Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 71090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
He nodded, motioning with his hand for me to continue.
“I didn’t actually see him until I walked up to the car. He was lying in the backseat, fully dressed. When I asked him to step out, he did. Peacefully. Then when I started to walk back to the cruiser with his license and registration, he moved. If I hadn’t turned back around to ask him a question about his license, he would’ve shot me in the back of the head.”
“Jesus, what a clusterfuck,” Chief Rhodes said tiredly.
I nodded. “A Charlie Foxtrot indeed.”
“Well you’ll be glad to know that the mobile fingerprinting unit got a match on him. For quite a few offenses, in fact. Only one of which being the print we pulled from Blake’s house and the break-in a few weeks ago,” the Chief said.
My teeth gritted, and suddenly I didn’t feel so bad about shooting him in the belly three times with his own gun.
“Has he said anything?” I asked forcefully.
The chief shook his head once. “Nada. I have Greer on it, though. If there’s anything to find, Greer will let me know.”
I rubbed my chest, feeling a bruise already forming from where the bullet had slammed into my Kevlar vest.
“What’s that on your…foot?” The Chief asked when he stood.
I looked down at my foot and grimaced.
“I think it’s skin,” I said. “He fell on it.”
The Chief’s expression soured. “That’s just…disgusting.”
He handed me a disinfectant wipe out of the tub he kept at the corner of his desk.
“Get that cleaned up. I can tell you from experience that Blake pukes at the sight of blood,” he said.
I bent down and scrubbed the blood and bits of…stuff, off my prosthesis. Then threw the towel in the trash next to The Chief’s desk.
Wiping my hands with some hand sanitizer, I stood and looked at him.
“This all has to do with her, doesn’t it?” I asked point blank.
He shrugged. “Best guess, yes. I just don’t know what she’s done to warrant it. That doesn’t mean that I won’t be finding out, though.”
I nodded.
“Well, she won’t be leaving my sight, that’s for sure.”
As I exited the chief’s office I heard him say, “I never doubted you would. Just make sure you state your intentions to Shank before you get too involved with her.”
That was something I really, really didn’t want to do.
Not that I didn’t plan on having Blake as my own, because I did. But because I didn’t want to talk to that man period until I had this situation ironed out.
Would I talk to him anyway? Yes.
Would I enjoy it? Fuck no.
Chapter 17
Who lit the fuse on your tampon?
-T-shirt
Foster
I opened the door to my apartment, not surprised in the least to see Blake’s father standing on my doorstep.
Blake had fallen asleep on the couch during the movie I’d insisted we watch, and had been sleeping for over an hour.
Not wanting to wake her, because I knew exactly where this conversation was going, I grabbed my gun from the coffee table, shoved it in the back of my pants, and met him in the hallway.
He watched my movements with the eyes of a trained officer.
Someone that had been there and done that so many times that they could anticipate the movements of another officer before it was even done.
His eyes, though, stalled on the body of his daughter as she laid on the couch, and his eyes snapped to mine, all of a sudden furious.
I hurried outside before he could start demanding answers, closing it behind me before I leaned against the wall and waited for it.
“Why’s she been crying?” Lou demanded.
I sighed.
Then started telling him about my night, followed by what the chief had told me before I’d left.
“Fuck me,” he said, turning around to pace back and forth in the hallway. “I haven’t found shit. I’ve pulled every goddamned marker I had, and still have nothing to show for it. I’m going to have to dig deeper.”
I didn’t doubt that the man had markers. I also expected that he had a lot of the criminal underground in his back pockets.
You didn’t stay a cop for as long as he had and not know a few criminals that you could call on if you needed them.
“I have a couple of computer savants working on it through a buddy of mine. I also have my brother’s club president working on it from his end,” I said.
“Silas Mackenzie?” He asked, surprised.
I nodded, not surprised that he knew the men associated with my brother. I was fairly positive he had a file twelve inches thick on me and my family.
“How’d…never mind. I’m sure I don’t want to know,” I said, shaking my head. “He was…is CIA, I think. I haven’t really been able to figure out exactly what he is. I’m not sure he ever got out. Anyway, I digress. He’s pulling anything he knows about Bryson Bullard, the man that tried to shoot me tonight.”
The Shank came out to play, then.
He pulled out his phone and dialed a number, not looking at me as he started talking low into the phone.
I couldn’t make out much of his conversation, but what I did hear, I knew was definitely on the opposite side of the line that one tried not to cross as an officer of the law.
“I don’t care what you have to do, you stupid son of a bitch. Either you get him to talk, or I will, and you really, really won’t like it,” he hissed before he hung up.
My brows raised as he turned around and stared blankly at me.
“What’d you just do?” I asked curiously.
He smiled.
“A daddy has a duty to his daughter. If she’s hurt, I’m hurt. I’m not going to fucking fail in this. It’ll be over my dead body that she’ll have to endure another day like two days ago. She’d be dead and gone right now if it wasn’t for your friends,” he growled. “Now, you do your job protecting my girl, and I’ll do mine.”