It’d been three weeks since the night Corrinne had wrecked me as I’d been driving home from work with Reagan in the car. And two weeks since I’d last seen her.
I’d gone to the police station, per Bennett’s request, to press charges against her for not only vandalizing my house, but also handing my phone number and other personal information to the rest of my neighborhood.
My parents and I had had to change our phone numbers due to the hundreds of calls a week I got.
Apparently, not only had she given my phone number out to the residents in my neighborhood, but she’d also placed an ad for ‘a good time’ on Craigslist and other dating websites with pictures she’d secretly taken of me.
That latest event had taken place about a week after she’d tried to run me off the road, and I was honestly tired of it. It was really putting a toll on my happiness, which I guess was what she’d been trying to accomplish.
Bennett hadn’t been doing well thanks to her, either.
Especially when Corrinne tried to accuse him of raping her nine years ago, then forcing her to give up rights to the baby he’d made with her as a consequence of said rape.
Everybody knew it was bogus, but Bennett was still getting weird looks from the citizens of Kilgore, and even some of his fellow cops who didn’t know him or how Corrinne was a lying, vindictive whore.
“Are you nervous?” I asked Bennett as we walked hand in hand into the courthouse.
He squeezed my hand slightly before shaking his head. “No. There’s no reason for her to get custody of Reagan. In fact, this is all just preliminary. The papers have already been signed, sealed, and dated. The only thing that happened was that it wasn’t filed through the state. It’s a done deal.”
Shockingly, we found out that it wasn’t a done deal less than an hour later when the judge’s gavel rang out like a shotgun blast shooting through the courtroom.
“Court dismissed,” the judge roared.
She had to roar because everyone on Bennett’s side of the courtroom was screaming in outrage.
The only two not screaming were Bennett and Todd.
Bennett looked like someone had knocked him over the back of the head with a crowbar.
Todd, Bennett’s badass lawyer, looked deadly quiet.
In fact, if I didn’t know any better, I would’ve said he was plotting murder.
Corrinne, the fucking bitch, was sitting across the aisle from us with a smile the size of Texas on her face, and I wanted nothing more than to slap the stupid bitch across that big mouth of hers.
I was seething mad, and if looks could kill, Corrinne would be a puddle of brain matter, blood, and guts on the floor.
Her husband, Buck, the spineless bastard, sat in his seat looking like he’d just been beaten with the same crowbar that’d taken out Bennett.
He was looking down at his hands that were twisting in his lap, and I couldn’t figure out what the hell he was doing with her.
I couldn’t figure it out when I was in college, either. Which was why I’d been accused of cheating with him in the first place. I’d been trying to save him, and look where that’d gotten me!
“I can’t believe she gave her partial custody,” Payton breathed beside me. “She’s going to kill her.”
“She won’t get her,” Max mumbled from her other side. “The boys and I…we’ll make fucking sure of it. She won’t touch another hair on that baby’s head.”
No, she wouldn’t.
I’d make sure of it.
I didn’t know how, or when, but I’d make sure of it.
Even if I had to kill the bitch.
I’d do it for Bennett and Reagan.
Okay, I probably wouldn’t kill her. But I’d maim her.
“Did she pay the judge off?” Shiloh asked softly. “Why would any sane person do that? She has tons and tons of evidence in front of her. Seriously, either that judge is mentally challenged, or she was paid off. There’s no other reason for what she’s done.”
I agreed.
One hundred and ninety percent.
“Everyone leaves a trail,” James said cryptically.
“Bennett,” Michael said, standing behind him. “Let’s go. We’ll get home, figure this all out.”
Bennett stood, not looking at anyone, and left without looking back.
My heart ached.
And it really ached when I got to the parking lot to see Bennett gone.
“Shit,” I murmured.
Everyone got on their bikes, or into their prospective cars, and started motoring away, and I was left alone before I even realized that I needed a ride.
So I called a cab and had the driver take me to Bennett’s.
Only when I got there, it was only for Bennett to meet me at the door with a frown.
“I need some time to talk to her. Alone,” he murmured, eyes void of any emotion.
I nodded.
“Okay,” I nodded. “I’ll just leave you alone. Call me when you want me to come back over?”
He nodded. “Thanks, Lennox.”
Not Nox like he’d been calling me for the last couple of weeks.
Lennox.
My heart hurt for him as I watched him close the door on me, and ached even more as I started the long walk home.
I didn’t call a cab this time, instead settling on a long walk in hopes of clearing my brain of the cobwebs and any lingering doubts that my brain was trying to shove upon me.
But I couldn’t shake them.
Had I been the one to bring this all on Bennett?
Would Corrinne have pursued this had I not been in the picture?
She hated me. Seriously hated me.
For something I’d never even done, but she’d thought I’d done, nonetheless.
Did he blame me?
By the time I’d gotten home, I’d worked myself into a major depression.
All the assurances that Bennett didn’t blame me, from his own mouth no less, were now gone.
In their place were disturbed thoughts.
Ones that wouldn’t go anywhere.
That’d stay and fester if Bennett didn’t banish them.
But he didn’t banish them.
He was gone.
And had no plans of ever coming back.
Chapter 18
I’m a right bitch until I have my coffee.
-True Story
Lennox
Four weeks later
“They found a paper trail?” I asked Michael.
He’d found me in the maze of a hospital where I was eating lunch in the break room that nobody used.
Michael nodded. “Yep. The judge’s already put in her resignation, effective immediately. All cases that the judge has heard in the past eighteen months have been put on review.”
I took a deep breath.
“Thank God,” I whispered shakily. “I’ve been racking my brain for the last four weeks. I’ve had my dad using his resources and his PI to help. He had nothing, though.”
I picked at my salad, still unable to eat.
I’d lost fifteen pounds that I really shouldn’t have lost in the four weeks since Bennett had literally dropped off the face of the earth.
I’d had to change phones again, just yesterday. Now I didn’t even bother calling him.
Michael nodded. “Yeah, he’s been delivering information to us. All of it useless, but efficient nonetheless.”
I nodded. “Good.”
“You don’t look good,” he said softly.
I shrugged, avoiding his eye.
“I have to go back to work,” I said, standing and throwing my untouched salad in the trash.
I could see Michael frown as he watched my movements out of the corner of my eye.
“I tried to come by and see you yesterday, but your house was empty,” Michael said.
I grimaced.
“I had a few…people show up. They were l
ooking for me and I felt it prudent to move before it got worse,” I told him.
“What kind of people?” He asked, standing now too.
I shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”
Michael frowned.
“Did you file a report?” He asked me as my hand met the doorknob to the break room.
How had he found me, anyway? I ate back here so nobody could find me.
Somebody would’ve had to tell him where I was.
Fucking Paxton and Melissa.
Nosy fuckers.
“Nope. What would be the point?” I remarked sadly, letting the door shut softly behind me as I left.
Not looking back, because if I did, he’d see.
He’d know my heart was broken.
***
Using the brand new key I’d just picked up from my landlord, I opened the door to the apartment I’d rented a few days ago, looking at Cola and smiling for the first time since I’d left for work.
She had three balls in her mouth, and she was shaking her big booty to the tune of the commercial playing on the TV.
“Hey baby,” I said, running my fingers through her long fur as I shut the door firmly behind me.
She whined low in her throat at the attention I was giving her, leaning on me enough that I stumbled.
“Oy,” I said laughingly. “Get your butt off me and let’s go outside.”
At the mention of outside, she started to turn around in circles, losing one of the balls from her mouth, and trying frantically to pick it up once again.
Laughing, I walked into the bedroom and slipped my clothes off as I went.
Changing into a pair of short shorts and a tank top, I walked to my closet, slipped my feet into my tennis shoes, sockless, and went back out to the living room.
I didn’t bother walking anywhere else.
Had I, I would’ve seen that I wasn’t alone.
I would’ve seen Corrinne sitting at the table with a gun in her hands.
I’d nearly made it to my front door when the first bullet tore through my belly.
It played out about like the movies.
I instantly placed my hands over my belly.
And blood started to slip between my fingers.
I looked down and moved my hand up to my face, looking at the blood on my hands like it was a delusion.
I’d felt blood before.
Lots of times.
Never my own blood, though.
It felt like warm syrup.
Sticky like it, too.
Then the pain hit me, dropping me to my knees.
Then further to my back.
That’s when I saw Corrinne standing over me, a proverbial smoking gun in her hand.
“Why?” I rasped.
She didn’t answer, instead bending down with a packet of something in her hand, and pouring it over my wound.
“Don’t want you to die on me too fast. That wouldn’t work out well for either of us. I’m gonna need you,” she said cheerfully.
I blinked. Then blinked again.
“What?” I rasped, belly stinging from whatever she’d poured on it.
Then I was unceremoniously kicked to my belly where the same burning sensation started on my back.
What was she pouring on my wound, salt?
It wouldn’t surprise me if she had.
Cola whined, licking my face, and the tears I hadn’t been aware I was shedding.
I turned my face to see her pace away from me, only able to see the bottom half of her body as she made what I assumed was a phone call.
I was proven right in the next moment when she started to frantically speak into the phone about ‘gunshots’ and ‘a crazy lady shooting.’
She dropped the phone, which I distantly realized was my house phone, and went down on one knee beside my head.
She looked down at me with hate-filled eyes.
“Why?” I asked tiredly.
My mind was sluggish from what I guessed was blood loss, but I wanted to know. No, needed to know.
She smiled savagely.
“You nearly talked him out of it,” she said. “You had him telling me he was leaving me. Had I not convinced him otherwise, you would’ve ruined my life.”
I shook my head in denial. “How is it ruining your life to help someone get away from a psycho like you? You’d have just found another poor soul to do your bidding.”
“Because I was on the fast track to jail. He had money to pay the people off, and I needed it quick. I’d nearly gotten him to propose when you showed up with your high and mighty self. Lucky for me that you weren’t as good as a convincer as you thought you were,” she sneered.
I didn’t say anything, deciding that maybe it’d be best if I just didn’t say anything at all.
“And what are you going to do now? You’ve lost. I just heard that this afternoon,” I said weakly.
Corrinne moved down, placing her face close to mine.
“Yeah, I just heard that, too. From Buck, when he told me he was leaving, and taking all my money with him,” she hissed. “Which is why I’m at plan B.”
Plan B.
Wonderful. Shooting me was Plan B.
“And what now? What’s the play now?” I asked, coughing slightly.
My stomach screamed in protest, only making me cough all the harder.
Which was when I tasted blood.
The coppery taste made my stomach roil, and I knew that I only had an hour, at most, to live.
Coughing blood up was a bad thing.
“Now I just take you both out. Hostage situation means he’ll come. You’ll live long enough for him to get here, then I’ll take you both out. Then there’ll be no one left for Reagan but me,” she declared.
Was this woman insane?
She really had to be.
No sane person would think that something like this would work.
Bennett wasn’t stupid, and anyway, he’d proven just how much I meant to him in the past couple of weeks.
“It won’t work,” I promised.
She was bonkers.
She sneered, and I heard the first siren.
“Watch and learn,” she said, standing up and going to the table.
“What are you doing?” I asked when she went for my phone.
She grinned manically as she came over to me, snapped a picture, and then said, “I’m sending this to your boyfriend. I think the blood pooling around you adds a nice effect.”
I tried to sit up and grab the phone from her, but the minute I put pressure on my belly pain bloomed like an out of control fire, centering in my belly and radiating out so that I felt it in the tips of my toes.
My God, who knew that being shot hurt so fucking much?
“Trouble in paradise? I don’t see him in your phone!” She jeered.
I refused to even answer her.
God, how do I get into these things?
“Now the fun begins,” she smiled widely, and pointed the gun at my face. “Good thing I know the number.”
Bang.
Chapter 19
Grab a straw, because you suck.
-Lennox to Bennett
Bennett
“What do you mean she moved?” I asked in surprise.
Why had she moved?
Probably because you’re a dumbass and have been ignoring her for the last month.
I winced at the course of my thoughts.
I had done that.
But only because I needed time.
Time to figure out this mess. To get that fucked up woman out of my life. To move on with Lennox.
She was probably pissed as hell.
“From what I gather, she had strange men showing up at her house,” Michael said slowly, watching my face.
“What?” I barked, moving to my feet.
He nodded. “Yeah, so I called the chief on the way here and asked him if he could loo
k into it. Apparently, a couple of uniformed officers responded to a call about men not leaving her property when responding to a Craigslist ad.”
My hands went up and spiked through the hair that’d grown back in the month that I hadn’t seen Lennox.
God, what had I done?
“Is she okay?” I asked, coming to a decision.
“Yeah, she’s fine,” he answered, watching me shove my feet into my boots and lace them up with a knowing smile on his face.
As I stood, I offered him my hand. “Thanks man. I don’t think I would’ve pulled my head out sooner if you hadn’t said something.”
He took my hand. “That’s what a partner is for. To have our backs.”
I’d just stepped over the threshold of the door to my house when our pagers started going off, causing me to curse.
“Fuck!” I roared, pulling the pager off my belt loop and looking at it in disgust. “You could’ve gone off anytime, but you choose now?”
Just as I was pulling my phone out to confirm I was on my way, a text message came through that dropped me literally to my knees.
“Oh, God,” I whispered, looking at the sight of my future lying on the ground, her lifeblood spread all around her.
“No, no, no, no, no…” I repeated over and over, my eyes not conveying to my brain to get the lead out and get to her.
Michael, who was down on one knee beside me now, snatched the phone from my hand and looked at it, studying it quickly.
Pulling his own phone out, he dialed, and then barked into the receiver. “We need to trace a photo that just came to Bennett’s phone. Lennox has been shot.”
I took the phone back away from him and pressed the green phone button that would connect me automatically to the sender of the text message.
It rang three times before Corrinne answered, turning my blood to ice.
“You think that I would just take it lying down? You’ve got another think coming,” she laughed.
My eyes squeezed tightly shut. “Where are you?”
“Oh,” she sneered. “You haven’t gotten the call out yet? Give it a moment and I’m sure you’ll get it.”
With that she hung up, and I was running to my truck.
“The callout,” I said when Michael caught up to me and hopped into the passenger seat. “It’s for Lennox.”
Kill Shot (Code 11- KPD SWAT Book 6) Page 18
