The day I learned how quiet suspicion can be when it first takes root.
CHAPTER 37
HARLAN - EMERGENCY CONTACT
My phone rang just after dusk, the sky that bruised-purple January wore when the sun quit early. Jack’s name lit the screen. For a second, I thought about letting it go to voicemail. Then I answered.
"How's the big city?" I asked as a way of greeting.
His voice came through thin, like the line itself was stretched too far. “You got a minute?” He asked.
“For you? Always.” I leaned against the cruiser, breath fogging the air.
“It’s about the guy at the fundraiser. The one Remi was arguing with.” Jack said. I heard the muffled clang of city traffic, a horn, then he added, “Colton Hale.”
“Hale,” I repeated. “That name’s not in any of the precinct records I’ve seen tied to her.”
“It wouldn’t be,” he said. “His juvenile records sealed. So is Remi’s. But I've read through them.”
I stayed quiet, listening to the scrape of wind dragging at the flag over the courthouse.
“He was Jenny Carter’s boyfriend,” Jack said. His tone thinned, brittle. “The one who drove her to suicide. And later… tried to do the same to Ava.”
My grip on the phone tightened.Fuck, no wonder the girls talked about Jenny like she was a painful memory.
Jack continued. “Remi took care of the problem when no one else would.”
“That’s what she meant. When she said she almost beat his skull in.” I asked
“She didn’t almost,” Jack said flatly. “She damn near did. Him and two of his friends cornered Ava at the baseball field. Remi showed up. Picked up the bastard’s own bat. Left one with a shattered collarbone, another with a fractured skull, the third with a limp he’ll have the rest of his life.”
Snow flurries drifted through the courthouse floodlights, dissolving before they touched the ground.
“She was sixteen,” Jack said quietly. “They tried to lock her up. But the record got sealed. Charges dropped. Doesn’t erase the fact she made enemies. Colton never forgot.”
“And that’s why you’re telling me now,” I said.
He exhaled, ragged. “I have silenced him and his family for now. They are taken care of, and I will keep an eye on them. But..." He sighed and continued. "I’m gone. And she’s still there. I need to believe someone’s watching out for her when I can’t.”
“I would,” I said before I could stop myself. “I already do.”
Silence stretched, then Jack’s voice softened. “Then be ready. Because loving Remi Carter isn’t safe. It never has been. And trying to protect her? That’s even more dangerous.”
The line crackled, then went dead.
The hospital was busy, but the noise was white, that kind of quiet chaos that lived in these halls. I spotted Remi before she saw me, clipboard in hand, standing beside a boy no older than ten. Her voice low. Calm. Protective. She nodded once, placed a comforting hand on the boy's arm, and then stepped into the hallway.
I caught her as she passed the nurse’s station.
“You always haunt hospitals on your days off?” I asked.
She gave me a wry smile. “Old habits die hard, Chief.”
“Is he one of yours?” I nodded toward the room.
“New referral. Came in from county. They flagged him for psych, but what he really needs is a safe place and someone who won’t ask him to suck it up and be a man.”
I fell into step beside her.
