29. Char
CHAR
“Who is it?” I asked.
Knock knock knock knock knock.
“Sheriff Nielson?”
Knock knock knock knock knock.
“Deputy, maybe?”
Knock knock knock knock knock.
I scoffed as I shook my head. “I’m not opening this door until I know who’s there.”
Knock knock knock knock knock.
Knock knock knock knock knock.
Knock knock knock knock knock.
The sound was incessant. Never-ending. And I cursed the fact that I didn’t make Miss Lilly replace my door with one that had a fucking peephole.
The sheriff would’ve announced himself. So would the deputy.
Or my boys. Which meant there was only one other person knocking on my door under the cover of darkness.
Knock knock knock knock knock.
Knock knock knock knock knock.
Knock knock knock knock knock.
God, I hoped the guys didn’t kill me for what I was about to do.
“Marcie,” I said as I swung the door open, making sure to hide the lamp base with the wall to my right.
A red-faced, sweaty, fiery-eyed agent stood before me. “Char.”
I tilted my head. “How can I help you?”
Her eye twitched. “Did you really think I was that stupid?”
I tilted my head in the other direction. “Stupid about what?”
She took a step toward me. “Get out of my way.”
I stepped closer to her. “No.”
She snarled. “You’re officially under investigation. Now get the hell out of my way.”
“Do you have a warrant?”
“Do I need one?”
“That depends. Why are you here?”
The second her hands came up to my chest, I gripped the lamp base with all my might.
She shoved her full body weight against me, stumbling me backward into my own apartment.
She knocked me off my feet. The lamp base went clattering to the ground, out of reach of my fingertips.
And as I scrambled to get to it, I heard a gun cock.
I turned over and found Marcie pointing it straight at me as she towered over me like the she-devil she had become.
“Really?” I asked as I held my hands up in surrender. “You’re going to kill the woman you set out to save? Seems a bit counterproductive, if you ask me.”
Her hands trembled with her fury. “You have no idea what you’ve done. What you’ve ruined.”
I took a chance and moved. “I know you won’t kill me because you’ll have no way to explain my lack of presence to an entire town that has my back.”
I held my hand up in between my face and the gun as I wiggled away from her. I grabbed the lamp base and shot to my feet, ready and waiting for a fight. I didn’t care if she killed me, so long as I took her bitchass with me.
So long as I knew she’d never be able to touch my men again.
Marcie snarled. “You stupid, ignorant little?—”
“I know you were fired from the precinct for excessive force.”
She slowly tilted her head, and I knew I had her attention.
“Misunderstanding,” she said as her head came up straight on her shoulders again. “But I’m like a cat. I fall, and I always land on my feet.”
“Like buttered toast.”
“What?”
I took a step toward the kitchen, but she pivoted with me, keeping that gun aimed right between my eyes.
“Go ahead,” I said as I continued slowly moving toward the kitchen with my hands in the air, “kill me. Because I can promise you one thing, you won’t get away with it. Not me. Maybe Bait. But certainly not me.”
Tears crested her eyes, and that honestly shocked me. “Why can’t you just see it, Miss Char?”
“See what?” I asked as I backed closer to my kitchen.
Closer to those fucking knives.
“Why can’t you see that I don’t want to hurt you?” she asked through gritted teeth.
“You could’ve fooled me,” I said as I nodded toward her gun.
“I don’t want to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you. But this life? It’s not for you.”
“And who are you to make that decision for me?”
My back fell against the kitchen countertop and relief spread through my veins.
No, a knife wouldn’t help me against a gun.
But if I managed to get her close enough with that gun in her hand, I could easily claim self-defense.
Because if that bitch came at me, she wasn’t getting out of my apartment.
Then, she did something that I didn’t expect. She slowly lowered her gun. My brow stitched together tightly as she holstered her weapon, and she sighed as she raked her hands down her face.
“You’re really gonna make me do this, aren’t you?” she asked breathlessly.
I set the lamp base on the kitchen counter against my better judgment. “Make you do what?”
And when she reached for her handcuffs, my eyes widened.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
She dangled them from her finger as she moved toward me.
“Marcie?” I asked as I pivoted toward my bedroom. “What are you doing?”
A tear slid down her cheek. “If you’re not working with me to put them away, then you’re working for them, and you deserve to be in handcuffs.”
I scoffed. “I’m not working for them. I’ve done nothing. You have nothing on me, Marcie. My arrest won’t stick.”
“Hands behind your back,” she said as she moved quicker.
I tried to back into my bedroom, but she lunged for my wrist.
“Marcie! Stop it!”
She whipped me around and shoved my cheek against the wall. “You have the right to remain silent?—”
“Marcie! Cut it out! You have no reason to arrest me!”
She placed her lips to the shell of my ear. “Obstruction of justice, for starters. And if you don’t stop, I’ll add resisting arrest to it.”
I gnashed my teeth together. “You’ll never get away with this. Not in a million lifetimes.”
“Maybe so,” she said as she tightened the handcuffs around my wrists.
“Ah!”
“But,” she said as she yanked me away from the wall, “once I add attempt to assault on an officer for that little lamp base of yours, my superior will see this a bit differently. That should be enough to keep you out of their claws until your head comes out of the clouds. Now, you have the right to remain silent. Anything that you say can, and most certainly will, be held against you in a court of law.”
I straightened my back and muted her voice as I held my head high. She walked me through my apartment and back down those wrought iron steps just as the sun started cresting the horizon. It felt so warm against my face, like heaven itself opening up just for me. Just to give me a bit of hope.
But when I saw her black van come into view, I backed away.
“No,” I said.
“It’s the only way, Miss Char,” she said.
“No, you’re not putting me in that van.”
“In you go,” she said as she opened the doors.
“No! Somebody! Help me! Sheriff Nielsoooooon!”
She kicked my legs out from beneath me and gripped my clothes as if I was a bag of fucking feed.
She tossed me into the back of the black van as if I weighed nothing at all, but to be honest I was just shocked she still had the fucking thing.
My nose let out a resounding crack as my face fell against the metal bottom of the vehicle.
I coughed and sputtered with the pain as I tried to sit myself up.
But every time I drew in a breath, something peppered my mouth.
Like dirt, or grime, or something that wasn’t cleaned up.
“Once we get back to the precinct, we can talk,” Marcie said as she stood there, watching me struggle. “But you’re under federal jurisdiction now. Sheriff Nielson can’t help you any longer.”
I managed somehow, by sheer force of will, to sit myself up. “Over my dead fucking body.”
When she shrugged, though, I knew I was in trouble. “You know that’s not an issue with me, so we’ll see what happens.”
And as she slammed the doors closed, a small light over my head ignited. It lit up the space beneath me, and I found myself staring down at the dirt I inhaled before. Except it wasn’t dirt.
It was blood.
Holy fuck, she had dried fucking blood in the back of her van.