Chapter 14 Sera
Sera
So Glad You’re Here! Farley’s doormat announces when James and I step up onto the front porch early the next morning.
Something tells me the positive sentiment is about to change.
We’re in a semi-secluded neighborhood north of the city, and this house is the only one fully built on a cul-de-sac.
James tries the doorknob, and when it doesn’t turn, his hands turn into blurs to poke and prod both the regular lock and the deadbolt. Five seconds later, if that, the door pops open a crack.
I turn my head to spear him with a disbelieving look, but he just shrugs and gives me that heart-stopping grin.
We step inside.
The house smells like burnt toast, and over the sound of SpongeBob’s manic laughter in the living room, voices carry from what I presume is the kitchen.
“I have to do everything around here with one goddamn hand! You think that’s easy? You think I asked for this?”
I stop. James stops beside me, close enough I feel his heat, his controlled stillness.
That’s obviously Farley whining, even though he doesn’t have enough reasons to whine. His house is gorgeous, and judging by the pictures on the walls, he doesn’t deserve such a drop-dead beautiful wife.
A woman’s voice answers him. “I know, honey. I’m sorry. I’ll—“
“You’ll what? You’ll fix it? You can’t fix shit!”
A child starts crying.
James’s jaw ticks. I feel the leashed violence radiating off him, begging for release. His eyes find mine in the dim entryway.
I shake my head slightly. I know he wants to pounce right now, but not yet. Not until Farley’s wife and kid leaves the room.
James nods once and settles back into waiting.
“I have to get to work,” the woman says, her voice small. “I’ll check in later this morning.”
“Yeah, you fucking do that,” Farley grinds out.
We melt into a shadowed laundry room by the stairs, hidden but with a good view of the living room. Farley’s wife appears in the hall then, thin and stressed-looking, carrying a toddler on her hip, a small backpack clutched in her free hand.
She doesn’t see us, doesn’t look anywhere but the front door, her escape route. She hustles the child out, whispering soothing nonsense while the child continues to cry, and the door closes behind them with a soft click.
Silence settles, thick and waiting.
From the kitchen: “Finally. Some fucking peace.”
I step forward. James follows, my shadow given muscle and teeth.
We see Farley before he sees us. He sits with his bandaged stump resting on the kitchen table’s surface, a coffee mug steaming in his good hand.
He looks up as we close in. Confusion flickers across his features, then irritation.
“Who the hell are you? How’d you get in here?”
I pull out a chair across from him and sit, slow and unhurried, like I have all the time in the world.
Behind me, James positions himself between Farley and the only exit, a wall of muscle and barely controlled violence blocking the way out.
Farley’s eyes dart between us with no spark of recognition. He has no idea who we are. He doesn’t remember the woman he lied about in court, giving Vincent an alibi that kept a predator free. He doesn’t recognize the man who took his own hand.
He set his coffee cup down and reaches for his phone on the table. “I’m calling the cops—“
I shoot my hand out, pluck the phone from the table, and set it in my lap out of his reach.
“No,” I say quietly. “You’re not.”
His face pales. His good hand tightens around his coffee mug, a weapon, maybe, if he’s stupid enough to try. His gaze flicks to James, reassessing, then realizing he’s fucked.
“What do you want?” His voice cracks slightly.
I lean forward, elbows on the table, my hands folded. “You’re going to request a line-up, and when it happens, you’re going to identify the person who took your hand.”
He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I don’t know who it was.”
“Yes, you do.” I pull out my own phone and swipe to a photo from the sheriff’s department website. It’s Detective Eddie Crowe’s official headshot, his expression serious, his electric-blue eyes blazing, the face of law and order. I turn the screen toward Farley. “But it wasn’t this guy.”
His eyes widen slightly. “Detective Crowe? But I don’t— I’ve never— I don’t understand.”
I withdraw the phone and pocket it. “Point to anyone else,” I continue, my voice dropping lower, softer, more dangerous. “The janitor. A random stranger on the street. Literally anyone else, just not Detective Crowe.”
Farley’s breathing picks up, shallow and quick. His gaze slides to James, still silent, still terrifyingly still.
“You’re going to request the line-up as soon as we leave.”
“And if I don’t?” His voice is barely a whisper.
I stand and turn away from him. “Then we’ll have another conversation.” I pause at the kitchen doorway and look back over my shoulder. My smile feels cold on my face, a blade made of lips and teeth. “And next time, we won’t wait for your wife and kid to leave first.”
The color drains from his face entirely.
I hold his gaze a moment longer to make sure he understands, to make sure the message sinks all the way down into his marrow.
“We have some nerve, aye, lad?” James asks.
“Two strangers who stroll into your house in broad daylight, easy as you like. But we showed ye our faces for a reason. If ye fuck this up in any way, our faces will be the last thing ye see. Think on that. Also think on why you act like a wee boy who’s pissed himself in front of your wife. ”
Farley doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe.
We walk out and exit through the front door. Neither of us speaks until we’re inside James’s van.
“Aye, he’ll do it,” James says.
“Yes.” I stare out the window at Farley’s house and at the surrounding quiet neighborhood. “But will all of this be enough to save Eddie?”
James’s hand covers mine, which are clenched in my lap, but he doesn’t say anything. He probably doesn’t want to get my hopes up.
I look at him, and his profile is hard, scarred, beautiful in its brutality. “You’re learning, you know.”
“Learning what?” he asks.
“That sometimes the knife doesn’t need to draw blood to cut.”
He glances at me with something dark and knowing in his wild eyes. “You’re vibrating in your seat for our next stop, same as me.”
I chuckle. “I never said I liked the knives that don’t need to draw blood.”
James bites his lip as he regards me, that manic grin on his face, his eyes alight with the promise of death and mayhem.
I grind my thighs together, suddenly breathless. “Get there, James. Fast.”
He screeches away from the curb, leaving Farley in his kitchen with his stump and his coffee and his terror.
If he doesn’t behave and do as we say…
Well.
We know where he lives.
And next time, we won’t be so polite.