What looked like two dozen people milled around, half of them fighting while the other half moved to opposite sides of a marked field, bordered by orange cones.
The snow picked up again, and he shivered in his coat, bag in hand, as he looked where to best help. Another vehicle arrived, and two more officers joined the four already there, working on the rowdy half of the group, settling them into sections while taking statements.
And there,finally.He saw Cass next to Jed. Jed kept trying to push the three largest combatants aside, keeping them from hitting each other, while Cass dealt with the bloodied ones standing against the brick wall of the school. One large man appeared to be cupping snow to his eye. Another held snow to his nose, while a third stood against the wall, swearing and spitting out blood.
“Stupid bitch. This isn’t your business.” The idiot seemed to be directing his comments to Cass.
Mack swapped a look with Brad, both of them wondering if the man had a death wish.
Cass opened her mouth to say something and must have noticed Mack and Brad standing there because she closed her mouth and jerked her head at the bloodied trio before her. “A little help here.”
“Don’t need no help.” The argumentative ass she was dealing with, a man twice her weight and easily Brad’s height, tried to push her away as he left the wall.
“Mistake,” Mack muttered.
“Oh boy,” Brad said as they watched her yank him by the arm, moving him in front of her, so she could then angle his arm behind his back and take him to the ground, much as Mack had done to Templeton the other day.
She cuffed him, and he became as docile as a sleeping kitten.
Mack watched with real appreciation. “That was beautiful.” Would she be offended if he clapped?
Not police officers, Mack and Brad had no business getting in the middle of an altercation. They had to let the police do their jobs and wait to be asked into a stable situation. Firefighters had no right getting in the way of the police—as he’d heard his family insist time and time again.
So Mack waited with Brad while Cass, Jed, and the other officers got everyone calm.
But one dense—or maybe drunk—man didn’t seem to want to obey the order he’d gotten to stand down away from the men he’d been fighting with. He slipped by Jed and headed for Cass, shaking his finger at the man she’d taken down, now sitting with the other injured against the wall.
“Cass, incoming,” Jed called before slapping cuffs on the two women who refused to stop slapping at each other.
Before Mack could intervene, Cass said something to the bloodied crew against the wall, which had them all sitting still and quiet, more so than they’d already been. The man wagging his finger and fast approaching got one step closer, nearly touching her before she shut that down.
She had him on his knees, his arm behind his back, contained. “Now, sir, I don’t think you were going to assault me. But I can’t be sure, so we’re going to wait right here until you sober the hell up. Understand?”
He was crying and trying to obey, but her hold wasn’t making it easy.
“We should help,” Mack said.
“We shouldnothelp,” Brad argued. “This isn’t our job. Keep it in your pants and let the officers do their jobs.”
“Fine. But if he even looks like he’s thinking about trying to hit her again, I’m going in.”
“Sure thing, Romeo.” Brad put a friendly hand on Mack’s shoulder that felt like the grip of death.
Cass waited for the angry man to settle before letting him go. She ordered him to join the others against the wall, and he obeyed with a subdued “Sorry. Yes, ma’am.”
She nodded to Brad. “You guys can come over. Looks like a broken nose, broken tooth, and maybe a sprained ankle.”
“Don’t you mean sprained wrist, Officer Deadly?” Mack murmured as he looked down at the latest man she’d cowed, now sitting with his buddies against the wall.
“I’m sorry. What did you say?” She turned on him like a rabid wolf.
God, she made him want.
“You said a sprained ankle?” Mack said politely.
She glared at him. “Jed’s got him over there.”
“I got it.” Brad jogged to Jed and the miscreants now lined up against the far building.
