Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
We didn’t get home from the hospital until morning, and we spent most of Sunday resting. I hadn’t ended up having a concussion, but I had gotten stitches. Logan had shown up as I’d been getting sewn up. After waiting for the hospital staff to leave the room, I had told him everything that had happened.
To all of our surprise, Logan had been calm and hadn’t done anything untoward the entire time. I didn’t know if it had been because he’d had somewhat good news to share or he’d felt guilty for the things he had said the last time I had seen him. Or it could have been a combination of both.
“Should we call the police?” Knox had asked.
Logan had shaken his head. “It was planned too carefully. By throwing a Halloween party, you created the perfect opportunity for them to slip in without being seen and thus, not having any witnesses to attest that they were even there. Which means they could have killed you in those woods and we’d have no way to prove it.”
“And it also means there’s no point in reporting what happened to the police,” I had said.
“It’d be your word against theirs, and with the sheriff orchestrating this, he’s already planned on you calling the police and will twist everything up to make things look really bad for you.”
“They won’t stop coming after her unless she drops the charges,” Creed had said.
“Which I don’t understand,” Keelan had said. “Shi can say she doesn’t want to proceed, but the case is in the prosecutor’s hands now.”
“That is true. What Ian and I have come up with is that the sheriff has a lot of friends and the prosecution is one of them, and maybe even the judge. Because there’s substantial evidence, the prosecution has no choice but to proceed with the case. But if the sheriff got Shi to back out, he could convince everyone that things were settled amicably and get his daughter and her friends off with a warning or a lesser sentence,” Logan had explained.
Colt, who had been holding my hand the entire time, had asked, “Are you any closer to finding a way to deal with the sheriff?”
Logan had looked at me. “Yeah, we are.”
Logan hadn’t told us much. Just that the sheriff would be taken care of next week and to stay vigilant until then.
It was now Monday and Colt, Creed, and I were walking into school.
“It’s kind of chilly out today,” I said, feeling grateful. I had my hair down to hide my stitches, and heavy hair and heat were a miserable combination.
“It’s chilly now, but it’ll be right back to being hot in the afternoon,” Colt said as we walked up to our lockers.
“It’s November. It should be cold out,” I grumbled.
Creed smiled. “Are you missing that Alaskan weather?”
“No. Maryland weather. I’m used to having all four seasons. Fall has been completely skipped here.”
“I can’t do anything about the weather, but we can pick you up a pumpkin spice latte on the way home if that will make you feel better,” Creed suggested.
Colt laughed into his locker as if that would hide the fact that he was.
“You two are terrible,” I grumbled even though I was teasing.
Colt whipped his head in my direction. “What did I do?”
I turned up my nose and started walking toward class. I didn’t make it far before Creed caught me from behind. With his arm around my stomach, he pulled me against his chest. “Is that a yes or no on the latte, you little tormentor?”
I smiled. “You started it.”
“And I regret nothing,” he said.
Colt came to stand next to us. “Why are the police here?” he asked as he stared down the hall.
I looked in that direction. Outside our first class were two police officers. Not a second later, the sheriff walked out of our class with the school’s principal. His eyes scanned the crowded hall of students until they landed on me. I knew he was here for me. That gut feeling was confirmed when he, the other police officers, and the principal started walking toward us.
I pulled my phone from the back pocket of my jeans and slipped it into the front pocket of Creed’s shorts.
“What are you doing, Shi?” he asked.
“If anything happens, call Logan,” I said in a low voice as the sheriff approached.
“Shiloh Pierce, we're going to need you to come with us,” one of the police officers said.
They said Gabe and Amber were missing. Whether or not that was true, I wasn’t one hundred percent certain.
The sheriff and his lackeys had brought me to the police station and held me in a locked interrogation room all day.
As soon as I’d been brought in here, I had been questioned by a Detective Miller, who was an older man with graying hair and a large mustache, and Sheriff McAllister.
They had asked me where I’d been on Halloween night. I had been honest, but not completely. I had told them that I’d been with my boyfriends all night and a few of our friends had come over to celebrate the holiday. The boyfriends comment had gotten me a strange look from the detective, but the sheriff hadn’t looked surprised. Next, they had asked me what I had done all night and I had vaguely said we had listened to music, eaten some candy, hung out.
Toward the end of the interrogation, they had begun to ask me about Gabe and Amber and if I had seen them that night. I had looked right at the sheriff when I had answered. “No.”
His eyes had narrowed. “My daughter said she saw you speaking with them that night.”
Speaking? What a load of bull .
“I don’t know why she would say that, because Cassy was not at my boyfriends’ cabin Saturday night. Neither was Gabe or Amber. If you don’t believe me, you can ask everyone else who was there if they saw them,” I had said.
Sheriff McAllister had glared at me, and I would have allowed myself to look smug if the detective hadn’t been in the room.
Finding it strange there was such a focus on Gabe and Amber, I had asked, “Why are you asking me about Gabe and Amber?”
“Because Gabriel Harris and Amber Thorn didn’t return home Halloween night,” the detective had said.
I’d looked from the detective to the sheriff and my stomach had felt like it had dropped from a ten-story building. “Like I said. I didn’t see them that night.”
“You’re lying?” Sheriff McAllister had snarled.
“I would like to leave,” I had said.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he had said, standing from the interrogation table.
“Are you detaining me?” I had asked, standing as well. “If so, what for?”
The sheriff had ignored me, and he and the detective had headed for the door.
“I want to call my lawyer,” I had said to their backs.
The detective had looked to the sheriff nervously, but neither had said anything else as they’d left the room.
That had been what felt like hours ago. No one had returned since. I had to pee and I was thirsty and freezing. I swore they had the air conditioning turned on full blast and, because I had nothing else to do but listen, I knew it had been flowing through the vents nonstop. All I was wearing were jean shorts and a thin top, which did very little to keep me warm. I tried pacing the small room for a while to warm up. It didn’t really work.
Shivering, I sat curled up with my knees tucked to my chest in a chair and I did the only thing I could do. Wait.
My eyes felt as though they had just closed when I heard the door open. Sheriff McAllister walked in and shut the door behind him. Just seeing him put me on edge, but as I watched him move through the room over to the camera up in the corner, fear shot through me like lightning, spreading far and wide. He reached up behind it and pushed it to face the wall.
I stood stiffly, kicking the chair back in the process. My mind raced. I could see what he intended. It was written all over his face—the rage, the need for violence. I was trapped in a room with a man twice my size who was going to hurt me.
He moved toward me, and I ran for the door, screaming. Of course, it was locked. I continued to scream, pounding on it, knowing he was coming. Seeing him in my peripheral vision, I stopped what I already knew would be a useless attempt to get someone to help me and spun, throwing my leg out. I caught him off guard as planned and kicked him right in the stomach.
He grunted as he hunched over. I went to run past him, intending to run to the other side of the room to plan my next move. His hand shot out and caught me by my arm. I grabbed his hand that held me and kicked him again, this time in his knee. It buckled, bringing him down to my height. Twirling into his hold, I rammed my elbow down where his shoulder and neck met.
His fingers slipped from my arm as he let out a roar. I took that opportunity to run. I made it one step before I was slowed by my shirt. He had managed to catch the bottom of it. I tried to keep going. The thin material ripped all the way up the back to the collar as I put a little bit of distance between us. Not that it did any good. He leapt for me, tackling me. Instead of us going down to the floor, which was what I would have preferred, he propelled me toward the wall. I slammed into it first and his whole body barreled into me next. My cheek smacked and ground against the cold brick wall and all the air was knocked out of my lungs when he crushed me.
Because I’d cushioned his fall, he recovered quicker and grabbed me by my wrist and hair. He twisted my arm behind my back, making me scream. He pulled me from the wall, dragged me to the table, and bent me over it. I tried to catch myself with my free hand to lessen the impact of my face and chest on the interrogation table, but my weak arm was nothing compared to his strength. I slammed into the table with enough force my lips split against my teeth.
“Fucking little bitch!” he yelled. His tight grip on my hair disappeared and pain exploded through my back. He’d punched me in the kidneys. I gasped and my bloody spit sprayed the table. “Because of you, everything is fucked.” He twisted my arm higher up my back and I screamed myself hoarse.
“Where are they?” he demanded. “Where is my nephew and Amber?”
“I don’t know,” I said as tears filled my eyes.
“Don’t play dumb. I know they chased you through the woods. My daughter told me. They went after you and never came back. You did something to them. You did or he did.”
“I didn’t do anything to them.”
“What the hell is going on in here?” an authoritative voice said.
The sheriff pushed away from me quickly. “Attorney General.”
Without him pinning me to the table, my weak body slid to the floor. Lying there on the cold ground, I felt too stunned and too hurt to move.
“Jesus, Shiloh!” I heard Ian say, followed by shoes slapping on the floor. Hands grabbed me and I was rolled over to face him. Ian was kneeling next to me, his eyes wide. “What did you do to her?” he demanded and looked up at Sheriff McAllister.
“She attacked me.” The sheriff only had eyes for the man in an expensive suit who was holding the interrogation room door open. He was a short man, but that didn’t take away from the importance he gave off.
“She’s a third of your size, Steven,” the man said, clearly not believing a word. He looked toward Ian and me. “There’s a hospital next door. Is she well enough to walk there or do I need to call EMS?”
Ian looked back at me. “Can you sit up?”
I nodded and sat up, then got to my feet with Ian’s help. I had to hold my shirt up to keep it from falling off. During the struggle, the rest of it must have ripped. My entire back was exposed, along with the lime green and black Riddler bra I had on.
Ian kept his hands on my shoulders and steered me out of the room.
“After I deal with this, I’ll meet you next door,” the man said to Ian and shut the interrogation room door.
Ian led and walked with me slowly through the precinct. I tried to hold my head up high as I passed police officer after police officer.
“Could you hear me screaming?” I asked Ian.
“No. We couldn’t until we opened the door,” he answered.
“Who was that man?”
“He’s Arizona’s attorney general.”
“The sheriff’s boss?”
“You could say that,” Ian said.
“Where is Logan?”
“In the lobby. Because of his relationship with you, he wasn’t allowed back. The attorney general didn’t want an incident to occur.”
“One still did,” I said numbly.
“Yes, and it probably just sealed the sheriff’s fate,” Ian said.
My feet tripped and Ian caught me. “Do we need to call EMS?” he asked.
“I just want to get out of here,” I said, my tone pleading.
“All right,” he said and kept an arm around me as we continued walking.
We had to pass metal detectors and go through a large bulletproof door to reach the lobby. I spotted Logan standing near the door we walked through. He took me in, and his eyes widened. Then he looked to Ian.
“We need to take her to the hospital,” Ian said to him.
“Shi.” I heard Creed’s voice, and I looked past Logan. Knox, Keelan, Colt, and Creed were standing on the other side of the lobby, where there was a sitting area. Their eyes were just as wide as Logan’s, and they began rushing over.
Seeing them released a tightness in my chest and I finally felt like it was all right to breathe. Relief hit me quickly and as I moved to meet them halfway, I made it two steps and then everything gave out on me. I was falling. I saw Logan’s face staring down at me before everything went black.