Gordon’s voice was damn near feral. “Don’t you ever reference that man out loud in public. You hear me?”
Holy fucking Christ, his partner knew, too.
I’ve got to get back.
I had to get back to Naomi. I had to get back to the house. This was so much bigger than any of us could have predicted, and we were all in a hell of a lot of trouble. The fury that vibrated through the marrow of my bones had nothing on the fear I had for Naomi’s safety.
So, I pulled my cell out and shot off one last text.
Me: Gordon’s coming. Be ready. He wants to see us before he goes to his Captain with the evidence.
As I started disassembling my phone to be tossed into the ocean as I blazed by in the car, a commotion started outside. Women started screaming as glasses fell to the ground, and I peered over the steering wheel to figure out what the fuck had happened. I didn’t see much with everyone racing by, fleeing their half-eaten meals. But, what I did see what Gordon hovering over his partner as Barker laid there on the concrete.
Still as stone.
“Loyal, my ass,” Gordon murmured.
Before he spat on his partner and walked away.
I forced myself to wait as long as I could. I waited for what seemed like hours until I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Gordon was gone. Cars peeled out of the parking lot as waiters and waitresses surrounded Barker, who laid there on his back, completely unconscious.
I didn’t even know if the man was alive.
That is, until I heard someone yell.
“He’s got a pulse! Someone call 9-1-1!”
“Come on,” I murmured as I tossed my equipment into the back seat. I needed an opening. I needed everyone to leave, just for a second, so that I could grab those pictures. If that reel made it back to the precinct, we were fucked. We’d have to pack up shop, lest we risk an all-out war with the department itself.
And thank God, people were idiots during emergencies.
“Everyone inside! Now! Give the man some room to breathe!”
Someone started calling out orders, and it provided me with the perfect opening. I shimmied out of the car and snaked through the throng of people that came running at me, keeping my head down as much as possible. I leapt over the railing to the outside deck and knelt down next to Barker’s head. I placed my fingers against his pulse point, making sure he was actually alive before relief washed over me.
“Are you a paramedic?” a man barked at me.
I peeked up at him before removing my hood. “I was jogging by and heard the commotion. Figured I’d come check him out before my colleagues got here.”
The man’s voice immediately softened. “Is he going to be okay?”
I fiddled with the man’s temple and checked his pulse on his wrist. I busied myself with untucking his shirt and opening the buttons at the top to give him some room to breathe. Thank fuck, I’d been obsessed with magic as a kid. Being intrigued with sleight of hand shit got you beat up on the playground.
But, it made retrieving the digital camera of pictures—along with the man’s cell phone—effortless.
“Yeah,” I said as I quickly tucked his things into my hoodie pocket, “he should be good. He’s concussed, though, so don’t move him until the ambulance gets here. Time will be of the essence.”
The man grew frantic. “What can I do in the meantime?”
I pointed back inside as I stood. “Go get some cold water. Get a washcloth on his head, and a warm washcloth on his chest. It’ll help with the swelling and keep the blood circulating through his heart.”
The man nodded. “I can do that. Be right back.”
And the second the man disappeared, I tore back to the car and got the fuck out of there.
The first thing I did was destroy Barker’s phone. I sped toward an alcove just off the highway and cracked the screen over my knee. I wiggled it back and forth, finally getting that damned back panel off so that I could remove the SIM card. I fractured everything into pieces, crumbling it in my hands as specks of blood pierced through my skin. I tossed it over the cliffside, down into the angry ocean as the storm raged louder than ever above my head.
Then, I did the same thing with the digital camera.
