13. Chapter 13 - Hadley
Chapter 13 - Hadley
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T he metal around my wrists was cold.
Cold like the air.
Like my skin had become.
Like my heart had gone.
Cold seeped into my veins like ice water leaving behind brittle fibers and frozen glass that shattered when the door to the police cruiser was shut behind me.
While they were leading me out, Kip stood frozen in the kitchen. I’d fought to remain composed as I put one foot in front of the other on the way to the cruiser. Just like I had walked through the woods when I was cold, alone, and afraid.
Yet there I was again. Cold, alone, and afraid.
I had felt warmth during my time with Kip. He had warmed me inside and out. We had a rocky start and a catastrophic ending, and while the time we had together was brief, I wouldn’t give it back for anything. Regardless of what I’d said in anger earlier, I was glad I’d met Kip Montgomery. He had healed me when I didn’t even know how broken I was.
But it would be easier with a clean break. It would make it easier for him.
There was a very good chance I wasn’t going to get away with what I had done, and I didn’t want Kip dragged down with me through it.
He had suffered enough; he had suffered actual loss when his family was taken from him. The amount of suffering he had experienced was enough.
It was nothing compared to that.
I was nothing.
I’d never been anything to anyone a single day of my life.
I let him believe I was done, so he would be done. He had wanted me gone before it all came to light. He had been so mad and so hurt and had wanted me far, far away from him.
So I was giving him that, even after he realized how wrong he had been.
When the young cop shut the door behind me, Kip barreled out of the front door, running towards the car. Mike ran after him, grabbing him, trying to contain him as the young cop scrambled to get in the car and lock the door before Kip got to him. But Kip wasn’t coming after him.
He was coming after me.
He slammed his fists against the window, calling out for me to stop it, to not do it, pleading with me to let him help.
But there was no help for me.
Right before the cop pulled away from the chaotic scene as Mike lost his hold on him, I turned and looked at him through the bars of the window. I saw his face contort in pain and fear, and it broke my heart to witness a man as strong as him break.
He was frantically trying to get to me. Screaming and yelling through the glass, panicking as the end of my nightmare unfolded right before him.
The end of one nightmare. The beginning of another.
“Goodbye,” I said, just as the car pulled away, leaving him standing in the driveway.
Turning in my seat as the car took me down the lane, I made the mistake of watching in horror as he fell to his knees with his head hung in agony.
I’d broken the strongest man I’d ever met.
The only man I had ever loved .
The only man I would ever love.
I rode in silence to the police station as anguish rolled through my entire system. I knew what awaited me there, and it was something I didn’t know if I could survive.
As we drove through town, the sight of a quaint small town filled with media vans and police agency vehicles on every corner surprised me.
When we got to the police station, TV cameras and federal agents instantly swarmed the car. They roughly yanked me from the car and propelled me through the crowd. I didn’t hang my head in shame like you always see criminals do when they were led from the cop car to the station.
Instead, I looked up to the clear blue sky and tried to pretend I was on the beach in Florida and that none of it had happened.
They pulled my elbows to the front of my chest to get me into the station quickly, causing my body to ache and scream out in pain. I had to grind my teeth together to keep from crying out, but I wouldn’t show my weakness out in the public.
I was stronger than that .
A life of growing up on the streets and in horrible foster homes made me stronger than that.
Everyone stared at me as I walked through the halls of the station. Police stopped what they were doing, mid-sentence, mid-bite of dinner, and just stared at me. I could see the shock and disbelief on their faces as I walked by, but I wasn’t sure what part they were surprised by.
Was it the fact that I was tiny, at just two inches over five feet, and that I’d been capable of killing a man over six feet tall and pushing two hundred and fifty pounds? Or the fact that bruises marred every inch of my skin still and that wasn’t what they had expected to see on a cold-blooded killer’s body.
I was quickly ushered into a large interrogation room, with the young cop leading the way and FBI agents trailing closely behind.
My feet stopped moving when the door closed behind me as I looked around at the generic table with 4 chairs and the large mirror on the wall that no doubt had a room full of people on the other side of it. It was all unbelievable.
I was supposed to be on a beach in Florida .
No, I was supposed to be in Kip’s warm cabin getting dinner ready for him.
The young cop grabbed my elbow roughly and jerked me forward again, my lungs exploded with pain, and I gasped in agony. “Please stop ripping my arms around. My ribs are broken!” I pleaded, but he just sneered at me as he threw me down into the chair before lifting my handcuffed hands up over the back of the chair, forcing my chest down onto the table. I hissed through my teeth and whimpered pathetically, even though I tried my hardest to hold it in.
Tears burned behind my finally dry eyes, so I shut them to hold them in. When he uncuffed my right hand, he ripped the left one to the side and attached the empty cuff to the bolt on the metal table, shackling me to the stationary object. The two FBI agents flanked the room, watching silently as he brutalized my already weakened body.
Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?
A moment later, the sheriff walked in with a couple more people, making the room feel small.
“Carlson, if I catch you roughing up a prisoner like that again, especially an injured one, I’ll take you out back and teach you a lesson you won’t be quick to forget. Do I make myself clear?” The older sheriff asked while staring down the rookie with disdain. The young pup nodded in silence before sneering at me once again. “Get out of here and go do your paperwork.”
There was a middle-aged woman with him that wore the typical pant suit outfit of a superior and I could tell she was in charge of the interrogation almost immediately. She sat down across from me, Sheriff Boyd sat next to her, and two higher-up agents flanked them where the other two had stood before they left with the young Carlson.
The woman spoke first. “Hadley, I’m Special Agent Harvey, you’ve met Sheriff Boyd already.” I didn’t know what she wanted me to say, so I simply nodded. “You were read your rights and previously declined legal representation,” she said, “Do you still wish to decline a lawyer at this time?”
“Yes,” I answered evenly.
She nodded, looking slightly pleased with herself like it was going to make her job easier. But perhaps she didn’t realize that I had been a paralegal studying under an incredible defense attorney at one of the most prestigious law firms on the East Coast before everything happened. I knew enough to get through .
“Okay, then let’s get started.” There was a camera on the wall with its little red light blinking, watching me and I shivered as I remembered another little blinking red light that had watched me.
It had always watched; it had seen everything.
Agent Harvey began laying a file folder down in front of her and withdrawing large photos of the man I’d killed, laying them down on the table between us, but I refused to look down at them. I already knew what he had looked like when I was done. “Peter Daniels was found murdered from multiple stab wounds inside of his home four days ago. Investigators discovered your DNA and fingerprints at the crime scene, specifically on the knife still embedded in his neck and inside his vehicle. I’m officially charging you with his murder at this point. We’d like to ask you some questions to get the bigger picture, including why you’d want to kill the man.”
She paused, eyeing me accusingly, and then continued. “He’s known throughout the community here as a good man and helpful leader.” She sat back in her chair and adjusted her suit jacket, crossing her legs under the table in a show of authority, a move I’d seen played many times before. “But, on the other hand, you’ve had previous encounters with the law, haven’t you?” She flipped a few pages in the file and read off a sheet, “Theft, breaking and entering, trespassing, assault.” She tsked her teeth and cocked her head before looking back up at me. “Growing up in the sewers of New York City, bouncing from different group homes, and then out on your own at eighteen. I’d like to start with when you first met each other. How did the little street girl from New York and the nice kind preacher from Utah meet?” She held nothing back as she interrogated me, she knew which buttons to push, and my past was one of them.
Just as I was about to respond, a sudden knock on the door interrupted me. The agent swiftly opened it and stepped aside, revealing a face I immediately recognized. The first familiar face I had seen in weeks.
“Tim?” I asked pensively.
“I’m sorry, who are you?” Agent Harvey said as she stood up in annoyance.
“Timothy Jenks. I’m Ms. Shaw’s lawyer and I will be representing her during questioning.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked in pure shock.
Agent Harvey cut me off as she rounded on Tim, blocking my view of him. “Ms. Shaw has declined legal representation, Mr. Jenks; you need to leave this room immediately.”
“She declined representation because I wasn’t here yet. But I am now, and now she wants her lawyer.” He said pointedly at me as he leaned around her and gave me a ‘you listen here’ look.
“You can’t just barge in here and talk for her, we do not know who you are!” Harvey was getting worked up as she saw her easy conviction slipping through her fingers now that a high paid lawyer was present. And everyone knew he was A-list just by looking at him. He was an incredibly well aged man at sixty. He wore an Armani tailored three-piece suit and had an essence of class and poise that surrounded him wherever he went. Even in the most stressful courtrooms, he always kept his cool and maintained composure. He was someone I’d studied, and I had learned so much from working under him at his firm in New York, and, to be honest, having him in the room gave me some relief.
But why was he present?
How?
“My name is Timothy Jenks, I’ve already introduced myself, Special Agent, so may I suggest you pay better attention to minor details unless you hope I will do your job for you. However, I will close this case either way with my client being cleared of all charges.” He turned and walked over to my side of the table. “Now, I’m going to ask you all politely to leave the room and turn off the mirror and camera so I may counsel my client and I’m also going to tell you, though I’m not going to be as polite about it, to unhandcuff her immediately as she’s here of her own free will and is injured as you can clearly see.”
I just stared in awe, as did everyone else in the room, as he unbuttoned his suit jacket and sat down next to me, while never letting his gaze slip off the Agent.
Sheriff Boyd cleared his throat with guilt as he walked around the table and undid the cuff. He wouldn’t meet my eyes as he did so, though.
“You have five minutes, and then we’re going to start this interrogation regardless if you’re ready or not.” Agent Harvey said before huffing her way out of the room followed by the agents.
Sheriff Boyd hung back until they were out of the room before he turned and looked at me finally. “I gave Kip permission to watch from the other room.” He said as he looked towards the mirror .
“Make him leave. I don’t want him here.” I replied before lowering my voice, hoping Kip couldn’t hear it through the mirror. “I don’t want him to hear what I’m going to have to say. Shield him from it.” I pleaded with him, using my eyes.
But just then the door opened forcefully and there stood the big brute of a man I’d tried to protect.
“Shield me?” He bellowed as he rounded the table. “God, you are so fucking stubborn. Don’t think I don’t know what that little stunt at the house was about. I get it, you’re trying to protect me from the fallout of all of this, but you have to stop. You don’t have to do everything on your own anymore, Hadley. Stop fighting and pushing me away.” His face was grief-stricken under his anger and it aged his beautiful features.
I shook my head sadly as I looked down at my hands in my lap. “An hour ago you were telling me to get the fuck out of your life, Kip. You’re not ready to deal with all of this. You obviously harbor way too many unresolved pains from your past to deal with this in the present.”
“Hadley,” Tim interrupts. “We only have four minutes left and you have a lot to fill me in on before they come back. I appreciate your dilemma here, but we need to handle that first so you can handle this after.” He said, looking down at me kindly.
Sheriff Boyd left the room, leaving me, Tim, and Kip alone.
I took a deep breath and looked over at Tim. Ripping the band-aid off, “He kidnapped me from New York City the night I left for Florida. Used some injectable sedative to get me here. I was here six days before I almost escaped. He caught me and he tried to kill me with a knife, and I fought back. He died, and I took off.” I turned back to look at Kip, who was hanging on my every word. “Kip found me two days later buried in the snow with death clawing at my back. He saved my life, but I never told him what happened. He’s innocent, he knew nothing about it.”
Tim nodded, processing the short version. “Okay.” He said, placing his big palm on my shoulder and pulling me into a hug. “I’m going to get you out of this, Hadley. I promise.”
He never made promises unless he was completely confident he could deliver.
Kip cleared his throat from behind me, and I pulled out of Tim’s arms, turning to him .
“How do you know each other?” Kip asked as he sized up Tim.
Tim chuckled from next to me. “I’m a partner at the most prestigious law firm on the East Coast and Hadley is my head paralegal. She’s brilliant and makes sure I look good at each court appearance. Or at least she did before she quit to move to Florida.” His face saddened as he looked away from Kip and back to me. “When the FBI showed up at the firm looking for you I followed them here and set up shop at the hotel. I knew something happened and that what they were saying wasn’t true and if you were going to be arrested, I was going to be here to protect you when you did.”
“Thank you, Tim. Truly.”
Kip moved closer to me and kneeled down next to my chair, drawing my attention back to him.
“You have to stop pushing me away. I’m sorry for everything I said. I was so incredibly wrong, and I can never take it back or make it right. But please don’t push me away right now, let me be here for you and lean on me.” He paused as he looked at Tim over my shoulder, before leaning in closer and said, “My alpha is hungry.”
I cracked a smile at his joke, and he brought his hands up to cup my face as he leaned his forehead against mine, breathing me in. “My bambina .” He whispered before kissing me softly. It felt incredible to be in his arms again. Earlier, when he had been so mad at me, my emotions were in ruins and the grief of losing him devastated me. I didn’t forgive him for acting the way he did when he found me inside his kid’s room, but as Tim said earlier, we had to handle the bigger problem before any of that mattered.
The door banged open, and Agent Harvey and her posse walked back in, breaking up the first moment of true calmness I’d had in hours.
“Kip, go on back next door.” Sheriff Boyd said, and Kip sauntered out, keeping his eyes on me the whole way.
“Big guy, you got there.” Tim joked from next to me. I smiled and looked at him before shrugging in answer. “The alpha.” It was all I had to say to describe Kip.
When everyone got settled, I looked back up at the camera in the corner and watched the little red light turn back on.
They were watching again.