“Your actions caused millions of dollars in damage, Chloe. Hundreds of people traveling that highway have been impacted by what you did. Someone else could have been hurt.”
She raises her eyebrows, and I think I might see a hint of understanding flash across her features. “I can see how what I did was a tad excessive, but I assure you that no one else’s life was ever in danger besides Vera’s.”
“A tad excessive,” I repeat sarcastically. I settle my hands on my hips, turning my face toward the window at the front of the house and seeing Barry’s car roll to a slow. “And Max?” I ask, turning back to Chloe. “How’d you and your friends manage to plant his DNA?”
Eyes flaring with outrage, she takes another limited step in my direction and the cuffs jingle behind her. “Leave my friends out of this,” she warns. “I didn’t plant shit.” She shakes her head in annoyance, glancing away from me. “I would have rather killed him. And you know where he’s at now, Colin? Hmm?” She turns back to me, eyes alight with victory.
I don’t answer. I look away from her completely, because her eyes are wide and wild. And accusing. The question seems rhetorical, and I can already feel my flimsy explanation of the justice system being useless. Already feel shame that whatever she’s about to say is simply driving her point home. “Cuba,” she finally says to my profile, and I clench my jaw. “He’s gone. Yourjustice systemlet him go, and he’s one more fuckingmonsterin the wind.”
Falling back on familiarity, everything I’ve come to learn about law enforcement rises to the tip of my tongue. I spin so fast to face her that I catch her off guard, and she flinches when I wrap my hands around her biceps and walk her backward. “You can’t just kill people because they’re bad, Chloe! What are you thinking? What is wrong with you?”
She just stares at me. Lips kicking up into a wicked smirk, eyebrows stretching toward her forehead. “What’s wrong withme? Panda bear,” shesays, lowering her voice, her tone turning patronizing. “You put trackers in my vehicles. You broke into my house and planted camerasin my bedroom.”
“I didn’tkillanyone, Chloe,” I growl, watching her eyes slowly move from her biceps to my face when I release her and take a step back.
“So that’s the line?”
“Of course that’s the line!”
She laughs lightly, sounding simultaneously disappointed and fed up. “You are just as fucked up as I am if you believe that, Colin. That there is nothing wrong with anything you did, and everything wrong with all the things I did. Everything Ihadto do.” She crosses one arm across her body, resting her hand on her hip. I study her posture, the way she’s closing in on herself, trying to cover herself up. A tightness creeps into my chest, moving up and constricting my throat, stealing my air.
I don’t want her to cover anything up. I don’t want her to have to hide. But this…this is too much. It isn’t…right.
“And Max?” she says quietly, her gaze cast down toward the floor now, causing the pinch in my body to grow tighter and more painful.
“What about him?” I manage to ask.
“You put him in the hospital. Your colleague had to pull you off him. Do you think you went too far? Do you regret it?” She finally looks at me, and I see it in her eyes. The real question. She always wants me tosay it. Tell her that I don’t think I went too far at all. That I don’t think I wentfar enough.That I don’t regret a damn thing except not beating him to a bloody pulp the night I found her by the pool with him.
Instead, because I’m a fucking coward, I say, “I can’t do this,” and I turn away from her and head back out the door.
“Colin!” she screams after me. “Do not fucking leave me here chained up like a dog! Colin!”
And then the longest, highest pitch scream sounds from inside her house as I let the door close, muffling the sound behind me as I stride toward my vehicle.
I’m not going to leave her there forever. But I need to think.
She’s acriminal.A murderer. And I am not an asshole for leaving her chained up.
I glance back at the house, feeling like that’s not true at all and I am the biggest asshole to ever walk the planet.
And then I climb into my truck and pull down the driveway.
I slow when I’m getting ready to pass Barry’s car by the curb. He saunters in my direction, and I roll the window down as he nods back toward the house, eyebrows raised in question. With the window down, even all the way at the end of her driveway, I can still hear her screaming. It’s so angry. Volatile. And I’m afraid to imagine now what would happen if I uncuffed her.
“She’s having a rough day,” I tell Barry, trying to give him a smile that looks sad and reassuring all at once. I’m sure it’s a fucking flop. My mouth is so fucking dry I’m surprised dust isn’t puffing out into the air between us as I talk. “Her cat died.”
He quirks an eyebrow, pulling his notepad out and scribbling on it. “I didn’t know she had a cat.”
Jesus. The things people consider news these days.
“Listen, would you just…” I pause, eyes shifting toward Chloe’s house in the background. Her shouting seems to have settled, the house overcome with silence, which honestly hurts my heart more than the screaming does. She’s never quiet. Not unless something is wrong.
Butfuck. I just need tothink.
I hesitate, and then I do what I always did before and steal her peace, because I’m a piece of shit. “Would you let me know if you see her leave?”
He eyes me, probably wondering why, when Chloe and I have clearly crossed an intimate line, am I involving him in her business again? And then he gives me a single nod, and I ignore the judgmental look in his eye becausewhat the fuck, Barry? You have no room to judge, buddy.
