AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I turn and walk back to my office with Benjamin asleep in the crook of my arm.
Piper’s cries follow me the entire way.
22
TIMOFEY
“Just go get her,” Akim pleads with me an hour after Piper and Rooney leave. “You clearly want her back here, so go get her.”
I grimace. It’s pleasantly quiet without Ms. Quinn screeching in my ear. She’s somewhere no one can hear her, locked up in the bowels of the police station with cinderblock walls swallowing up her screams.
It’s exactly where I wanted her to be. So why does that mental image grate on me so fucking badly?
“I don’t want Piper anywhere.”
He snorts. “Not even in a house? With a mouse? Or with a crane on a plane?”
“Fuck off, Dr. Seuss.”
“How about doggystyle on the tile?” He laughs at his own stupid joke and then bends his head in apology. “Sorry. I had to.”
“I don’t want her anywhere, because my life would be easier if she just disappeared.”
Akim backs towards the doorway. “Fine. So go get her and then you can kill her if that’s what gets your rocks off. But either way, you should go get her. You’re in a worse mood than normal and I blame her.”
I give him the finger, then leave and get on my motorcycle. I don’t have a destination in mind—I just want to ease the roiling knot in my stomach. But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised when I find myself riding downtown.
Then winding closer and closer to the precinct.
Now, I’m circling the block.
This shit is getting out of hand.
“It’s been almost two hours,” I mutter to myself over the purr of the engine. “That’s enough to teach her a lesson.”
I only wanted to intimidate her, anyway. She needs to understand that I can and will make her life a living hell if she crosses me. A few hours in a cell ought to have done the trick.
I leave my bike at the curb and march up to the building. I’m halfway up the stairs when my phone rings. It’s a number I don’t recognize.
“Hello?”
“You can’t walk through the front doors of a police station.”
I check the caller ID. “Why are you calling me from your office phone?”
Rooney curses. “I saw you walking across the street and grabbed the wrong phone. Damn it.”
The line goes dead. A second later, my phone rings again. This time, it’s Rooney’s burner cell.
“You can’t be here.”
“You are the last fucking person on earth who gets to tell me where I can and can’t be.” I crack my neck in both directions. “Go get her out of the cell. I’m taking her with me.”
There’s a long pause before he speaks again. “You’re kidding.”
“Did you think I was going to have you ship her off to prison?”
“No, I guess not. But—dammit, after everything I went through to get her in the car?” He groans. “You have no fucking idea. She fought the entire way. I thought I was going to have to call a psych unit halfway through the drive.”
