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“Jeez.” Tean got to his feet and glanced toward the kitchen. “Not exactly a soft touch. Should we…” He left the question hanging, but his gaze strayed to the kitchen again.
Jem shook his head. “Heather, you need to open the door and carefully and calmly do whatever the police ask you. They’re not your friends, and don’t believe them if they say they are, but they won’t do anything to you.”
“You said a darkness was coming,” Heather said, her pitch wobbling. “You said a dead woman’s hand was closing around me.”
This time, Tean did shoot Jem a look—but it was more rueful than accusatory.
“I know,” Jem said, partly to Tean and partly to Heather, “but right now, we’ve got to deal with this situation.”
“All right,” Cassidy shouted from the other side of the door, “guess we’re doing this the hard way!”
It sounded like he enjoyed the hard way. Maybe even preferred it.
“No,” Tean shouted. “We’re just having trouble with the lock.”
Silence. Then “Who’s in there?”
Jem got a hand on Heather’s elbow. She wasn’t all that old but right then she seemed twenty years older—and sick, and scared, and alone. He helped her to her feet, and she was trembling.
“It’s going to be ok,” Jem said in a low voice. “Remember the other stuff I said. Remember you’re strong.”
Heather wiped her eyes and nodded. She sniffled and took an uncertain step toward the door, but after a second step, and a third, her stride evened out. Cassidy was pounding on the door again, shouting. Heather opened it—it wasn’t locked at all, Jem realized, and he almost laughed at Tean’s lie—and Cassidy had to stop mid-swing, his arm still raised, looking like some horrible historical statue in a pose that should have been triumphant and, instead, came off as ridiculous.
“I’m Heather Weis.” She crossed her arms and rubbed her elbows. “What’s going on?”
Cassidy recovered his poise. He was wearing an Auburn PD polo that was molded to an admittedly must-be-admired body, and his white-blond hair looked freshly gelled. A couple of uniforms behind him were watching from the driveway: one, a chinless redheaded kid with something approaching worship; the other, the Black deputy from the previous night, who looked on without any visible expression.
“Ms. Weis,” Cassidy said, “you’re under arrest—”
Heather let out a choked noise.
“What?” Tean asked.
“—for destruction of property, arson, vehicle hijacking, and conspiracy to commit murder. That’s only round one, so we’ll see what else we can come up with.” He grabbed Heather, and maybe he hadn’t done an arrest in a while, or maybe he was showing off for the redhead, or maybe he just wanted a chance to use those muscles, but whatever the reason, he swung her toward the wall. It wasn’t exactly a professional move under the best of circumstances, but Jem had seen it done, had had it done to him a few times, and he knew it was step one before the cop cuffed you, plus a nice way to remind you who was in charge. Unfortunately, Heather didn’t weigh as much as one of Cassidy’s usual perps, or the chief of police was out of practice, because she flew through the air and smashed face first into the wall.
“What is wrong with you?” Tean asked, working his phone out of his pocket.
“She stumbled,” Cassidy said, a hint of color coming into his cheeks. The Black deputy’s face soured, and even the redhead looked a little embarrassed. “You all saw she stumbled.”
Heather’s lip was split and bleeding when she reeled back from the wall, and Cassidy didn’t try to force her up against it again. She started to cry, and Cassidy, who was working the cuffs off his belt, shrank down a little. He didn’t exactly shout for backup or call for help, but it looked like his balls drew up by a few good inches.
Meanwhile, Tean was tapping his phone’s screen. He was trying to find the camera, God bless him, and normally watching him get lost—twice—in the calculator would have been one of those things Jem found too precious for words. Right then, though, the hair on the back of Jem’s neck was standing up as seconds ticked past and Cassidy’s attention swung from the cuffs to Tean to the phone to the gore dripping down Heather’s face.
“What’s that?” Cassidy’s hand dropped to his side, the cuffs now forgotten. “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?”
Tean brought the phone up. By some miracle, he’d found the camera, and now he tapped the screen. It was a still photo, not a video, but that didn’t stop him from announcing, “My name is Dr. Teancum Leon, and I’m witnessing—”
“Witnessing?” Cassidy moved faster than Jem expected, his free hand coming up as he stepped toward Tean. He swatted the phone out of Tean’s hand, and it flew across the room. Tean took a step like he was going after it, but Cassidy shoved him into Jem, and Jem had to steady both of them so they wouldn’t fall. In the meantime, Cassidy crossed the distance to Tean’s phone. He brought his heel up and then drove it down. Glass cracked. He did it again. And then again. Then he kicked the phone and sent it skittering under the couch. When he looked back at them, he wasn’t grinning. But Jem had known bullies—on the street, in the foster homes he’d cycled through, in every walk of life. He’d known them in Decker. And he knew the way bullies looked when they were happy. “You aren’t witnessing nothing,” Cassidy said.
Tean was shaking, and it took Jem a moment as he steadied him to realize that it was fury, not fear or surprise. “I don’t need a video recording. I’ll report you myself.”
“Is that right? And how do you think that’s going to go?”
No one spoke. The air was pulled from the room like a drawn breath. Jem realized which way things were going, and he used the cover of Tean’s body to reach into his pocket for the hex nut. Go for the face, he thought. Unless he reaches for his gun. Then you have to deal with the gun first. Not to mention the two uniformed officers outside with their guns.
“Chief?” The Black officer called. “Everything all right in there?”
“Everything’s fine, Leah.”
