“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 look 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.”
Ten minutes later found me in a standoff with my boss.
“Bennett, I don’t give a fuck if you think you can handle it or not,” Luke growled into my face. “You’re. Not. Fucking. Coming.”
I shoved him. “Like hell I’m not. I’ll be coming whether you fucking want me to or not.”
“Lock him up,” Luke barked to the man at my side.
I turned to study Nico and shook my head.
“Goddammit,” I growled in frustration, sitting down on the nearest chair. “Just fucking go. And don’t let her die. Please, don’t let her die.”
My eyes conveyed every emotion I was feeling right then, and Luke flinched back at the sight.
“I won’t let anything more happen to her,” he lied.
We both knew it was a lie, but it was a lie we let happen because we both needed to think the best. To hope for the best.
When they left, I made it all of fifteen minutes before I walked out of the office, not sparing a single cop a look. Knowing if I had, they’d somehow try to stop me.
But there was no way I was leaving her there alone and hurt. I may not be in on the call, but I’d be there. Waiting.
I drove to the new place where Lennox was staying, which surprisingly was only minutes away from my place. And somewhere I ran past on a daily basis.
The duplex that she was staying in was easy to figure out by the people that were surrounding it.
Stomach doing summersaults the closer I got to her, I parallel parked behind a blue and white and in front of a white sedan, and started walking to the command tent I saw erected, with Downy at the helm.
Downy was a good talker, so it came as no surprise when Luke had sent him to school to become the team’s hostage negotiator.
He was damn good at what he did, and I was happy to have him where he was at that moment in time.
Downy clocked me almost immediately, and just shook his head, not surprised in the least that I was there.
He pointed to a chair, and I sat, my elbows on my knees.
“This is Officer Downy with the Kilgore Police Department. I’m a negotiator here to…yes ma’am. No ma’am,” Downy said, all the while watching the first floor window where I could see the curtains twitch as if someone was there, watching the festivities.