Tommy had only lived at Shrouded Lake for the last year and a half, so he didn’t know the degree to which, before going to his uncle’s, Dalton had been feral.
Santiago could see the rage crawling through the haze of Dalton’s addiction. Santiago was of two minds: he could step aside and do the just thing, let Tommy really get to know Dalton; or he could do the legal thing and arrest Dalton and Tommy.
He sighed and reached for his handcuffs.
“Dalton you’re going to jail. Mercy, do you want to at least file charges against Tommy?”
“Yes, Sheriff. I do,” she said firmly, then turned to Dalton and slapped him hard enough to knock his ass straight back to reality.
“I’m going to my momma’s and I’m taking the kids. If youever?—”
“I won’t baby; I wouldn’t ever hurt you.”
“But youdidDalton, long before you threatened me with that knife,” she cried. “You get right and be a better man than you were before all of this or I promise you’ll never see me and the kids again. I love you, but it’s time for you to love yourself more than me or anyone else.”
She walked back into the house and closed the door.
It was hard to look at Dalton then. He looked at the house like the starving beat-up pup he’d once been. When he lifted his head to look at Santiago, there were tears in his eyes.
“I’m going to jail?”
“Yes son. You held a knife on your pregnant wife; there’s gotta be consequences for?—”
Dalton ran forward, and Santi cursed. For a minute Santiago thought Dalton was going for his truck. He didn’t want the headache of chasing down a man high on who knew what, and if Dalton got past them, he could hide out months if not a lifetime in these mountains.
Unfortunately for Tommy, Dalton wasn’t trying to escape.
Santiago and Roan looked on for longer than appropriate as the man beat the living shit out of Tommy. When Santiago stepped forward, Dalton stood and held his arms out, quietly allowing Santiago to cuff him and place him in the back of the cruiser. Roan rolled a half-conscious Tommy onto his back and cuffed him as well.
“We’re going to hell,” Roan said after securing Tommy in her vehicle.
Santiago nodded. “We’ll likely get fired first.”
He was becoming too comfortable with the possibility.
“I talked to Sonny this morning,” she said.
One of the last times Santiago had seen Sonny, it was under similar circumstances. Unlike with Dalton, Sonny’s behavior had felt like a betrayal.
“I’m going to go process Dalton in and follow up on some information around Ms. Willoby’s death. See you back at the station,” he said, walking to his cruiser.
This was the fifth time Roan had brought up Sonny in the last couple of weeks, but for reasons Santiago wasn’t ready to explore, he couldn’t let his anger at the other man go.
The drive to town started out peaceful, then Dalton called out from the back seat.
“Hey, Sheriff...”
“Yeah, Dalton?”
“You ever been loved by a beautiful, strong, kindhearted woman who believed in the good of you so fiercely you knew God had blessed you with something you’d begged for all your life but never received; the chance to get life right; to feel happiness and belonging; to finally be a person you could be proud of?”
“What on this blue earth would I do with a kindhearted woman?”
Dalton was touched in the head if he thought Santiago was going to talk to him about the state of his relationships. Or lack thereof.
Dalton laughed quietly. “I get it, you’re the strong silent type. Women probably fall at your feet like summer rain.”
Santiago turned on the radio.
