town knows she’s one. When it comes to Gemma, it’s always about winning. Nothing more. Nothing less.
“I didn’t know, Cole, I swear. I had no idea that he would try to blackmail you or involve Mabel finding out—” she says through her tears.
I turn to her. “I don’t give a shit about your domestic issues, Gemma, or what you did or didn’t know,” I say, my voice raised but steady. “But Mabel is going to have some new structure in her life now, and that fucking guy—or any guy like him—better not come anywhere near my daughter.” I point at the space Brent just left moments before.
“I’m done babysitting you where Mabel is concerned,” I say, more calmly now. “I won’t keep you from seeing her, but I’m only giving you one more chance. If you don’t start showing up to your afternoon visits every week, consistently, and really put some effort in, or if I find out you say one negative thing about Ginger to her, I’ll be filing to restructure.”
“I’m just … not … I’ve never been good at being a mama, Cole,” she says, fiddling with a loose thread on her shirt.
I realize it’s probably the most honest thing she’s ever said to me. But it’s not enough, and she’s not my problem.
“You choose not to be a good mother, Gemma. There’s a difference between can’t and won’t .” I pat her shoulder as I say, “It’s up to you how you move forward. Mabel has to be the priority, or you’re done seeing her.”
I push her screen door open and breeze through it, feeling more free than I have in, well, maybe ever.
You can cancel that press conference.
BEV
On it, boss. You better find a way to thank that lovely wife of yours.
Oh, I’m going to. Every day. For the rest of my life.