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All the while, I stared, unable to look away and imprinting the back of this asshole’s normal head into my memory banks.
Once the charges were listed, the judge gave both sides a chance to speak, and the defense attorney pissed me off too, as soon as he started talking, babbling about all of Freston’sgoodattributes. “He has a steady job, no prior involvement with the law.”
At that one, the judge glanced up in surprise from the papers she was reading and said, “Did I not hear right that he violated a restraining order?”
The defense attorney took a moment to look as if he’d swallowed a watermelon before answering, “One could argue that’s part ofthiscase. He has roots in this community, Your Honor. He’s not a flight risk.”
Near the end of the row where I was sitting, Julian started to stand as he growled, “Oh, this is such bullshit.” But Pick, who was sitting next to him, grabbed his arm and yanked him back down, silencing him.
At the front of the room, the county prosecutor thankfully spoke up. “But one could also argue,” he repeated the defense’s phrase cattily, “that the defendantisa risk to the three individuals he terrorized, one of them the very woman he broke his PFA against. He’s still a very real threat tothem.”
The judge nodded, letting the prosecutor know she’d heard him, but she was too busy reading to answer.
A moment later, she lowered the paper and said, “Bail’s set at two hundred and fifty thousand…” She went on to explain more to Freston specifically, but it all blurred in my head as a buzzing began between my ears.
But his bond hadn’t been denied.
They hadn’t fucking denied his bond.
Next to me, a confused Ayden was asking, “What does that mean? What just happened?”
“It means…” Trick shook his head sadly and took a moment to swallow. “If he paid twenty-five thousand dollars, he could get out of jail.”
“Well,ishe?” she demanded.
“I don’t know,” Trick admitted. “But I’m going to use whatever connections I have and keep my ear to the ground. Don’t worry, I’ll be the first to know if he does.”
Hushed and furious, worried voices spread around me, but I just kept staring as the guards came forward and had Freston stand before they escorted him from the room.
Before he exited through the door, however, he finally glanced back at all of us, and I got one moment of eye contact with him. I’m not sure why he settled his gaze on me, but out of all thirty-one of us looking at him, he sawme.
So I layered all the hatred, disgust, and loathing I had for him into that one stare, and thankfully, he started to appear worried before he jerked a worried gaze over the rest of us and then turned away and was nudged from the room.
“Dude, he can’t make that bond,” Trick tried to tell me. “He can’t afford it.” I knew he was just trying to reassure himself, though, not me.
Because we both knew that if he wanted out of there badly enough, he’d afford it. He could sell his stupid, douchey car or put his house up for a mortgage, sell his soul to some bondsman. He could gather the funds.
The question was whether hewould.
And it ate at me the entire day, all through my shift and until closing time. The group chat was lit up with speculations, but no one had actually learned anything new.
When my phone rang just before I was getting ready to leave for the night, I glanced at the screen, and fear skated across my abdomen when I saw that it was Pick.
“Hey,” I answered immediately, worried that Freston was free and he’d gone straight there to get Chloe. “Everything okay?”
“All good here,” Pick answered. “You just closing up?”
I frowned, wondering why he was calling if nothing was wrong. “Uh, yeah. We got about…” I glanced around the place. “Five minutes, tops, left here. What’s up?”
Chloe’s dad drew in a long breath, and I was sure I was going to hear that the monster was out and free. But all he said was, “I was just wondering if you were planning on stopping by again tonight?”
“I…”
Damn, a new worry emerged. He was going to tell me to stay away, wasn’t he? Instant sweat popped out on my brow. Panic made my heart race. How the fuck was I going to convince him to let me at least stop by and check on her?
Ever since her capture, this compulsive need to make sure she was okay had kept at me and not yet relented. My eight-hour shifts here, being forced away from her, were already driving me crazy enough. If Pick made me wait until morning, or God forbid, longer than that—
“I just wanted to say that if youarecoming by again tonight, come to the back. Keys are under the mat. And just keep ’em, alright? I’m not going to drag my ass down there at three in the morning, every damn night, just to let you in.”
