If they were cops, that would certainly change things. Was Trixie being hunted by the police? Could she have donesomething wrong? Or were they making a mistake? Obviously, law enforcement didn’t always get it right.
They might be trying to catch up to her for protection, too.
Or they were dirty cops.
Maybe not cops at all.
He was about to have his answer sooner rather than later. Going into the store, he saw the two men had Trixie stopped. A woman in a red Target shirt with a name badge and an armed security guard where there too.
John could feel the tension even from where he stood.
He strode forward. His muscles were tight. Both eyes darted side to side taking everything in.
One of the guys had a badge out, claiming to be a cop.
He was lying. Heused to bea cop. John knew the guy.
L.A. was a big city. Not all first responders knew each other. But you answered enough calls and you met people. The idiot holding the badge was named Todd Stark. He had an awful reputation on the force, but a bad rep alone isn’t enough to get you kicked off.
Having multiple Internal Affairs investigations that find substantial proof of gross misconduct will get you kicked off.
Such was the case for good ol’ Stark.
He was an asshole of the highest order. The stuff of legends. A cautionary tale told to rookies to make them behave—and a story recounted by fireman in their rivalry with the cops to boast their claims that the LAFD was better than the LAPD.
So, John knew instantly that the badge Stark was holding wasn’t real.
Or at least it wasn’t valid. Might have belonged to a real cop at one time.
“That man’s not a real police officer!” The words surprised John as they left his mouth. He hadn’t formed a game planor anything. But seeing these guys so close to Trixie had him burning with white-hot rage.
Everyone looked at him, even Stark himself. Stark wore a blank expression, like he had no earthly idea who John was.
Typical. He’d always been an arrogant jerk. And cops meet so many people anyway.
John wasn’t going to give him an inch of wiggle room though.
“Surprised you still have that, Todd. Usually IA takes badges away from cops who get kicked off the force.”
That must have jogged his memory, John figured, because all of a sudden Todd said, “You’re not even a cop, fireman. You don’t know.”
He didn’t sound very convincing though. Tt seemed as if he was trying to inject some bravado into his voice.
“Well, don’t worry. I’ve called the police. So there will be plenty of ‘em around here to sort this all out soon.”
The two guys seemed a bit rattled. Now was the time to shake them up more. John stepped forward. To their credit, they didn’t back up.
When they finally saw Trevon, however, their posture softened a little.
“How are we going to do this, boys?” John asked.
He wasn’t used to talking tough. That wasn’t really his thing. Saving lives was. But unlike his usual situations, he realized he might have to fight a human rather than elements to rescue Trixie.
He’d do whatever it took.
In that moment, John learned that whether he was going up against a natural disaster or a human, his instincts reacted the same way. It was as if time slowed down for him. He had complete clarity of mind. The move Todd Stark made was easy to read, and John quickly dodged the punch with inches to spare.
Stark wasn’t so lucky with John’s counterstrike.
