AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 23
“At least we’re waiting in a room this time.” Maxi grinned over at Billy.
He smiled back despite the fact that he didn’t share her view that their location was a silver lining. They’d been at the station for almost two hours. As soon as they arrived they were led back to a small room similar to the one that they’d met with Detective Grover in the last time they’d been called down here.
It was definitely more comfortable than the waiting room, but there was one big drawback. There was no cell service. That didn’t stop him from checking his phone every five minutes. He knew that each time he looked at his phone none of the little bubbles in the top left corner would be filled in, but he had to admit that every time he picked it up there was moment of hope that he felt right before he confirmed what he already knew. His behavior was what some people would call the definition of insanity. He kept repeating the same action and expecting a different result.
“Seriously. You can go outside if you need to use the phone. I’m in an interrogation room. In a police station. I’m safe.” Maxi made that same argument that she’d made at least ten times since they sat down.
He gave the same answer. “No, I’m good.”
He wasn’t. While he’d been dealing with his mom he’d missed a call from Nate. When he got to the station he’d checked his message, but all that it said was, “Call me.”
Before he’d had a chance to dial the number, a plainclothes officer told them to follow him and even if this was a police station, Billy wasn’t going to let Maxi out of his sight. So here he was, in the dark. He had no intel on who Grover had picked up or what was going on. He hated it.
Maxi didn’t seem that thrilled either. Over the past couple of hours she’d graduated to code-red nervousness. All the signs were there. Finger drumming, foot tapping, hair twisting, and his personal favorite lip biting.
Every time she pulled her full bottom lip between her teeth he forgot, for just a second, where they were and why they were there. He forgot that the only reason they were together, in this moment and for the past two weeks, was because she was in danger. He forgot about the fact that he’d had to take her to his mom’s house where she witnessed Deborah Marshall in all of her drunken glory. He forgot that Maxi wasn’t really his—that they weren’t really together—and that after this was over there was a very good possibility that she might walk away and not look back.
He forgot about everything except how good that lip felt against his when he was kissing her.
Releasing her lip she took a deep breath and her eyes fell to her hands that were folded on the table. “Um, I know you probably don’t want to talk about it, but I just wanted to say that I’m sorry about what happened…um, before…at your mom’s.”
“I’m the one who’s sorry. You should never have had to see that.” He never took people with him when he visited his mom, or in this case, dealt with his mom.
Not because he was embarrassed, he’d stopped being embarrassed by his mom a long time ago. After the scene she’d caused at the gym when he was a teenager, Charlie had helped him come to the place where he finally truly believed that she wasn’t an extension of him. She was her own person. She made her own decisions. That knowledge allowed him to do the same. Now he didn’t let her behavior manipulate him into doing things he didn’t want to do or would regret later. Some people still might characterize his actions as enabling, but to him he had created boundaries that he didn’t let her cross.
When he’d received the text that if he didn’t get over there she’d be calling him from jail because she was going to kill Larry, he knew that he couldn’t ignore it, no matter how badly he’d wanted to. She rarely got violent when she drank, but when she did, bad things happened.
Billy hated what he’d exposed Maxi to, but if his mom’s threats would’ve been real and he’d ignored the message, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself. This time, thankfully, it seemed like she was just doing it for attention. He knew that was a possibility since she’d played that card before. Still, he’d gone because if it wasn’t just attention seeking behavior she could’ve hurt someone else or herself.
Reaching across the table, Maxi’s slender fingers covered his. Her clear blue eyes were shining with sincerity. “I’m glad I saw it. I’m glad I was there because the thought of you having to face that alone breaks my heart.”
Her words hit him square in the chest like a punch from the Hulk. He’d had the wind knocked out of him from falling out of a three story building when he was ten years old, playing pee wee football when he was twelve, and of course in the ring. But he’d never had it happen from just words until now.
Maxi had no idea of the power of what she’d just said. How could she? He’d never told anyone that growing up he’d never understood why he had to deal with his mom and all the drama she’d brought into their lives. Maxi’s words spoke directly to the scared nine-year-old kid that slept with a baseball bat under his pillow in case he had to defend his mom from some random asshole that she’d brought home. It spoke to the terrified twelve-year-old boy whose hand was shaking so much he dropped the gun—that he’d bought from a friend at school after several rounds with the baseball bat had ended badly—the first time he pointed it at a loser that decided it was a good idea to beat up his mom. Her words spoke to the kid that no one ever saw because he’d always put on a show to the world, that he was tough and nothing hurt him. Nothing scared him. Nothing affected him. She saw him, just like Charlie had in that grocery store. The real him.
He was still trying to catch his breath when the door opened and Grover came in. “Thanks for coming in on such short notice.”
Unlike the time they were there before, when Maxi snatched her hand away from him, she left it holding his. He wanted to tell her how much that meant to him, but since he couldn’t, he showed her by lifting his thumb and running it over the back of her knuckles.
Grover was all business as he sat and pulled out a folder, he opened it and removed two pictures that he slid across the table. “Do you recognize this man?”
Billy scanned the images. A young male. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Fairly non-descript.
Maxi studied the photographs as well before shaking her head. “No.”
“His name is Isaac Tully. We picked him up for a B&E this morning. He was fingerprinted and his prints matched the partial we were able to pull off the cardboard box that was delivered to your office. We cross referenced facial recognition technology from the security camera outside your building the day of the break-in and we can put him on your street at six-forty five a.m.”
“Who is he?” Maxi asked as she continued looking at the pictures. “How does he know me?”
“He’s been in and out of trouble for the past four years. The reason his prints weren’t in the system when we originally ran them was because his priors were all when he was a minor and they’d been sealed. He turned eighteen four months ago and hadn’t been picked up for anything since. We still don’t know what his connection to you is and he’s not answering any of our questions. The second we brought up your case he lawyered up.”
Shit.If the kid had a lawyer there was no way Billy could get in to question him. He wanted five minutes alone with him, that’s all, and now that would be impossible. Not to beat the shit out of him, to talk to him. His Spidey-senses were telling him this guy wasn’t anything more than a common thief. He didn’t have any better feeling about this suspect than he had about Carter.
“What about the pictures from the gym? Does he have a computer? Did you find anything on it?” Maxi sounded skeptical.
“We’re working on it. He doesn’t have a known address, but you know how tech savvy kids are these days. There’s internet cafés and even the library has Wi-Fi.”
