Chapter 52
Jack walked in and slammed the door so hard that Corrine almost spilled her coffee. She didn’t flinch, though. She just kept stirring, slow and steady, as Jack stomped into the house, bringing the cold air and his foul mood right along with him.
He didn’t take off his work shoes and didn’t even shake off the snow clinging to his jacket. He moved straight to the kitchen, shoulders tight, face twisted, full of anger.
“You cook?” he snapped.
She nodded toward the stove. “Kept it warm for you.”
Jack grabbed a bowl and filled it, slamming the ladle against the pot. He dropped into the chair across from her and ate as if the food had done something personal to him.
“Fucking Beau Lee Cooper,” he muttered between bites.
“That asshole was out there stirring shit in the news again today. Press everywhere. He’s trying to fix the trial even before it starts.
He’s got people chanting Montrose’s name like he’s some kind of hero and trying to make us out to be the bad guys.
Meanwhile, the department wants us out there protecting the protesters.
What a joke. What has this country come to? ”
He stabbed at his food, barely tasting it.
He was talking erratically, the rage pulsing through his body. “It’s the same damn cycle. Same people, same protests, same bullshit. And that bastard Cooper—he loves it. Loves making us look like the villains. Loves putting a damn camera in his face and pretending he gives a shit.”
Corrine listened quietly, hoping that Jack wouldn’t be too loud and wake up the boys who were upstairs sleeping. She had learned long ago that Jack didn’t need responses—he needed a place to put his anger. But today, his frustration ran deeper than the job.
Jack was pissed about something else, more than just this Cooper figure. She could tell. He was agitated. Wound tight. Like a man who’d been denied something he expected to have.
Corrine could hear his phone vibrating in his pocket. He took it out and pushed some buttons, but she knew not to ask about why he was mad and why he was ignoring the calls.
Jack sat there biting his fingernails, stewing in something Corrine couldn’t quite name.
As she finished up the dishes and cleaned the kitchen, Jack’s phone continued to buzz, and he finally stepped outside to take the call.
Corrine kept running the water in the sink but moved closer to the front door to try to listen. She took a wet rag with her and was prepared to look as though she’d been polishing something off.
“What are you doing?” Jack said.
Even though Jack was whispering, Corrine could hear every word.
“Why are you calling me incessantly? You know you can’t call me back to back.”
A beat.
“Babe, I told you I’d call you when I could,” Jack responded.
Babe?
“Was it the investigators from internal affairs or that traitorous white cop who’s Hollis’s partner? They came to my house, too. It’s like they’re trying to watch my every move, but we got something in store for all of them.”
It sounded like the investigators who’d tried to question Corrine last time also found the person currently on the phone with Jack.
“Goddamn it. I knew it was those fucking guys. With this trial about to start, they’re getting desperate. Everybody’s on edge. What were they asking, baby?”
Hearing her husband call another woman an affectionate nickname should have pained her. But Corrine had long known the reality of her relationship with Jack—it was all about the boys. She just needed to keep them safe. There was no love between her and Jack.
“I know you will, Heaven, and I’ll go through fire for you, too.
You did good, and after this trial everything’ll be back to normal, but it’ll be better than normal, ’cause I made up my mind.
” He moved a bit farther from the door but was still within earshot.
“After this is over, I’m leaving Corrine and filing for divorce so we can be together all the time.
This whole case has made me see what the important things are and just how much you love me.
You never doubted me once throughout this whole thing.
So just hang in there until we can put it all behind us, and then we’ll be together forever.
Will you hold on and wait for me? Just until we can sort things out and get this trial behind us. ”
Corrine could see Jack just a little through the window. He was smiling at whatever Heaven was saying.
“And we’ll have the best life together. I promise you.”
Corrine hurriedly returned to the sink and continued with cleaning the kitchen. While her arms made small circles on the counter, so too did her mind turn.
A divorce. He said he would divorce me. She couldn’t believe that he would just throw away their family just like that.
Then she thought about the custody battle they would have over the boys and suddenly felt a sharp pang of fear.
What about her boys? Jack would want to take them, if for nothing but his pride.
When he came back inside, she tried to appear nonchalant. “You want a beer?”
“Yeah,” he grunted.
She grabbed a Budweiser from the fridge and set it down in front of him next to his half-eaten dinner.
Jack glanced at the bottle before looking up at Corrine. She could see the storm clouds reentering his eyes. Whatever levity he was afforded outside on that phone call no longer staved off the anger from before.
“You’re out of Miller Lite,” she said, by way of explanation.
He stared at her. “You didn’t buy more?”
His voice was deceptively calm, but she knew him well enough to hear the edge under it.
“Maybe your new wife will get you the right beer,” she said.
Jack scoffed, and shook his head. “You were eavesdropping on me, huh, Corrine?”
He stood up and grabbed the beer, but he didn’t open it. “So the cat’s out of the bag. I’m leaving you, Corrine, because you don’t believe in me and you don’t make me happy anymore,” he concluded.
“So you would just throw away your family just like that?”
“I am not throwing away my family. I am just throwing you away. I think the boys will be better off with their father.”
Corrine cried out at that. “You son of a bitch. I’ll never let you take my boys from me.”
Jack whipped his arm forward, cracking her across her face. Corrine reared back and when she turned around to glare at him, he saw that he’d busted her lip open. “You know not to test me, Corrine.”
Jack started to walk toward the door, but she grabbed his arm. “Did you hear me? I said, you are not taking my boys from me.”
Jack tried to shake her off but Corrine held on. “Get away from me, Corrine. I told you not to test me.”
“If you try to divorce me, I will make your life a living hell. I will take your pension, this house, and I’m not gonna let you get custody of my boys. You and your hussy will have to languish on the streets after I’m done with you.”
Jack turned swiftly around and backhanded her, knocking her off-balance and sending her crashing into a small glass coffee table.
She dropped face-first into the table, and he could tell her eye immediately started to swell.
As Corrine began to lose consciousness, she thought she could hear Jack saying something to her.
Jack knelt down next to her and whispered harshly, “What did I say, Corrine? You brought this on yourself. I work all day. I don’t want to come home and have to deal with your drama anymore.
Now, I gotta deal with this trial tomorrow and I don’t need your shit right now.
We will deal with our situation once this trial is over.
You hear me. This is not the end of this. ” He grabbed his coat and walked out.
Corrine lay there holding her left eye. There was a cut underneath from the broken glass, and it had started to bleed. As she lay there battered and bruised, she said to herself, “I won’t let you take my children.”