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“I’m not going anywhere,” Scott announced. “Not untilthatman is arrested for battery!”
“Son,” the sheriff said calmly, “I suggest you listen to the nice young woman and leave town before I write you up for that broken headlight.”
Scott’s eyes were wide and furious. “What broken headlight?”
The sheriff tucked his thumbs behind his belt. “The way I see it? Looks to me like it’ll be broken here in a few minutes. Unless, of course, the car is gone by then. If you catch my meaning.”
Scott finally realized what he was being told. He looked from the sheriff, to me, to Jayce, then back to me as if searching for the justice he thought he deserved.
You won’t find it in Eastland, I thought.
Judge Benjamin chose that moment to drive up in his shiny white Cadillac. He was still wearing his fishing gear as he got out of the car with a dark expression on his face. He spoke softly to the sheriff, then rounded on us.
“I should not be surprised you would attempt to shirk your hours,” he declared, as if he were in front of a courtroom audience. “But it does disappoint me.”
“Who is this?” Scott demanded. Everyone ignored him.
“I worked every hour!” I told the judge. “All hundred and twenty of them!”
“And the last eighty were accomplished with unwarranted assistance. This negates the entire penitence aspect of the work that we discussed earlier today.” He shook his head. “Clearly, you learned nothing these past weeks.”
I opened my mouth to tell him I’d learned this town was as corrupt as they came, but Jayce spoke before I could.
“Judge Benjamin,” he said in a deferential voice. “Charlotte is completely blameless in this matter. I continued working community service after my hours were complete, but Charlotte was unaware. In fact, I lied to her. If anyone deserves blame, it’s me. Don’t punish her for my mistake.”
The judge listened with an expressionless face, then turned to me. “Is this true?”
I could feel Jayce staring at me, willing me to agree. “I thought Jayce had two more days of community service after I finished,” I said.
The judge thought about it for three heartbeats, then nodded. “Then I hope your conscious is riddled with guilt for deceiving this young woman.” He turned back to the sheriff. “Eighty additional hours of community service for Charlotte Owens. And chargehimwith title sixteen, chapter ten, article two of the Georgia Code: obstruction of justice. One count for each day he interfered. Send in the paperwork today and I’ll meet with himtomorrowto decide the penalty. He can sleep in the jail until then. Sheriff, do the honors.”
My shoulders sank. Eighty hours. Two more weeks. I didn’t think I could handle two moredays.
But as terrible as Jayce’s situation was, he only shook his head and sighed.
“No,” Jayce told the judge, and pulled out his gun.
47
Jayce
It was all bullshit. Granted, everything that happened in this awful fucking town was bullshit, but this was the grand-daddy of all bullshits.
Not what the judge was giving me. What he was doing toher.
She doesn’t deserve this.
Charlotte was just an innocent girl who’d made the mistake of driving through town on a rainy night. She wasn’t speeding nor did she run through a stop sign, yet she’d gotten arrested and thrown in jail anyways. Because it was all a bullshit charade to squeeze money into the pockets of the sheriff and judge while she was trapped in town. Motel fees, parking fees, administrative fees. The works.
She’d done everything asked of her, and handled it better than most. Now they were condemning her to even more time in Eastland.
I couldn’t let them do it. If anyone deserved to escape this hellish town, it was Charlotte.
I pulled the gun from my hip and aimed it at the judge without a second thought. “No.”
To my left, Charlotte gasped. “Jayce!”
I didn’t have a plan. I certainly wasn’t going to kill a sheriff and judge in cold blood, no matterhowcorrupt they were. But I had to do something to stop them from fucking Charlotte over. Even if it meant potentially missing out on getting my revenge on Sid. I still had ten minutes to fix all of this before the Copperheads got here.
