Chapter 27 #2
Much later, I startled at Tex’s voice booming across the large room. “You look like you’re down a quart, boss.” He tossed me a bottle of water and an apple.
He laughed when I looked at the apple, a little crestfallen.
“Sorry, you ate my last candy bar yesterday.”
I bit into the apple. “You’re a god among men.”
“Got that right.”
I laughed and chugged the water while he unbuckled his tool belt and squatted before our huge toolbox, slotting screw guns into their chargers.
“Where you off to?” I asked.
“He’s got a hot date tonight,” Annie said, sauntering in and peeling off her dusty sweatshirt. She fluffed her hair and smiled. “With me, in case that wasn’t clear. He doesn’t want to be late. There are penalties if he is.”
“Penalties?”
Annie smiled. “Trust me, you don’t wanna know.”
Catching a glimpse of the time, I gasped. “Oh shit, it’s six. How did that happen?”
Tex smiled. “Well, when the a.m. and p.m. love each other very much, sometimes they get together and—”
“Go—get outta here before you have to pay the penalty.”
“I mean, I kinda want to pay the penalty because it means she’ll—”
“No!” I covered my ears. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence! Now leave. I’ll be right behind you. I’m late.”
“Seems boss has a date too,” Tex teased. “He can thank me later for not delivering you hangry.”
“Ha ha.” My stomach jangled with nerves because I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be that kind of date. We were going to talk. One of my least favorite things. But I owed him this. I’d spent half my life running from things I loved because staying had always hurt worse. “Go.”
“Nah, we’ll wait. Everyone else already cleared out. I don’t like the idea of leaving you alone this far out from town.”
“I’ll be right behind you,” I promised, while texting Tucker:
Me: Sorry, running half hour behind. Save me a bite of something.
A few minutes later, I heard Tex and Annie peel out, blasting nineties country and arguing about what counted as vintage.
Left in their wake was a whole lot of blessed quiet and a calm, golden twilight, the kind that made the oak-dotted green rolling hills feel soft around the edges. I checked that the windows were shut and locked, and—
Heard a sound I couldn’t place.
I froze. Listened. There it was again—metal against metal. Close. Too close.
Out back, where I was parked.
Shit.
I crept around the building. The air was filled with silence, but not the peaceful kind. The charged, skin-prickling kind. I wasn’t alone, and every hair on my body stood up.
Another metal clang. I knew that sound—someone was in my toolbox. I peeked around the corner—and there he was.
Ricky, the walking cautionary tale himself.
He’d climbed into my trailer and was hunched over my toolbox—my closed, locked, and very clearly labeled toolbox—swearing and tugging at the lock like it owed him money.
His beat-up truck idled nearby, tailgate open and waiting.
“Seriously?” I muttered.
“Fuck! I’ll just tow the sucker.” He spun to the back of his truck, rage twisting his features when he saw me. “You,” he snarled.
“You’re not welcome here, Ricky. Get the hell out.”
“You and your dad ruined me. I’m returning the favor. Stay outta my way, bitch.”
Wow. Straight to misogyny. Bold strategy. “Again, you did this to yourself,” I said evenly.
He reached into the trailer and came out with a hammer—mine—and gripped it like a weapon.
“Don’t do it, Ricky.”
He laughed harshly and threw my hammer at my head.
I ducked, and it hit the siding behind me with a heavy thunk. Slowly, I straightened, heart trying to punch through my lungs. “You really want to make this a felony?” I mean, it was already a felony—not that he was smart enough to know that. “Think about this.”
“Pass.” And he threw a heavy metal tape measure, also at my head.
I ducked again, and the window behind me shattered.
“You destroyed my reputation!” he yelled.
“This is your version of a redemption arc?”
He hoisted a nail gun next—my new one!—and hit the trigger.
It had no nails in it.
“Fuck!” He chucked it at me and hit the back door, making a big dent. “You think you’re so clever! Trying to make me look like the bad guy. Well, it worked. My wife took our kid to Florida to live with her mother. You have any idea what it’s like to lose a kid?”
My heart stumbled. Yeah, I knew. I hadn’t been able to take care of my baby either. I took a deep breath, steeled myself, and held up my hands, thankful his were now empty. “I’m sorry about your kid,” I said quietly. “Really. But you know I didn’t do this to you.”
He didn’t listen. Rage made him fast. He lunged, and one hand closed around my arm like a vise. In the other, he held his phone.
“Say it!” he shouted, shaking me. “Say you people set me up!”
I saw stars. My teeth rattled. My knee gave out, and I went down hard, rolling my ankle.
Ricky loomed over me, camera in my face. “Say it!”
“You’re literally recording yourself assaulting me, genius,” I said, breathing heavily.
When he hesitated, I kicked him square in the knee. I didn’t get his balls, but the crack of my boot into his leg was the most satisfying sound I’d heard all day.
He howled and went down like a felled tree.
I didn’t stick around. I scrambled up, ankle screaming, and bolted. Pain lanced through my ankle with every step, but adrenaline kept me going. Just a little farther. Just make it around the corner. Just hide.
I limped around the side of the property before ducking behind a tree, breath coming in panicked gasps as I yanked out my phone. My fingers shook as I hit 9-1-1. “I need help,” I whispered. “Sonoma job site—Ricky Herman just attacked me. I’m hiding. He’s trying to steal my trailer.”
I hung up and called Tucker.
“Can you come to the job?” I whispered, barely breathing, keeping an eye peeled for Ricky.
On Tucker’s end, I heard a rustle of clothing and his keys jangling. Then his engine starting. I nearly burst into tears. He used to say I always ran. He wasn’t wrong. But this time, when I ran, it was straight to him.
“On my way,” he said, voice terrifyingly calm. “Talk to me.”
“Ricky. He grabbed me. He’s—he’s pissed. And—”
“Are you hurt?”
“No, just, please hurry.”
“He still there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Hide, Haze. Hide like you used to when you won the Colburn hide-and-seek tournament. Don’t hang up—I’m putting you on hold to call the cops.”
“I already did.”
“Good girl. Six minutes out—”
Static.
Beep.
Nothing.
My phone was dead. Of course it was.
Tucker
The line cut out. “Fuck!” I hit Redial—straight to voicemail.
She’d sounded shaky. Frantic. And just like that, everything inside me clicked into place.
Mission mode.
I’d trained for this, starting from when I’d been a child and it’d been up to me to hide Kiera when my dad was on a tear, continuing into adulthood by choosing a profession of saving people, requiring calm under pressure, sharp leadership skills, and the ability to separate myself from the problem in front of me.
That last one was where I faltered now.
Saving people wasn’t just what I did. It was my contribution. It was my self-worth.
But when it was Hazel?
All bets were off.
My phone lit up. Caleb.
“Cameras picked up Ricky at the Sonoma site,” he said.
I gritted my teeth. “He assaulted Hazel. I’m en route. Call Ryder and Bill.”
“Already did. We’re en route too.”
I hung up, then got my hands locked tight on the wheel.
Hazel was tough.
And she wasn’t alone anymore.
Not ever again.