Chapter Twenty-Two #2
Fuck. I see the exact moment he notices the blinking light.
His smile returns, but it’s different now.
Cold.
“You really are your father’s daughter.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Crowley reaches toward my chest.
I step back immediately, one hand settling near my weapon. “Don’t touch me.”
His fingers stop halfway.
“I wondered how long you’d let the little light blink.”
Shit.
He knew. I keep my face calm.
“You were hoping I’d confess.”
“You came here hoping I’d scare.”
“Perhaps we’re both disappointed.”
“Not really.”
His eyes narrow.
“Mercy House was for difficult girls?”
“Yes.”
“What happened in the blue room?”
Again, that almost invisible change around his eyes.
Then movement behind the SUV catches my attention.
A man steps around the rear bumper wearing a black jacket and ball cap. His build is familiar even before I see his face.
Black sedan. Crowley didn’t come alone.
I set my coffee on the hood of my Interceptor, freeing both hands. “Your friend lost?”
Crowley doesn’t look back. “He’s concerned.”
“About?”
“You.”
The man keeps walking.
I adjust my feet, opening my stance while keeping my gun side angled away from him.
“Tell him to stop.”
Crowley says nothing.
The man finally stops about six feet away. He’s bigger up close and older than I expected, with a scar near his jaw and both hands empty.
For now.
“You got a name?” I ask.
He looks at Crowley.
Wrong answer.
“Deputy,” Crowley says mildly, “there’s no need for hostility.”
“You brought backup to a sheriff’s department.”
“I came to talk.”
“Then talk.”
Crowley’s gaze falls toward the pocket holding my phone. “Perhaps without the phone.”
“No.”
The man moves. Fast. He reaches for me, but I catch his wrist, pivot, and use his momentum to send him chest-first into the hood of my patrol SUV. Metal booms beneath him.
He swears.
I crank his arm behind his back. “Hands where I can see ‘em.”
Crowley sighs like I’ve disappointed him.
The man kicks backward and catches the outside of my knee. Pain shoots up my leg. My grip loosens just enough for him to twist free. He turns with a fist already coming toward my face, but I duck and drive my shoulder into his middle.
We hit the side of the Interceptor hard enough to rock it on the suspension. His hand knots into my hair.
Bad fucking idea.
I trap his arm, drop my weight, and turn my hips.
He goes over me and hits the pavement hard enough to blast the air out of his lungs.
“Stay down.”
He doesn’t. He catches my ankle and yanks. I drop to one knee, pain flaring through the joint again as he surges upright swinging. His fist catches the edge of my mouth.
White light flashes across my vision, and blood floods my tongue with the taste of iron.
Crowley watches from beside his SUV.
Doesn’t move. Doesn’t tell the man to stop.
Just watches.
“Violence seems to follow you,” he says.
I spit blood onto the pavement. “No.”
The man lunges again.
I get both hands up, redirect him, then drive my knee into his stomach.
“Fuck you.”
He folds.
I grab his jacket and slam him against the Interceptor hood again. “I bring it.”
That finally wipes the smile off Crowley’s face.
Good.
The man throws an elbow backward and catches me high enough to break my grip. Instead of retreating, he goes straight for my pocket.
Phone. I slap his hand away. He reaches for the body cam next. I twist aside, and we struggle against the Interceptor while boots scrape over pavement and metal presses hard against my hip.
My thumb finds the orange emergency button on top of my portable. I hit it once.
That is all Whiskey needs. Not because he tracked me. Not because he decided I couldn’t handle myself.
Because we planned this. Because I asked. The man tears my body cam halfway off my uniform.
I punch him.
He reels, then snaps forward and headbutts me.
Fuck.
Stars explode across my vision, and I stagger backward.
Crowley says, “Enough.”
For half a heartbeat, I think he means his man.
He doesn’t. He’s looking at me.
“You’re proving my point.”
I blink the parking lot back into focus. “What point?”
“Women like you mistake defiance for strength.”
Oh.
Fuck him twice.
I wipe blood from my lip with the back of my hand. “Women like me?”
“Difficult women.”
I smile. “Been called worse by better men.”
A Harley engine tears around the corner.
Every muscle in my body loosens and tightens at once.
Whiskey.
Crowley hears it too.
His expression changes. His man turns toward the sound.
Wrong move.
Whiskey brings the Harley into the lot too fast, kills the engine almost before the bike stops moving, and is off it in one motion.
He sees me first. Blood at my mouth. Broken body cam hanging crooked from my uniform.
Then he sees the man.
Whatever was on Whiskey’s face disappears.
Not rage. Worse. Nothing.
Cold enough to make my own pulse jump.
“Oh, fuck,” I whisper.
The man steps toward him.
Whiskey doesn’t say a word.
His first punch breaks the guy’s nose.
I hear it.
The man staggers, but Whiskey catches the front of his jacket before he falls and drives him backward into the Interceptor.
Once.
Twice.
The guy swings.
Whiskey blocks it, buries a shot into his ribs, then drives a knee into his stomach before turning him and slamming him face-first across the hood.
There’s nothing wild about it.
That’s what makes it terrifying.
Every movement is controlled. Precise. Whiskey knows exactly where to hit and exactly what each hit will do.
Crowley begins backing toward his SUV.
I see him.
“Crowley!”
Whiskey doesn’t.
He has the other man’s arm twisted behind him when the guy reaches toward his waistband.
Gun.
Whiskey sees it.
So do I.
“Gun!”
Whiskey catches his wrist before the weapon clears leather, twists hard, and the handgun clatters onto the pavement.
He kicks it out of reach.
Then something in him gives.
He drives the man to the ground and brings one fist down across his face.
Again.
Blood sprays across the asphalt.
“Whiskey.”
He doesn’t hear me.
“Whiskey!”
Another punch starts.
I step closer. “Enough.”
His fist stops in the air.
That’s the moment.
Not the violence.
The stop.
Whiskey turns his head and looks at me.
Really looks. His gaze drops to my split lip and the blood running down my chin. I can see every murderous thought moving behind his eyes.
“I need him alive.”
His chest heaves once, then again. He lowers his fist. Steps back.
The man groans on the pavement.
Whiskey points down at him. “You owe her your life.”
My heart does something stupid.
Crowley reaches his SUV.
I start toward him.
Whiskey’s hand lifts like he’s going to catch me.
Then stops. He lets it fall.
Good.
I draw my gun. “Reverend Crowley!”
He pauses with one hand on the driver’s door and looks back.
I can’t legally shoot him. He hasn’t presented a weapon or personally put his hands on me. Being a smug evil motherfucker is unfortunately not a capital offense.
He knows it too.
“This is larger than you understand,” he says.
I keep the muzzle at low ready. “Good.”
His eyebrows lift.
“I like big cases.”
For the first time, real anger flickers across his face.
“You should’ve listened to your father.”
I smile through the blood. “He raised me not to.”
Crowley gets into the SUV and peels out of the lot.
I memorize the plate. I key my radio. “Dispatch, BOLO. Black SUV leaving the scene of an assault on a deputy, plate...” I give the number and the direction Crowley took. “Possible Reverend Crowley driving.”
Whiskey walks toward me slowly.
“Let me see.”
“I’m fine.”
“Twila.”
“It’s a split lip.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“So’s your friend.”
“Ain’t my friend.”
Sirens start in the distance. County units. Daddy. Probably half of Paradise, because hitting the emergency button on a deputy has a way of generating enthusiasm.
Whiskey reaches toward my face and stops with his fingers barely an inch from my skin. So gentle it hurts worse than the punch did.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“Liar.”
“Little.”
His hand drops.
“You told me to wait.”
“I did.”
“I waited.”
“You did.”
“Hated every fucking second.”
“I know.”
“You hit the button.”
“I did.”
“And I came.”
I look at him. “Yeah.”
His eyes hold mine.
“Always.”
Everything inside me trips over itself.
“Always?”
Whiskey hears what he said.
I can tell.
For once, he doesn’t joke his way out of it.
“Yeah.”
That sounds dangerously permanent.
I almost say it.
Then three cruisers tear into the lot.
Daddy is out of the first one before it completely stops.
He sees me. “Twila!”
“I’m fine.”
He ignores that. Naturally. His gaze moves to Whiskey, the bleeding man on the pavement, then the road where Crowley disappeared.
“Who the hell?”
“Crowley’s man.”
Daddy starts toward the guy.
Then stops himself. Looks at me. Something changes. Old Daddy would already be taking over, moving people, issuing orders, asking questions later because he convinced himself control was the same thing as protecting me.
Instead, he asks, “What do you need?”
My throat tightens. “Cuffs.”
Daddy pulls a set from his belt and tosses them.
I catch them.
Whiskey steps aside.
I kneel beside Crowley’s man, who glares at me through a face streaked with blood.
“Turn over.”
“Fuck you.”
I smile. “People keep saying that today.”
Whiskey mutters, “Popular request.”
I glance up. “Behave.”
“Am.”
Barely.
I cuff the man, read him his rights, and search him before another deputy gets close enough to contaminate anything useful.
There’s another handgun, a folding knife, two phones, keys, and a wallet. His identification says HARLAN PIKE, with an address outside Official.
Then I pull a plastic keycard from his jacket.
Pearly Gates Community Ministries.
Well, fuck me.
Daddy sees it over my shoulder. “Bag it.”
“I know.”
He grunts.
Paramedics arrive.
Cal is not among them.
Thank God.
Another deputy takes Pike into the formal custody chain while I stand and wipe fresh blood from my mouth. Whiskey stays close without hovering directly over me, never touching unless I move first.
I hate how much I notice.
Daddy comes back carrying one of Pike’s phones inside a clear evidence bag.
“Still unlocked when we recovered it.”
“Convenient.”
“Very.”
“What’s on it?”