Chapter 11 Maxim #2
“Can I help you?” I ask, studying both faces. Neither of them are familiar, and they both look young enough that they might not know who I am.
“Sir, step aside. We need to speak with Miss Wolfe.”
All eyes fall on Hollie who gapes at the officers, then she looks at me and I see it in her eyes.
That momentary hope of freedom. One word to them and she’ll be whisked away.
It won’t matter that anything she says can’t be used against me.
The stain of losing my wife to the police will be enough to taint my reputation, and it’s all downhill from there.
Her family won’t live to see another sunrise, and it won’t be by my hand.
“I’m Miss Wolfe,” Hollie says, her voice strained. “How can I help you?”
“Miss, are you alright?”
She nods quickly. “Yes, fine.”
“Can you tell us what happened to your face?” As the officer steps closer, his presence invades my space as he tries to get closer to her. “Did someone hurt you?”
Hollie’s lips part and a tense silence fills the cold air between us.
Clouds of breath from all five of us collide and rise into the sky as Hollie struggles to find her words.
“No,” she says eventually, surprising me.
“I slipped on some ice a few days ago and went down hard. Kind of embarrassing, really.”
“What is this about?” I cut in, and one of the officers turns his narrowed gaze to me.
“Miss Wolfe’s family reported her as missing since Thanksgiving. You can imagine our surprise to find you just out in the street like this. What happened?”
Hollie doesn’t look at me. My heart stalls in my chest, and Stu subtly moves his hand to his waist for easy access to his weapon.
One word from Hollie and this entire thing goes up in flames.
A silence that lasts only a few seconds feels like it drags out for eternity as each officer shifts their weight.
“I…”
“Yes?” the officer prompts.
“I was in the hospital. Like I said, I fell and it was pretty bad. So I went to Accident and Emergency and they gave me some heavy-duty painkillers. The last few days have honestly been a little bit of a blur.”
“And you haven’t called home?”
Hollie laughs softly. “Well, my last conversation with my mother was her ordering me not to turn up at all because I was going to be late, so we’re not exactly on speaking terms. This feels a bit far-fetched, though. I’m not missing.”
“You understand that your father is very worried about you, don’t you?”
“He hasn’t called,” Hollie replies smoothly. A lie, given how often her phone vibrates with calls. “I had no idea.”
“Could you wait here a moment?” Both officers step back to their nearby squad car parked right next to my own vehicle, and they never take their eyes off us.
Keeping my attention on them and my lips close together, I speak. “You didn’t tell them the truth.”
“No,” Hollie mutters.
“Why?”
“You made it pretty clear what will happen to my family if I talk, so what choice do I have? I don’t want them to end up like that man.”
Stu clears his throat and his eyes meet mine, but his silent question earns him a soft frown. As long as we remain relaxed, this shouldn’t be a problem.
“Miss Wolfe?” One officer reapproaches after getting off his radio. “We’re to escort you home.”
“What?” Hollie’s surprise matches my own. “Whatever for?”
“To reduce our paperwork. Our captain used to work with your dad, so consider this a favor to him.”
Hollie’s mouth opens and closes, then with a glance at me, she relents. “This feels like too much.”
“Nothing is too much for the daughter of a retired police chief. So, should we follow you?”
Stu meets my gaze with an echo of the surprised horror in my chest. Hollie is the daughter of a police chief? How the fuck did my team miss that?
“You can follow,” Stu agrees stiffly as he approaches the car. “Try not to get too close. Don’t need those lights fucking with my paint job.”
I climb into the car in a slightly concerned daze, and Hollie twists her hands together in her lap as we sit.
“You won’t kill them, right?”
“Huh?” I glance up at her while furiously texting Rex with one thumb.
“My parents. For doing this. Please?”
“I won’t.” I shake my head. “You never mentioned your father used to be a cop.”
She shrugs one shoulder. “Would it have made a difference?”
Painfully, yes, it would. Trapping someone like Hollie to save myself is one thing, but the daughter of a retired police chief?
I’m basically placing myself into the lap of an enemy and hoping they don’t bite.
I don’t answer her, choosing to remain silent while Rex blows up my phone with promises to find out how this was missed.
“A positive,” I say softly as we drive, “is that my father will likely reevaluate his desire to kill you.”
Hollie’s fingers continue to twist together and she snorts. “Great.”
Thirty minutes later, we pull up to a small house tucked on the edge of some forest in a small town not far from the outskirts of New York City.
Pumpkins line the pathway to the door and a dusting of orange and yellow leaves cover the garden and blanket all the flowers in the flowerbeds by the door.
Lights hang from the awnings and wind around the gutters, transforming the drainpipe into a sparkling beam of light.
As the red and blue lights from the cop car light up the garden, the door flies open and an elderly woman charges down the pavestone path at alarming speed as Hollie climbs from the car.
“Hollie!” she screeches. “Oh my God, Hollie! Hollie!”
Hollie runs into her mother's arms and is immediately bundled up in her arms. By the time Stu and I climb out of the car, a man has joined the reunion.
His grey cardigan strains around his generous abdomen while a smoking pipe hangs from underneath his thick mustache.
Black hair streaks away from his forehead, and he lifts one hand to wave at the cop car, then fixes me with a steely glare.
“Who is this?” he demands in a throaty voice.
Hollie pulls back from her mother’s hug. “Mom. Dad.” She turns to me, and our eyes meet.
“This is my husband, Maxim.”