The coroner was able to retrieve it from my dad’s body, but like most metal, it heated up.
And, because I knew what happened when hot metal heated up against skin, I knew that there were pieces of him still embedded in the watch even after they’d gotten it off of him.
Needless to say, Sophia had been hesitant to do anything with the watch.
I hadn’t blamed her, and honestly hadn’t asked about the watch until a few years ago when we’d been laughing at a story and remembering Dad’s pride when he’d shown off that watch.
Sophia had still had the watch in an evidence bag in her bedroom closet.
We’d both looked at that watch, still caked with blood and other things, and put it back.
But apparently Haggard had decided that the time was now.
He’d had the watch restored and cleaned, and he’d sent it to me via his best friend that was visiting family in Dallas.
Since I’d been forced into running, I’d had him deliver it to Calliope until I was done running.
I just hadn’t expected her to put it on or to leave her house. Or to be running off to Paris, Texas, to visit Harlow.
Though, visiting Harlow might not have been what actually happened if Harlow’s words had been true.
“It’s all my fault” weren’t usually words that came out of Harlow’s mouth.
I liked my friend a lot, but she was a stubborn bitch, and never admitted when she was wrong.
I had a feeling that was why she couldn’t keep a good man.
She had no problem keeping the shitty ones, however.
Even worse, the shitty ones stuck like those burrs you get out in the middle of a grassy field on fuzzy clothing that just won’t come off.
Cedrick, her newest douchebag, had to be the worst of the lot.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the one that’d arrested Calliope.
He never did like it when a woman smarted off to him, and Calliope was the queen of smarting off.
I followed the sound of the raised voices and then stopped when I was at the counter that barred me from entering the back.
The police station was set up like one large room with a couple of jail cells in the back right corner and desks all around the cells. The left side looked to house bathrooms and a small shower stall—all covered—and the front was separated by a long, large desk that ran about belly height.
“I’ll take it,” I called out.
Calli, who was being blocked from view by two large, burly officers that looked like they couldn’t pass a physical either in mind or body, finally came into view.
What I saw made my stomach ache.
She looked angry as hell, ready to fight anyone that came close to her, and damn the consequences.
The door opened behind me just as Calli said, “You can give the watch to him. It’s his.”
“How do we know that you didn’t steal it?” he asked. “This looks like too fancy of a watch to belong to either one of you.”
“If you touch that watch, I’ll have this entire police station housing brand new cops because y’all will be…”
A new male’s voice finished for me before I could say what I really wanted to say. “…finding new jobs.”
I looked over my shoulder to see an older man, who was very fit and had the sharpest, shrewdest eyes I’d ever seen, cross his arms and stop in the middle of the police station. His feet were braced apart, as if he fully expected them to fight him on his words.
