by K. L Randis
“Jared?” Flick’s face showed more surprise than her voice. On instinct the guard raised his Glock but Jared remained poised and calm. “Put that down Greg, he’s with us.” The uneasiness of her voice in her statement was validating. She wasn’t sure what side Jared was on at the moment, he knew that, and she darted her eyes from his mom to Hailey then back to his. “What’s going on here?”
“I needed to give you this,” Jared said. The cell phone cruised through the air and in reflex Flick opened her hands to catch it.
She looked down at the phone, not understanding. “What for?”
Jared shrugged his shoulders. “You know you underestimated me, Flick. I had no doubt you would find Dex eventually, but I was sorry to hear that you had killed him. I’m not sure that was part of the plan.”
Flick cocked her head to the side. She couldn’t understand how Jared had found his mother and Hailey or what he planned to do. She didn’t have the patience or time to wait it out either. “I did what I had to do given the circumstances. He was no use to me alive.”
“How’s that?”
“He knew too much. Particularly, he knew too many ways in which I could eliminate you if and when the time came and that was too much of a liability to me.”
“And I’m not now?”
“I think you know the answer to that. I also think we both know you won’t be leaving this room alive or with your family as you probably hoped. I have two men waiting at the door and another in the car. Perhaps you underestimated me, Jared. I’m not sure why you felt the need to snoop around.” Flick eyed Hailey, a shadow of disappointment clouding her eyes. “For a moment I cared about your motives when I first opened this door but in all reality, you’ve set the train in motion and I don’t believe I’ll be needing you any longer. This is where you jump off.”
She raised her own Glock, positioning it at a parallel with his head. Hailey started to rock back and forth in defiance. “Keep rocking and I’ll kill you first, girlie,” Flick said, her eyes never leaving Jared’s. “I’m disappointed Jared. I thought we were on the same page with things.”
“Oh, like this page?” Jared asked, opening the bedroom closet. A tumbleweed of gallon-sized Ziploc bags tumbled onto the floor. A few million dollars worth of Lace was sprawled on the floor in front of them and stuffed to the brim inside the closets capacity.
Flick eyed the bags. “What’s all that doing here?”
“All? Oh, no this is only half. The other half is at your warehouse. You know, the one you have my father being held hostage in.”
The front door of the apartment exploded and before Flick could rebuttal there were several U.S. Marshals swarming the room and putting her and her guard in cuffs. “You crazy son of a bitch what the hell is this!” Flick screamed at Jared.
Jared pointed to the bags of pills resting at his feet. “This is what you taught me Flick. It’s just a few million in Lace, hiding in plain sight.”
U.S. Marshal Marvin Price walked through the front door once Flick was secured. His first stop was the bathroom with a forensic specialist. After a moment he appeared in the bedroom and nodded in Jared’s direction. On cue he reached down and removed the tape from Hailey’s mouth and started to undo her restraints.
Price turned to Flick as she struggled to get at Jared. After realizing her efforts were futile, she shook her head in disgust as Jared pulled the wire out from under his shirt. “Guess we finally have something to tie you to, huh sweetheart?”
“Go to hell Price,” Flick said. “I was here taking this junkie down and my lawyers are going to hand you your ass for this. Now let me go!”
“Not likely,” Jared said. “Oh and Price? You might want to check her phone. She’s mentioned something about keeping a tracking device on the whereabouts of the other half of her drug supply. Some kind of app or something.”
“I’ve never seen that phone in my life you little shit,” Flick said.
“No? Me either. But I’m sure it’ll have your prints all over it.” Jared had deleted the phones contents with the exception of the locator app. He had wiped it down and kept it in a cloth in his pocket. He knew that if he threw it in Flick’s direction she’d catch it. Now it would serve as a link between the apartment and the warehouse; her prints would be the only one’s on it.
He’d also placed a tile locator at the production house when he had gone to clean out the massive stockpile of Lace to place it all in each of the two locations. He left a few bags on the counters, of course, to tie her to that location as well. He’d also printed out contact sheet of every doctor, pharmacist and law enforcement individual Jared knew of that she had under her thumb and within her ring.
She spit in his direction and dug her red heels into the floor as they dragged her away. Price sauntered over to Jared’s side, the two of them watching her carry on and curse.
“Can I ask you something?” Pierce asked, smiling in Flick’s direction.
“Anything,” Jared replied.
“When we first started listening in you said you had to give her something. What was it?”
Jared shrugged. “Oh…just the middle finger.”
“Sure it wasn’t a phone?”
“It was definitely not a phone.”
Price nodded, his wide-toothed grin showing that he was complicit. “Of course not. Just had to check.” He motioned toward the women as they had the last of their restraints removed and were being looked over by paramedics. “Don’t be fooled by the turmoil in your gut wondering if you did the right thing here kid. You did. Your town won’t ever be the same.”
Jared opened his arms and Hailey slid into them, burying her face into his chest. His mom was shortly at his side, her arms struggling to encompass both of them and bring them close.
A warm smile spread across Jared’s face as he let Price’s words sink in. “Yeah,” he murmured, enveloped in tranquility. “My town…”
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
K.L. Randis, author of bestselling novel Spilled Milk and the Pillbillies series, started journaling at the age of six and had short stories and poetry published by the time she was thirteen.
She is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University and a certified expert in the field of domestic violence. She has since written numerous local publications that brought awareness to domestic violence and child abuse. K.L. Randis engages audiences on a local and national level to raise awareness about child abuse, serving as a frequent commentator to media outlets. She has developed local high school presentations on teen dating violence and was named Community Woman of Distinction for 2011 by East Stroudsburg University.
Spilled Milk is her first novel, which grabbed the #1 bestsellers spot in the genre of Child Abuse on Amazon for eight consecutive months only 24 hours after it’s debut. She resides in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania.
Contact the Author:
Website: www.klrandis.com
Email: [email protected]
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Twitter: @KLRandis
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ALSO BY K.L RANDIS
Spilled Milk: Based On A True Story
#1 bestselling novel
Brooke Nolan is a battered child that makes an anonymous phone call about the escalating brutality in her home.
When social services jeopardize her safety, condemning her to keep her father’s secret, it’s a glass of spilled milk at the dinner table that forces her to speak about the cruelty she’s been hiding. In her pursuit for safety and justice Brooke battles a broken system that pushes to keep her father in the home.
"Randis later would testif
y at a criminal trial against her father, who was sentenced to prison for his crimes. He was sentenced to up to 16 years in 2004. Her painful — and ultimately triumphant — story is recounted in Randis' first novel, "Spilled Milk."- Brown, Stacy. Interview with the Pocono Record Newspaper
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