Chapter 8
Loco
Outside the room, I leaned against the wall for a second, head bowed, trying to breathe. A uniformed officer stood near the ICU doors, arms crossed. “Captains are asking for you,” he said.
“Tell them five minutes,” I muttered. Captains plural meant trouble. I knew there were procedures we didn’t follow. Obviously we should have called dispatch with our intentions to do a welfare check or we should have instructed Nita to call it in. We didn’t.
Hindsight was twenty-twenty and I couldn’t take any of it back now. If I could there was a lot I would have changed. I found Nita exactly where I left her, still pacing, face drawn tight with fear.
“She talked?” Nita demanded as soon as she saw me.
“Yes,” I shared, stepping close so no one else could hear. “A little.”
Nita’s hands flew to her mouth. “How is she?”
“Stable,” I stated. “Weak. Bruised. She’s got marks on her throat from choking. So brace yourself she’s battered worse than before. You gotta be strong when you get in there.”
Nita’s eyes widened, rage igniting. “He choked her.”
“He choked her until she passed out,” I decided to lay it all out. Nita didn’t need any surprises. “And we all believe he injected her with fentanyl or something in the opioid family. There’s a mark on her arm consistent with it. When the tox comes back we’ll know for sure.”
Nita’s knees almost buckled. She grabbed the back of a chair, breathing hard. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “Oh my God.”
“She said she came home and he was already inside,” I continued. “High. Erratic. He trapped her. She tried to leave.”
Nita’s face twisted. “I should’ve made her move. I should’ve—”
“No,” I interrupted sharply, because I wasn’t letting her carry that weight. “This is on him. Not you.”
Nita’s eyes snapped up to mine, glistening. “Then find him,” she said, voice shaking with fury. “Please. Dante, find him.”
I nodded once. “Oh, I will. I promise you that.”
A beat passed, heavy. Then Nita’s expression shifted, anger gave way to something else. Something scared and raw. “And Lamonte?” she asked quietly. “Anything?”
I swallowed. “No updates there. Same as before. Alive. Surgery went okay. He’s in ICU now. Sedated.”
Nita covered her face with both hands, shoulders shaking. I didn’t know what to do with my own grief, much less hers, so I did the only thing I could, I stood close, pulled her to me, and let her cry.
When she finally lowered her hands, her voice was hoarse. “They have to be okay?”
It was more of a question than a statement. I didn’t get to reply as we were no longer alone in our little corner of the waiting room.
A Captain’s voice cut through the air behind me. “Verdone.”
I turned.
Two Captains stood a few feet away, one I recognized and one I didn’t. Their faces were all business, but their eyes held something like respect, and something like grim urgency.
“Officer-involved shooting,” the older one said. “We need your statement. And we need every detail about the suspect.”
I nodded, my body turning to stone again, automatically bracing for the retelling.
“Yeah,” I managed, voice flat. “Can we just get this shit over with here. I’m not leaving my partner.”
As they led me down the hallway, away from Nita, away from Char’s room, away from Lamonte’s bed, my phone buzzed.
Unknown number. I ignored it.
My direct captain looked at me. “Verdone, you’re pressing this shit. We have a procedure to follow. We need to do this at the station.”
I thought for a moment and realized it was because they needed to take disciplinary action.
So I did what I knew they were going to do once I got to the station.
I pulled off my badge, I removed my service weapon from its holster, extending my arms out with the items to surrender.
“Save the shit. I’m suspended. Got it. Here is the weapon and my badge. ”
“Verdone, let’s slow this down,” he began but I was distracted by the vibration of my phone.
It buzzed again. And again. The third time, something in my gut twisted. I pulled it out and stared at the screen. A voicemail notification popped up. Then a text came through from that same unknown number.
U THINK U CAN TAKE HER FROM ME.
My blood went ice cold. I stopped walking so abruptly the captains looked back at me.
“What?” one asked.
I stared at the screen, thumb hovering over the message like it might bite me. Then another text came through. I’M NOT DONE.
I slowly lifted my eyes to the other officers. “He’s texting me,” I explained, voice low.
The older detective’s face hardened instantly. “Show me.” I held the phone out.
He read it, jaw tightening, then looked up at me. “He knows you were there.”
Of course he did. He had seen my face from the first incident.
He had heard Lamonte shout my name. He knew Char and I were dating.
He had been following her, she thought. Only I didn’t take it seriously enough obviously.
He had watched me fight death off Char’s chest with my hands.
And now he was out there, bleeding or not bleeding, high or not high, moving through the night like he owned it. This motherfucker was taunting me.
I felt that cold thing inside me settle deeper.
“Get cyber,” the Captain snapped to the other officer. “Now. We’re pulling location, pinging everything we can.”
Then he looked at me, eyes sharp. “And Verdone?”
“Yeah.”
“Until we have him in cuffs, you don’t go anywhere alone.
You’re suspended with pay pending the investigation.
You can drive the cruiser back to the station and park it whenever you leave, but know you’re off duty.
Don’t take any calls and don’t pull anyone, you see someone needing a ticket, radio it in. ”
They took my badge and gun while I thought of Char’s bruised throat. Lamonte’s blood. Nita’s shaking hands.
I nodded once. “Understood.” But inside, all I could think was one brutal, steady truth, if he came near them again, procedure wasn’t going to be what stopped him…I would.
And if this was the game he wanted to play, then game fucking on. I would hunt him to the ends of the earth all to make sure Char would breathe easy for the rest of her life.
This motherfucker, he kept this shit up, he wouldn’t keep breathing easy because he wouldn’t be breathing at all. I vowed that shit to my own soul.