“But a man is okay?” she snapped.
My eyes bored holes into her forehead.
If I was a lesser man, I’d fucking let her have it with both barrels. I’d tell her that she was a woman in a man’s world, and she didn’t have to be a hard ass to prove that she belonged here. She only needed to be confident in her abilities to prove right from wrong.
But since she was an asshole, and yes, women could be assholes, she tried to go a different route that didn’t involve her asking nice questions to get the same results. No, she just came off as a bitch because she was bringing up old memories that had nothing to do with the current case that she was supposed to be investigating.
“I only beat men to death when I walk in on them raping my little sister, thank you,” I told her bluntly.
Her face blanched, and I realized that she hadn’t known why I’d killed that man.
My records were hidden.
Since I’d been a minor at the time the records had been sealed. If one looked up my record, they’d only see an arrest.
The charges against me had been dismissed, and I’d been acquitted of everything, including the murder of Jay Shaw.
Though, everyone in the town that I lived in at the time likely knew me and everything about me and my entire family.
Hence the reason for moving two states away.
Though, I didn’t think that Jay’s parents would’ve followed me.
But they did.
And so had one of my brothers and Amy.
Now the Shaws were here in Mooresville doing their level best to ruin my life and dishing out the same treatment to my brothers, Finley and Reed.
Reed didn’t actually live here, though. Since he was in the Army working as a doctor with the reserves, he bounced around a lot. Sometimes he’d stay in Alabama, and other times he’d stay in Texas.
They targeted Finley just for fun, but when Reed was here, they went after Reed out of pure hate. Although I assumed that had more to do with the fact that Jay’s sister had been dating my brother, Reed, at the time that I caught Jay raping our sister.
In the aftermath of all that happened, their youthful relationship had gone off the rails when Reed broke up with her as soon as he learned what had happened.
Krisney Shaw was a sweetheart, though, and it was unfortunate that she was painted with the same brush as her two awful parents and her rapist brother.
Not that Reed cared.
But it was obvious, even to me, that those two still had strong feelings for each other.
“I…I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” Officer Bakersfield apologized.
I shrugged. “Is there anything else I can help you with?” I asked. “I have a lunch date with my soon to be fiancée, and I don’t want her thinking I stood her up.”
She looked at her watch.
“Yes,” she sighed. “I’m done.”
I stood up.
“Officer Hail?”
I paused on my way to the door and looked back at her.
“I’m not a bad person. I try to be fair. I try to be thorough and careful in my work,” she hesitated. “I can tell you’re one of the good ones…but there are some bad ones, and it’s not always easy to tell the good ones from the bad ones. Do you know what I’m saying?”
The sad thing was that I did.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I do.” I stopped. “But there are other ways of going about doing your job without going straight for the jugular.”
Her lips twitched. “When you’re a woman in a man’s world, then you can lecture me on how I should do my job. Until then, I have the vagina and you have the penis. You have the advantage. Always.”
I looked at her and read the sincerity on her face.
“I wish that wasn’t true, Officer Bakersfield.”
She shrugged, and then started packing up her things.
“It is what it is; maybe one day that might change. But, for now, it is. Have a good day, Officer. Thank you for protecting us.”
Knowing a dismissal when I heard one, I left the room and didn’t look back.
***
“So they just dropped the case?”
I nodded.
“Why?”
I was startled to hear that come from not Audrey, but Mina, Audrey’s sister-in-law and Ghost’s wife and old lady.
I didn’t know why she was here. I just knew that she was and that I was holding both of her kids, the infant in the crook of my arm who was sleeping and the older one sitting in my lap and talking to me a mile a minute in between the questions I was answering from the two women across the table.
“Honestly?” I said. “I don’t know. It seems so surreal when yesterday everything looked so dire.” I paused. “Though, from what Captain Mickey said to me as I was leaving to meet with IA—Internal Affairs,” I said when Audrey started to look confused. “He told me that we had three officers out with the flu and that he’d given IA a ten-day window to work under.”
“That, and they got some help from a third party,” Ghost said as he walked into the restaurant and sat down, dragging a chair over from another table. We just watched him in surprise at that statement as he did.
Once he was seated, he plopped a thick file folder down in front of me.
“I was able to get some new information to them on these girls, or more specifically, the con that the parents of these two girls have been running all over the country using the girls. At least eleven separate incidents—that we know of—all very similar to the one involving you. Although, this was the first time they’d taken drugs—that was obviously the girls’ spin on this fucking scheme.”
“Language,” Mina said almost casually as she gestured for a kiss.
Ghost gave her one, then looked at his daughter.
“No hug?”
She grinned and got up to give him a hug, but she turned around and came right back to my lap as soon as she was done.
“Replaced,” Ghost pantomimed stabbing himself in the heart. “Anyway, I was also able to pull the dash cam feed. Apparently…”
“Wait, how did you find that?”
He grinned. “I hacked into…”
I held my hand up in disagreement. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”
He shrugged. “When I was able to obtain the feed, I sent the video—the complete video—to the station and to the IA director personally. That’s probably why she was through with you in two hours instead of eight.”
Wasn’t that the truth.
“Thanks, man.”
He didn’t respond.
In fact, he didn’t respond for so long that I looked up at him, not realizing I’d dropped my gaze to his daughter, the smaller of the two, until the silence had overtaken the entire table.
“What?”
He was staring at me.
“Oh, dammit,” Audrey interrupted. “I spilled hot sauce on my crotch.”
I looked up to find a wide red splotch on her jeans as she stood up. “I’ll be right back.”
I snorted and watched her go, not realizing that the silence had continued after she left until I looked first at Mina and then to Ghost.
“What?” I repeated.
“You fixed her.”
My brows rose.
“Although I want to beat your ass for crossing that line…I’m glad that you did.”
My heart stuttered in my chest.
“So you’re saying you approve?”
He shrugged. “I’m saying that I can live with it because it’s obvious that she adores you. I don’t know how you did it, and honestly, I’m not sure that I want to know. But she’s happier than I could’ve ever made her on my own. And, for that, I owe you more than just my gratitude.”
Something in my chest loosened at hearing those words.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Do you think fish can get cancer?”
I looked down at Ghost’s daugh
ter, Sienna. “Maybe? I’m not really a fish expert.”
Sienna and I had formed a bond during our time together in the panic room. We’d been in there while Ghost, his wife and Audrey fought off armed attackers.
We tried to keep each other calm, and even though she’d been a young child, she’d been so strong.
I had been shot in the neck, and I had blood all over me. I was bleeding steadily, and I was trying very hard not to pass out from the blood loss. I didn’t want to pass out and not be able to tell the others what had happened, so I’d teased, joked and told stories to Sienna all while I was in so much pain that I very much needed to throw up.
You don’t live through something like that with another person, adult or child, and not form a bond, and it was very clear that she favored me over all the others.
Not that I minded. I liked Ghost’s kid. I liked that she was warm to me, and especially now that I was seeing her aunt.
It just gave me another leg up.
I was paying attention to Sienna’s next reply, so I missed the first half of what Ghost said.
“What?”
Ghost stood up in answer, his body vibrating with tension.
My gaze moved in the same direction where I now heard a commotion coming from, and my stomach dropped at what I saw.
The Shaws were in the same restaurant as me.
We’d managed to avoid seeing each other lately. I’d even gone as far as to avoid going into a restaurant if I saw that they were there. Sometimes it was just easier to avoid them. It went against the grain to do so, but my blood pressure needed a break every now and then.
But by the look on their faces as they glared at Audrey, I realized that it wouldn’t be happening today.
No, something had changed and likely, that was the fact that their little plan had backfired. If they’d hired those girls and their parents to do something to me and my career, then it was only a matter of time before Ghost would eventually get to them.
Now they were here to cover their asses, and to do that, they’d found Audrey alone, and had started to fill her with lies.
Fuck!
Patting Sienna’s back I said, “Get up, honey. I need to go over there.”
Ghost started striding across the room before I’d even made the pass off from myself to Mina with her younger daughter.
By the time I got across the room where Audrey was now angrily yelling at the couple about ‘an innocent girl who didn’t deserve to have their filthy, fucked up son touching her,’ I was no longer worried that the Shaws were telling lies about me. I knew it.
I arrived just in time to hear Ephraim Shaw Jr. tell Audrey that his son was a model citizen.
“Jay was a good person,” Ephraim bellowed in Audrey’s face.
Ghost pushed Ephraim back until there was more than two feet of space between them, but that only gave room for Brenda Shaw to step in.
“He was my baby and that monster killed him by beating him to death.”
Audrey took a step forward, but I caught her around the waist before she could get closer to the vile woman.
“You think that your son didn’t deserve that?” Audrey asked, deceptively calm. “Let me tell you something, had my brother been there when I was raped, he would’ve done the exact same thing.” She was shaking in anger at that point. “Then again, maybe it’s okay in your book that your son raped a young girl for years. A girl around the same age as your daughter.” Audrey pointed to the side of the room.
That was when I noticed Krisney in the corner of the room. Her face was pale, and she looked like she’d rather be anywhere but where she was.
Ghost grunted in approval at Audrey’s words.
I looked around when I heard all the gasps from the other diners, and I almost missed the way that Brenda stepped forward and tried to slap her hand across Audrey’s face.
She would have, too, since Ghost was still blocking Mr. Shaw’s path, and I was looking the other way.
Krisney, however, did not miss it.
She was across the space so fast that I barely turned my gaze back to her when she caught her mother’s hand in an iron grip… and flew with her mother’s momentum.
Krisney was a small woman. Much smaller than her father and mother.
She was about five foot one, maybe a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet and just about the sweetest thing you’d ever meet.
Krisney went flying to the floor, and I moved Audrey out of the way by swinging her up and around, depositing her behind me before I turned back to the woman who used to make Jay and I cookies when we hung out at their house.
There was no sign of that woman in the one that was standing before me.
Especially not when she balled up her fist and hit me.
I let her.
I could’ve moved.
I probably should’ve moved, but I didn’t.
Her balled up fist hit my eye, and a starburst of pain came and went just as quickly.
My head didn’t even rock with the hit, but I could tell that Mrs. Shaw was proud of herself.
“I let you have that one hit for your son, Mrs. Shaw,” I said very carefully. “But that will be the last one you get. Shaw - Jay,” I corrected since the Shaws hated it when I called him Shaw, “was your son. I realize that, but what you don’t seem to understand is that he committed the ultimate act of violence against my sister. He did it repeatedly and right under my nose for years. I walked in on him in the act of raping her. Trust me when I say that he deserved what he got, and I’d never change what I did, even given the option. My sister’s gone. Your son’s gone. It’s time for you to stop acting like a raving lunatic over something that you know can’t be changed. I’m sorry that he did what he did and it has led to where we are now. I’m sorry that this happened to all of us. But it’s time to stop taking it out on me when you know in your heart that you’d have done the same damn thing had you been in my situation.”
Brenda didn’t reply, but I could tell that she wanted to.
Her angry eyes were practically brimming with accusations that she wanted to scream at me.
But luckily, Ghost saved her from looking like a fool.
“It’s time to go. Cops are here.”
Brenda’s head whipped around.
“Ma’am, sir,” said the cop, a young rookie who looked to be in his early twenties. “I’ll be escorting you out now.”
“Why not him?” Brenda hissed.
The cop looked to where she was pointing. “I saw you hit him, ma’am. I’ve already questioned a few of the patrons about what they witnessed, and they’ve told me that this man only came over here to defend his girlfriend.”
“He’s dressed like a thug,” Brenda growled, gesturing toward my cut. “I just wanted to come eat here, and he offended me. He’s in a biker gang, for Christ’s sake. Who do you really want to believe here?”
“He’s in a motorcycle club,” Ghost corrected. “And he’s a police officer. He’s been one for years now, and before that he was a Navy SEAL. Trust me when I say that you’re barking up the wrong tree. And don’t think I didn’t notice the multiple complaints you file against him, his house, his fucking dog. I also saw you check his mail…which I might add is a federal offense.”
That was news to me. I hadn’t realized that they were doing that.
It didn’t, however, surprise me.
Brenda viciously yanked her purse back up over her shoulder and turned around, only to turn back around and glare.
“You better be careful, Officer Hail. I hear it's bad out there for cops right now.”
With that she was gone.
Audrey, who’d been standing silently behind me, tried to move past me, but I caught her around the waist and yanked her to me. “Don’t,” I growled. “It’s not worth it.”
“She just threatened your life!” she cried out in indignation. “You heard that, didn’t you, Officer Tooch?”
&nb
sp; Tooch?
The officer who’d watched Brenda and Ephraim Shaw walk away just shook his head. “I can file a complaint, but that’s really all I can do. You know that.”
His last statement was directed at me, so I nodded.
“Just remember if I call on you as witness, to remember what she said,” I said darkly.
Officer Tooch nodded solemnly. “Ma’am, can I help you up?”
He offered Krisney his hand, but before he could even extend it all the way out, she scrambled to her feet.
Her reddish blonde curls bounced with the movement, and she offered me an apologetic smile. “I’m so sorry, y’all.”
I smiled at her, offering her a shrug.
“I know that you can’t control her…or him,” I added. “Don’t worry about it.”
She grimaced. “I told them that I was transferred to a different post, and they flipped a freakin’ lid.”
Krisney was in the military. The Army, to be specific. The same branch that Reed had gone in, and was still in.
I had a sinking suspicion that the reason behind Krisney joining the Army, instead of the Navy like she’d always said she was going to do, had a lot to do with the fact that she was still in love with Reed, despite my brother’s idiotic behavior.
“So that was what that was all about?” I asked.
She sighed.
“I told them that while I was stationed out of the state, they needed to behave. You can obviously tell how that worked out.”
I just shook my head.
“Audrey, this is Krisney Shaw.” I introduced them. “Krisney, this is my girlfriend, Audrey.”
Krisney held out her hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
The smile that she gave Audrey was a genuine one.
Audrey took it hesitantly. “You’re Reed’s girl?”
Krisney’s face flamed. “Negative, Ghost Rider.”
I started to laugh.
“You keep telling yourself that, girl. Let me know how it works out for you.”
Krisney grimaced. “See you in a few months.”
With that she walked out and didn’t look back.
“You know,” Audrey started to giggle. “I haven’t really had a chance to get to know Reed yet, but I can already tell that he’s going to have trouble with that one.”
For the Love of Beard Page 16
