Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
BANNER
Marcus stops near his truck and answers his phone before his eyes dart around to look at me. I don’t hear what he says, but he nods and hangs up as I jog over.
“I need a copy of the footage from the coffee shop for Wade, ASAP.”
“I’ll send it over now.”
“Can you hack the cameras on the van?”
“No, but I don’t need to. I can access them with the van being open and copy the data.”
“Is that gonna be admissible in court?”
“If I broke in, no. But the cop left the van open for everyone. He effectively gave us access, and Wade gave us permission when he asked us to bring footage in.”
He blows out a deep breath and runs his hand through his hair. “Send me what you have while I get it to Wade.”
“If I send it to him directly, why go in at all?”
Marcus glares at me. “Something was really fucking off in Wade’s voice. More is going down than we’re privy to. I want to go down there and make it very clear we know what went down, so this isn’t brushed under the rug.”
“I’ll come with—”
“No. If you go in there and fuck it up because it’s Sorrow—”
Now, it’s my turn to cut him off. “I know how to do my fucking job, Marcus.”
His shoulders drop before he nods. “Fine. We’ll take my car. I’ll drive while you send the footage.”
“Give me a second.” I head back to my truck and retrieve my belongings from inside, including my messenger bag containing my laptop.
I go to the van next and download the footage from the cameras onto a thumb drive before heading back to Marcus.
I climb in beside him and strap in before slipping the thumb drive into the laptop.
I download the footage and send a copy to Wade, Blake, and myself before watching it.
There is no sound, but the view is much clearer now that they are closer to the cameras. I pick up the smirk on the rookie’s face and the look of resignation on Sorrow’s. I watch everything play out and still have no idea what’s happening. Neither of us speaks until we pull up at the station.
“Why do I feel like we’re about to walk into something bigger than a broken taillight?”
Marcus looks at me and shakes his head. “You already know the answer to that. This town can be your greatest ally or turn on a dime if it thinks you’ve wronged them somehow. Sorrow Wells killed one of the town’s golden boys. They’re not about to forgive and forget any more than you are.”
He climbs out and slams the door behind him while I silently fume. Forgive and forget? That’s easy for him to say when it’s not his brother buried in the local cemetery.
I climb out and follow him in. I hear people arguing, but I ignore them in favor of following Marcus. When we reach Wade, the man is furious. “You got it?”
“Yeah.” I hold out the thumb drive for him. “I’ve already emailed you a copy, as well as the footage from the coffee shop.”
“Thanks.” He sits down and plugs the thumb drive into his laptop, then opens his email. He clicks on the link and waits for the video to load before he begins playing it. People gather around to watch. I look around with a frown, knowing this isn’t the norm.
“What’s going on?”
“Give me a second,” Wade answers as he watches the video. Several of them curse when they see the rookie smash out Sorrow’s taillight, even more so with the way Sorrow is being manhandled.
“This is bullshit, Wade,” Marcus tells him quietly.
“You have no idea.” Wade looks at him and me before indicating that we should follow him.
“Wade—”
Wade turns at the sound of his name. Carl stands there with his hands on his hips, looking like he wants to walk out and not come back. “This shit is going to blow up, and once again, that kid is gonna find herself at the center of a storm.”
“I don’t give a fuck. This is bullshit, Carl. We’re better than that.” He points toward the back, where the interrogation rooms are.
“I know. I’m just warning you. You had just started last time shit went down. You have no idea how bad it’s going to get.”
“She didn’t do anything wrong.”
“That didn’t stop them before.”
“What did you just say?” I step forward. Carl looks at me with his hands up and backs off.
“You want answers, Wade? Start at the beginning before this all goes up in flames.”
We watch him leave before Wade points to where he wants us.
Marcus goes first, and I follow him into a small room.
It isn’t until Wade locks the door and flips the switch that I realize we’re in a viewing room that looks into one of the interrogation rooms. Sorrow has her back to us, which is unusual, as suspects usually sit on the opposite side.
Instead, I see Chief Stephenson, and he looks like he’s one step away from ripping Sorrow’s head off.
Wade must do something else because the next thing you know, sound is pouring into the room. “You think if you keep your mouth shut, you can’t be found guilty of anything? How well did that work out for you last time?”
When Sorrow doesn’t answer, he slams his fist down on the table, making Sorrow jump.
“Where the fuck is her lawyer?” Marcus growls.
“Chief denied her right to have one because she didn’t verbally ask for one.”
“That’s illegal—”
“I know what it is, Marcus, trust me. He said he’s known her since she was little and knows she can talk. Said something about refusing to play games.”
“He does understand that all this will get thrown out of court, right?”
“It will never go to court because this is bullshit.” Wade looks back at us but goes quiet for a minute as we continue to listen to the chief berate a silent Sorrow.
“The fact you came back after killing a boy? Have you no shame? Do you even care what you did to that family?”
She does something with her hands that I can’t see, but it has the chief leaning forward and smirking.
“You have no power here. You never did. Your mother was smart for once in her life and stayed out of things. And that attorney?” He chuckles. “I bet he’s still sunning himself down in Florida, sipping on pina coladas.”
“None of this has shit to do with what happened today. This is a witch hunt.” Marcus grunts as Wade heads for the door.
“We may not be Salem, but our town was just as notorious for burning them. Like fuck will I let that happen on my watch. Stay here.”
He walks out and closes the door. I pull out my cell phone and start recording, just in case.
“Pretty sure that’s illegal, too,” Marcus drawls.
“I just wanna cover Wade’s back.”
The door to the interrogation room opens, and Wade steps in. “There’s been a development, sir.”
“Not now, Wade.”
“Sir, it’s important, and it can’t wait.”
“I said not now. Unless you want to find yourself riding your desk for the next month.”
I stiffen at his words, but Wade takes it in his stride. “Begging your pardon, sir, but I’m trying to stop you from doing something you’ll regret.”
The chief leans back, glaring at Wade, who takes it as permission to talk.
“Sorrow was wrongly arrested. In fact, I believe she was targeted. She did not resist arrest—”
“You cannot know that, and it’s irrelevant when she was over the alcohol limit. She’ll be back behind bars before she knows it, and Tempest can rest easy once more.”
“Actually, she won’t be. She is completely sober. I administered a breathalyzer myself.”
“Then you tested her wrong.”
“No, sir, I did not,” Wade snaps out.
Chief Stephenson gets to his feet and walks over to Wade, who stands tall.
“Your test was wrong. I already know she blew positive. Perhaps that’s not the only thing she blew.”
Wade looks like he wants to haul back and punch him, and I’m not far behind him. Marcus must sense my tension because he grabs my arm and shakes his head, but points to the camera to make sure it’s still running.
“I’m more than happy to hand in my badge and gun while IA runs a full investigation.
I’m sure they’ll be really interested to know a woman who has done her time is being victimized and threatened by the police when I have proof she hasn’t committed a crime.
Even if she had, she wasn’t read her Miranda rights, was refused a lawyer because she doesn’t speak, and was denied medical attention.
Yes, I’m more than happy for IA to investigate and take my licks on this one, sir. ”
The chief glares at him before shoving past him and slamming the door open. He walks out, leaving Wade and Sorrow alone.
Wade crouches in front of her. “Are you okay?”
She nods rapidly before shaking her head, her shoulders shaking. She’s crying. I turn off my phone and shove it in my pocket before heading for the door, my hand freezing on the handle when I hear Wade’s following words.
“Let’s get a doctor to look at you. I’m worried those wrists might need stitches.”
I didn’t notice any injuries when the arrest went down. I look at Marcus, who shakes his head, saying he didn’t see anything either.
“We should wait, like Wade said.” Marcus sighs. I ignore him, yanking the door open
We step outside just as Wade walks out with Sorrow. She must hear us because she lifts her head and looks over. I take in her too-pale, bloody-smeared face and clothes and rush toward her.
“What the fuck?”
She ducks, her hands coming up to cover her face and head protectively, making us all freeze.
“Hey, it’s okay, nobody here is going to hurt you,” Wade soothes her while glaring daggers at me.
Sorrow snorts before slipping off her jacket, showing matching rings of bruises around her forearms.
“Jesus, did Denny do this?” Wade curses, but I stare at the bruises, swallowing bile as I look at marks I know were caused by my hands.
She shrugs her jacket back on. Even out of sight, I can’t unsee them. I can’t take back what I did. Holy crap, when did I turn into a monster?
“I’ve gotta go,” I mumble before stumbling away. I hear Marcus call my name, but I pick up speed and hurry out through the glass doors. I break out into a run and don’t stop until my lungs feel like they’re on fire.
I sit my ass on the curb and suck in lungful’s of air as I try to get my thoughts in gear.
But every time I think I have a handle on them, I picture those bruises.
I grab a fistful of my hair and stare at my feet until I hear a car honk its horn.
I look up and see Marcus pull over. He stops the engine and climbs out, walking around to sit down next to me.
He doesn’t say anything. He waits me out.
“The bruises are from me,” I croak out, ashamed.
“You mean to hurt her?”
I shake my head vehemently. “No, I didn’t know I’d grabbed her that hard. She fell, I caught her, but she scared the shit out of me, and everything just came crashing down on me. Her, my sister, my parents, Alec. I was trying to shake some sense into her. Jesus, what was I thinking?”
“Clearly, you weren’t. But you can’t do that again. You have shit to say, use your fucking words, not your hands.”
“I know. I—”
“Shit happens. You fucked up, big. But I don’t think you’ll ever do something like that again, even by accident. And honestly, she’s pretty fucking fair-skinned. Not justifying shit because I’m on her side with this, but I’m willing to bet she bruises like a peach, which doesn’t help you any.”
“I need to go apologize.”
“Maybe you should just leave her the fuck alone. She has enough going on.”
I lean back and look up at the sky. “She was this scraped-kneed, hollow-eyed waif of a girl until one day, I realized she’d turned into a woman right under my nose.
She was too damn young for me. But fuck me, I wanted her, so I left.
I enlisted as soon as I was old enough, much to my parents’ disgust. I figured I’d come back when she was older and wiser, and I’d shoot my shot.
But when I came home, she was with Alec.
She dated the one guy that meant she could never be mine. ”
“You were in love with her?”
“Head over fucking heels. But to her, I was just her boyfriend’s older brother.”
“And then he died, and that made her untouchable.”
I look at him sharply because that’s not what I was getting at at all.
“Alec died, but you didn’t, Banner. She was a kid.
The likelihood of that relationship developing into something more than high school sweethearts was low.
This town plays it up like they had a great love that she destroyed, but who knows what love is at seventeen?
Love and loss go hand in hand. Sometimes, you have to experience loss to truly appreciate the flip side. ”
“What are you getting at?”
“I’m just saying things are different now. You’re different, and so is she. You might never get this shot again.”
“She’s my dead brother’s ex. That’s about as off-limits as it gets.”
“Says who? Your parents? I doubt they’ll be happy with anyone you date unless it’s someone of their choosing.”
“If that were true, they wouldn’t have let Alec date Sorrow to begin with.”
“They knew the likelihood of them staying together was slim, too. Maybe down the line, they’d have had an opinion, but Alec was heading off to college. They likely assumed things would fade out.”
I look away. “Doesn’t matter now. Too much has happened. A million things have changed.”
“And yet one thing’s stayed the same. You’re still in love with her.”