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The detectives both freeze, looking horrified, enraged, and afraid.
“Turn around and leave,” Angelo says. His voice is shockingly calm, despite the fact that he’s brandishing a weapon barely fifty feet from a prison.
“You stupid cocksucker,” Detective John growls. “You’re making a mistake.”
“Turn around and leave before I kill you right here and now. You think I can’t get away with it? You think I can’t put two in your chest, one in your partner’s skull, and drive off into Mexico for a few years? You know what I am, Detective. Turn around and leave.”
Detective John’s teeth grind together. Mustache puts a hand on his arm. “Come on,” Mustache says.
“Fuck you,” Detective John spits out. “You’re dead, Angelo. You are fucking dead.”
“Leave,” Angelo repeats.
Detective John stands there seething for another second before he lets Mustache pull him away. Both cops walk to their truck, and Angelo remains standing there waiting until they drive off. Only then does he holster his gun and turn to me.
I stare at him, sick to my stomach, in pain and afraid. He walks over and extends a hand.
I stare at it without moving.
“I didn’t want to see you,” I say quietly.
He laughs once sharply. “That’s an interesting way of saying thanks.”
I glare at him, but I take his offered hand and he helps me stand. “Why are you here? What are you doing?”
“If it helps, I wasn’t following you.” His eyes narrow as he looks toward the road. “I was following them.”
I let that sink in. He was tailing Detective John and his little mustache pal, whoever that guy is. Angelo must know how dangerous it is to do something reckless like that, and yet here he is, and I’m glad he did it. Otherwise, I don’t know what would’ve happened to me.
“Thanks for helping,” I say and brush past him. “But I meant it when I told Carmine I don’t want to work with you anymore.”
“Don’t sit on that interview,” Angelo says. I hurry to my car, hands shaking. My stomach churns and my throat feels thick and I’m afraid I’ll vomit on the ground but I manage to unlock my doors. “Whatever you’re planning, do it soon.”
He stands a few feet away like he doesn’t want to come too close. I look back and it breaks my heart—he’s staring at me with a strange intensity, like he can’t look away, like all he wants in the whole world is to walk over and take me in his arms and kiss me.
And a piece of me wants that too.
Except I think of my baby. I think of my future. And I look down at the ground.
“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.” I get into the car and shut the door.
He doesn’t move as I start the engine and back out. He watches as I drive away, face twisted in pain. My hands tremble and tears roll down my face, and I hate leaving him like that, especially after what he just did.
For all I know, he saved my life and the life of our child.
No, not our child.
My child and mine alone.
I have to keep going. I have to stay the course. I’m doing the right thing—I always do the right thing—no matter how badly it kills me.
Though he’s right.
I’m out of time.
Chapter 26
Angelo
Detective John Bridle is a paranoid bastard.
Steel bars over his windows. A heavy gate over his doors. Multiple cameras around the property.
He lives in a single-family rancher in a nice little neighborhood on the edge of Dallas. Lots of trucks, nicely mowed lawns, neatly trimmed bushes. The sort of place where kids run around during the day.
Except there are no other cars in his driveway. No minivan, no bikes, no toys.
He lives alone. No wife, no family. Strange, for a detective his age, but I know a lot of guys like him.
Guys with deep scars, shallow pockets, and miles of trauma streaming out behind them. The job takes, and it keeps taking, and it rarely gives back. Some men turn to drinking, some turn to worse. Some shrivel up and turn in on themselves, cocooning their minds against the outside world. I think Detective John’s one of those, wrapped up in layers and layers of obfuscation and justification to explain the small and large traumas he deals with on a daily basis. I wonder if that’s how he got involved in all this.
I wait until it’s late, until it’s past one in the morning, and jump his back fence. I land quietly and press myself up against the wall, waiting. There’s a camera, but all that’ll show is a guy in a black ski mask sneaking around. Nothing identifiable, nothing he’ll be able to use. Not that I expect him to use it. I head around to the back gate and use my lock pick set to get the bolt open. The thing with most locks is they can be picked. They’re really there to keep out the lazy and the uninformed. Getting it open takes longer than I wanted and all the while I’m thinking about Sara, about the look on her face at the prison, about the fear in her eyes and the sadness and the want.
