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“All right. Thank you so much for your time, Miss Clarke. Again, no one’s in trouble right now. We’re just trying to gather more information.”
“I understand,” Emma Clarke says faintly. “Th-Thank you, officer.”
“Have a wonderful rest of your day, ma’am,” Derrick says. I hear his footsteps scrape on the front steps. He’s turning his back to Emma, ready to head back down the front lawn.
“Wait!”
My heart stops again, just when I was ready to start breathing again.
“Yes, Miss Clarke?” Derrick asks.
“If you do see Mikey, can you tell him I miss him? And that he should come home?”
“I will, if I see him,” Derrick agrees. “Have a good day.”
He comes into view on the other side of the gate as he walks down the yard to the sidewalk. I wait until I hear the door close, so I can stop seeing him collapse with blood gushing out of the back of his head on repeat in my mind. Derrick doesn’t look back at me, doesn’t hesitate as if there’s a second person lingering near the house that he should be waiting for. Instead, he crosses the street to his cruiser and gets inside, turning on the engine.In the dying daylight, I can just barely see him begin speaking to someone through a walkie-talkie.
This is my chance to creep back to the car myself, but I wait, listening hard for movement inside the house. If I had just been visited by the police, I’d be watching like a hawk through the front window to see when the cruiser leaves. But when I peek through the window again, Emma Clarke is pacing her living room, running her fingers through her short hair. Every time she turns her back on me, I can see the unused gun tucked into her jeans.
Every time she turns back to me, I see her intense pale eyes.
That’s it. Time to go.
Moving on tiptoes, I quietly unlock the side gate and slip out- not down the driveway, but to the left and across the neighbor’s yard. I dart through three more overgrown front yards, Staying low until I make it to the sidewalk. But as I’m about to cross the street, my heart sinks.
Derrick’s cruiser starts to pull away, driving slowly down the street without me.
I clench my teeth and pick up the pace, crossing the street and trailing the car from a distance.
I’m just a random woman in men’s clothes on a casual walk through a neighborhood I don’t live in- and with a heart beating five times faster than it should for my walking speed.
I walk quickly toward the corner, and as I round it, I see the police cruiser parked. He’s waiting for me.
When I finally get back to the cruiser, I jump into the passenger seat with too much relief.
Fuck. What if something happened to me… to the baby? This whole situation was way more dangerous than I realized. How could I be so foolish? I promised myself I’d be a good mother and I’m already fucking that up. It's not just my life at stake anymore. God, I’ve never had to be responsible for anyone butmyself, and now someone else is depending on me. This is going to take someseriousadjusting. I need to be more careful about... well, everything. Not just for me, but for my baby too.
Derrick isn’t on the walkie anymore, but he doesn’t look up from a little white notepad, which he must’ve been using when he was talking with Emma.
“Well, the physical description is completely wrong,” he says, maybe to me, maybe to himself. “Too tall, too heavy set, and of course, no gray eyes-”
I put my hand to his sculpted cheek, turn his face toward me, and kiss him hard.
CHAPTER 20
Derrick
Raleigh’s hot,soft mouth is suddenly on mine, and I’m half tempted to let it stay there.
If only she hadn’t 1) stolen my vintage mid-life-crisis-car last night, 2) crashed it into a ditch, 3) demanded to be brought for a ride along only to insult my twenty years on the force to my face, and finally 4) run off at the first chance she got after telling me she wouldn’t.
I grip her by the upper arms. She groans into my mouth, her body softening against me- until I shove her off.
“We’re not doing this-” I start to say, then pause. My thoughts have been tumbling between the information provided by Emma Clarke, the possible identity of her boyfriend, and how either of them relate to Silver- but now they sharpen. For the first time, I realize Raleigh’s eyes are wild. Her body is shaking. She’s clinging to the front of my shirt like I’m about to disappear. My attention is on her now, and nothing else. “What’s wrong?”
“She- she had a gun,” Raleigh splutters. “I thought she was going toshoot you-”
“Who- Clarke?” I demand.
