40

 

 

I almost made it off King Pigeon Lane before the red and blue lights appeared behind me. I pulled to the side of the road and kept my hands on the steering wheel.

Detective Cole stalked up to my car with Dan-o trailing behind. He tore open my driver’s door and clamped his hands onto my shoulder and collar.

“Wait—” I started to say, but too slowly.

Cole jerked me hard, but my seatbelt caught. His eyes widened slightly and he cursed. A moment later, he snapped open a knife with a hooked blade.

“Wait!” I said again, but he ignored me. One swift flick of the wrist and he’d slashed my seatbelt. The knife disappeared in the same fluid motion. Without hesitation, Cole ripped me out of the driver’s seat. His powerful grip on my shoulder sent pulses of pain throughout my upper body, but when my foot hit the pavement and all my weight came down on my bad knee, white pain lanced through my leg and into my lower stomach. I let out a guttural cry as I crumpled toward the ground.

Somehow, Cole kept me from falling entirely. He swung me around, planting me face first into the side of the car. I grunted when my cheek hit the window. Cole muscled me into a near-standing position, cranking on my wrist. I went up on my toes involuntarily.

“Knock it off!” I wheezed at him.

He leaned in close, whispering in my ear. “You couldn’t listen, could you? You had to be a smart guy.”

He sounded like the guy who attacked me in the alley, and the irony of that made me grin.

“What’s so funny?” Cole growled.

“You,” I said. “You’re a fucking joke.”

He didn’t respond immediately. Then I felt him pull back slightly. I realized what he was doing and tensed, but the pain in my kidney exploded at almost the same time. I gasped and slid down the car, but Cole’s grip stopped me.

“A joke, huh? How’s that for a punch line, asshole?”

I didn’t reply. Some movement in my peripheral vision caught my attention, and I focused on it. Dan-o was stepping in.

“I can take him, Cole.”

“I got him,” Cole snapped.

With smooth movements, Cole withdrew his cuffs and ratcheted them onto my wrists. I winced when the cold metal bit into my wrist bone.

“You gonna double lock those?” I said.

“Double lock your mouth,” Cole told me as he led me back to the car and stuffed me into the back seat.

 

 

The ride to the station was a quiet one. Cole drove while Dan-o followed in my car. I sat in silence, trying to figure out how much trouble I was actually in.

We pulled into the same building as before, and Cole walked me into the interview room next to the one I’d been in before. He shoved me into a seat and left the room without uncuffing me. Dan-o appeared at the door a minute later. I turned and raised the handcuffs toward him. He hesitated, then came into the room.

“Thanks,” I said as he unlocked the handcuffs.

“Don’t thank me,” he said. “You should’ve stayed away from this case.”

“Why?”

“Because we told you to.”

“It’s a free country,” I said. “Or I thought it was. I wasn’t aware I was living in a police state.”

He gave me a baleful look and held up the cuffs. “Maybe I should have left these on.”

I shook my head. “Taking those off is probably what’ll save you when I file a police brutality lawsuit.”

He stared at me for a long while. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

“Sure I do,” I said. “You’re the guy who wasn’t a total asshole last time around.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I mean, from before. When you were on the job.”

A cold, sinking feeling filled my gut. “I don’t,” I admitted. “Should I?”

“Probably not,” Dan-o said. “I was a Co-op at the time, going to the community college and volunteering for the department. We only met once, and that was out at the range. You were qualifying and I was stapling targets.”

I thought about it, looking at his face and trying to place it. His hair was dark brown and bushy. Remnants of light pockmark scars showed on his face where the beard didn’t cover. After a few moments, I shook my head. “Sorry, I don’t remember you.”

He shrugged. “No reason you should. But I remember you. Working graveyard with Tom Chisolm, taking out those gangbangers like you did. Getting the Scarface Robber.”

“Chisolm got Scarface,” I whispered.

Dan-o didn’t seem to hear me. “You were the guy me and all my friends in the program wanted to be.”

I sighed. “Yeah, well, I know how this story ends. So we don’t have to go any further down memory lane.”

He stared at me for a while longer, then shook his head, his expression pitiful. “Jesus, man. What happened to you?”

He seemed to be waiting for an answer of some kind, but I didn’t have one for him. I met his gaze silently, and after a little while, he turned and walked away without a word.