“Verdone, let’s slow this down,” he began but I was distracted by the vibration of my phone.
It buzzed again.And again.The third time, something in my gut twisted.I pulled it out and stared at the screen.A voicemail notification popped up.Then a text came through from that same unknown number.
U THINK U CAN TAKE HER FROM ME.
My blood went ice cold.I stopped walking so abruptly the captains looked back at me.
“What?”one asked.
I stared at the screen, thumb hovering over the message like it might bite me.Then another text came through.I’M NOT DONE.
I slowly lifted my eyes to the other officers.“He’s texting me,” I explained, voice low.
The older detective’s face hardened instantly.“Show me.”I held the phone out.
He read it, jaw tightening, then looked up at me.“He knows you were there.”
Of course he did.He had seen my face from the first incident.He had heard Lamonte shout my name.He knew Char and I were dating.He had been following her, she thought.Only I didn’t take it seriously enough obviously.He had watched me fight death off Char’s chest with my hands.And now he was out there, bleeding or not bleeding, high or not high, moving through the night like he owned it.This motherfucker was taunting me.
I felt that cold thing inside me settle deeper.
“Get cyber,” the Captain snapped to the other officer.“Now.We’re pulling location, pinging everything we can.”
Then he looked at me, eyes sharp.“And Verdone?”
“Yeah.”
“Until we have him in cuffs, you don’t go anywhere alone.You’re suspended with pay pending the investigation.You can drive the cruiser back to the station and park it whenever you leave, but know you’re off duty.Don’t take any calls and don’t pull anyone, you see someone needing a ticket, radio it in.”
They took my badge and gun while I thought of Char’s bruised throat.Lamonte’s blood.Nita’s shaking hands.
I nodded once.“Understood.”But inside, all I could think was one brutal, steady truth, if he came near them again, procedure wasn’t going to be what stopped him…I would.
And if this was the game he wanted to play, then game fucking on.I would hunt him to the ends of the earth all to make sure Char would breathe easy for the rest of her life.
This motherfucker, he kept this shit up, he wouldn’t keep breathing easy because he wouldn’t be breathing at all.I vowed that shit to my own soul.
Chapter9
Loco
Idrove to the hospital like the roads belonged to me alone.Red lights didn’t mean anything.Stop signs were suggestions.The speedometer climbed and kept climbing, and I didn’t care if I wrapped my cruiser around a tree because there was a sound in my head—one continuous, rising tone—like the universe was warning me, this was the part of life I would never make it back from.
My radio crackled with units moving, detectives making calls, the hunt for her ex already spinning up into a citywide net.I wanted to be in the thick of it.My hands were locked at ten and two, knuckles white, jaw clenched so hard my molars ached.
My phone buzzed again.Another unknown number.Another text I didn’t open.The screen lit up on my dash like a threat in my peripheral vision.I turned it face down on the seat and kept driving.
When I hit the hospital parking lot, the world narrowed.I parked crooked, barely in a spot, halfway ran inside, and pushed through the sliding doors.Everything smelled the same.Disinfectant and fear.A hospital was a battlefield with better lighting.
The waiting area looked exactly like it had an hour ago—dim, quiet, chairs bolted to the floor like they were afraid of people breaking loose.Two guys from my precinct were still there.A lieutenant now, too.And a woman I didn’t recognize in a blazer, probably from the department, probably already thinking about liability.
Nita stood by the wall, arms wrapped around herself like she was holding her ribs in place.
Nita’s eyes snapped to me when I entered.
“How did this happen?”she started with tears streaming down her face.I called her on the way over to say Lamonte had been taken back into surgery.I didn’t explain further, I ended the call and hit the gas harder.
I didn’t take in anyone else.I couldn’t.I just kept walking until I was right in front of the double doors for the surgery nurses station.
