Chapter Forty-Two
“Man down! Man down!”
Brit heard the words. And in some distant part of his brain, he knew they were talking about him. But he didn’t want to be the man down, so he tried to stand up.
“Stay down! We got him.”
It took Brit a minute to realize it was Quarles talking—another minute to realize that his partner was running his hands over his shoulders. Damn, he liked the guy, but not like that. He swatted at his hands.
“The vest caught it, you lucky bastard.” Quarles smiled. “But I know it still hurts like hell, doesn’t it?”
Brit pushed Quarles back and jackknifed up. He didn’t hurt. Well, he did, but not bad enough to lay on the ground while his partner ran his hand over him. He balanced himself on his two weak legs, but his lungs still weren’t completely functioning. He scanned the backyard to make sure Quarles hadn’t been lying. Then he stepped forward, needing to see for himself the son of a bitch who’d killed his partner and tried to kill him was in custody.
“Easy,” Quarles said.
Brit saw Adams yank the cuffed suspect from the ground. Brit started forward again, but Quarles grabbed him by the arm.
“Don’t do it.”
Brit’s gaze took in the dark-haired suspect, wearing jeans and a school jersey. He might be eighteen, but he didn’t look a day over fifteen, and he probably didn’t weigh a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet. He was just a kid.
Which probably explained why Keith and Anderson hadn’t had any defensive wounds on them. The boy didn’t look like a threat.
But he was. He’d taken lives. Innocent lives. Brit curled his fist up tight. He thought about Keith’s son and hoped like hell that Keith Jr. was an old man before this punk ever saw freedom.
Fifteen minutes later, the suspect had been carted away and the crowd was beginning to thin. Brit spotted Adams walking over, a huge frown on his face.
Brit had refused medical attention, and no doubt the man was pissed and planned to jump Brit’s ass about it.
As soon as Adams got close, Brit spoke up. “Get that look off your face old man. I’m fine. It’s just a bruise.”
Adams hesitated before speaking. “It’s not that. Nolan Bright got to Cali McKay. We got a couple of units heading to her apartment now.”
~
Three cops were parked in front of Cali’s apartment when Brit brought the unmarked police van to a sudden stop. He spotted a couple of paramedics shutting the back of an ambulance and bolted out of the van.
“Who you got?” He ran up to them, his chest so tight he thought it would crack.
When they didn’t answer right away, he flashed his badge. “I asked you a question.”
One man held up his hand. “Calm down. We got the perp.”
“Cali McKay?” Saying her name brought a wave of pain to his heart.
“She’s in the apartment giving a statement. She’s fine.”
He heard a car screech to a halt behind him. Looking back, he saw Quarles and Adams getting out. But he didn’t wait; he took off, taking the steps two at a time, just wanting to see her for himself.
The officer holding fort at the door recognized him, and shifted back to let him inside.
He took one step inside and then stopped. She sat on the sofa. No blood. No signs of injury, not physically, anyway. Emotionally was another matter.
Just the way she wrapped her arms around herself told him how upset she was. She needed someone to hold her.
The image took him back to when he’d first seen her. She wasn’t wearing a Mickey Mouse nightshirt, but she looked just as vulnerable, just as devastated. A victim.
“A hell of a girl there.” Officer Logan, Mike Anderson’s old partner, stepped beside Brit. “She took the guy out.”
“How bad?” Brit asked.
“Nothing serious. He’s just unconscious.”
“Then someone needs to finish the job.” And Brit would love to volunteer for the job.
Brit noticed Tanya, Cali’s friend, sitting in the chair. Her gaze met his and she frowned at him.
He looked away from her and back to Cali.
“She’s not hurt, is she?” he asked Logan just to be sure.
“Just shaken up.”
Cali bit down on her lip and he saw a sheen of tears in her eyes. And just like that, he remembered what an ass he’d been to her in the beginning. He remembered with clarity the awful things he’d said to her when he’d caught her trying to visit Humphrey.
Then she looked over toward the door, toward him. The hurt and anguish he saw in her eyes made him catch his breath. Knowing he’d been partly responsible for putting it there sent a bolt of regret echoing in his chest.
A hell of a girl. Logan’s words rang in his head. And she deserved a hell of a guy. She deserved someone so much better than him. Not someone who carried the baggage from his dysfunctional childhood—doomed to screw up any relationship he had. Unable to breathe, but telling himself it was the right thing to do, he turned and left.
~