“Saving me?Saving me?” I try to throw myself over to head-butt him, but the cops hold me back. “I’m getting arrested! I’m in handcuffs in my pajamas! You didn’t save me.”
“You’re alive and unharmed.” Salinger’s infuriatingly stubborn.
“You don’t get a cookie!” I holler.
“And you don’t get to play the victim,” he snarls. “You refused to trust me, rejected my help again and again, and put people you care about in danger.”
“Why would I trust you, Salinger? You told me you were going to trap me on your island. You locked me up in your penthouse! I knew you’d act like a lunatic, I knew you’d go nuclear, I knew you’d do something stupid, and lo and behold, I was right. You not only got yourself arrested—you gotmearrested too.”
“I threw away everything for you because I love you,” Salinger insists, “and I’d do it again.”
Amy and Gran swoon.
“Don’t fall for it,” I warn them. “I saw you with Scarlett, Salinger. You don’t love me. You’re just doing this for your own gain.”
He’s fuming, his gray eyes slate-black. “You’re so stubborn. You almost got yourself killed because you wanted to play strong, independent woman—and also got your dog thrown in the pound.”
“Wait…” Lauren’s eyes narrow. “My Pepperoni is in doggie prison? Why?”
“Ask your fucking boyfriend, Lauren!” I yell at my sister.
The ambulance has arrived, and the EMTs are loading Jaxon into it like he’s the victim.
“You’re controlling and condescending, Salinger.” My hair is snarled in my face. “At least if I’m in jail, I’ll never have to see you again. I hate you, and I wish I’d never met you.”
“No, you don’t. You need me. I saved you. You know it—you just refuse to admit it.”
“No, I don’t. I am in my midthirties and have a dog and student-loan debt. I am a grown-ass woman and do not need you. I already had one crazy man in my life. I’m not trading him for a new one.”
“You selfish—”
“What? Bitch? Damn right. I am a bitch. I’m a basic-ass bitch who is not impressed by your speech.”
“You’re going to regret that.”
The cop opens the door to the nearest cop car and shoves me inside.
“Asshole!” I continue to hurl curse words at Salinger through the reinforced glass, my confused and shocked parents watching in the background as the squad car pulls away.
44
SALINGER
“You must have friends in high places.” The warden’s keys jingle as he unlocks the holding cell door.
As soon as they’d thrown me in the jail cell several hours earlier, the other drunks, homeless, and petty criminals took one look at the expensive suit and the blood on my knuckles and gave me a wide berth in the holding cell.
Crawford is waiting for me when they lead me out.
“A judge owed Hawthorne a favor,” he explained. “Bond was fifty thousand dollars. You can pay me back later.”
I stalk with him out of the jail into the chill of the early morning.
“I can’t fucking believe Mandy,” I fume as I get in the car. “I save her after she gives me the runaround, and this is the thanks I get. I tell her I love her, and she tells me she hates me. I was just trying to protect her.”
Crawford starts the engine.
I frown. “How did Mandy seem?”
