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Annie slipped an arm around the girl’s shoulders. “Just know you’re not alone in this, Izzy. People will help you. I’ll help you.”
She just wished she could have helped before it was too late.
34
“You letthat little girltake your gun away from you,” Nick said. It was a statement, not a question.
They sat in the conference room, meeting to put the latest puzzle pieces together while the details were still fresh in the mind. It was just the three of them—Nick, Stokes, and Annie—the rest of the squad having already called it a night. Annie resisted the urge to glance at her watch, knowing her son was already tucked in bed at her cousin Remy’s house. She tried to dodge the twinge of motherly guilt. She already had enough emotion weighing her down from the events of the day and evening.
Stokes pressed a hand to his chest and looked offended, ever the victim. “She attacked me! I couldn’t see that coming! One minute she was scooping horse shit off the floor, and the next thing I know she’s gone all lesbian ninja on me and rams me in the gut with the handle end of a shovel!”
“And we all know lesbian ninjas have superhuman strength,” Annie remarked dryly. “Especially those little ones that maybe weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet.”
Stokes cut her a look. “Let her ram you in the belly with a shovel. See how you do.”
“Why would I?” Annie returned. “I would know better, for starters. And by the way, there’s no reason to remark on her sexuality, of which you know nothing.”
“Well, I don’t know any regular girls that strong.”
“You don’t know any horse girls, then,” Annie said. “You’re lucky she didn’t pick you up over her head and throw you somewhere.”
“You’re lucky she didn’t shoot you,” Nick said. “Desperate people do desperate things.” He looked at Annie. “You’re both lucky.”
“I want her charged with assaulting an officer,” Stokes pouted.
“Get over yourself,” Annie shot back. “The only thing wounded here is your pride, and you had that coming.”
Stokes looked incredulous. “Do I need to remind you she’s a killer?”
“She shot a man who had assaulted her and was beating the shit out of his wife,” Annie said. “Plenty of people will think she deserves a medal.”
Nick arched a brow. “And you’re one of them?”
“Pardon me if I don’t shed a tear for Cody Parcelle, who thought it was his God-given right to beat his wife like a rented mule,” Annie said, unrepentant. “He literally announced he was going to kill her before he broke the glass in the kitchen door. That’ll be on their doorbell video, for sure.”
“Do we know this wife doesn’t have a big insurance policy on him?” Nick asked.
“I’ll check into it tomorrow,” Annie said, “but I doubt it. I doubt Tulsie would have ever done anything but take his abuse and blame herself for it. She was still saying tonight in the hospital that she shouldn’t have gone out that night, she shouldn’t have danced with Marc Mercier, she shouldn’t have made Cody jealous, and on and on. She’s terrified she’s gonna lose everything they worked for. That doesn’t sound like someone with a million bucks of insurance moneywaiting at the end of this rainbow. My guess is they live pretty hand-to-mouth. They’re not rolling in dough from the horse-training business. Cody worked a day job with the family construction business doing demolition and remodels.”
“That explains the Mercier business card in his pocket,” Nick said.
“According to Tulsie, they did business all the time, selling salvaged materials to the Merciers.”
“Well, I’m telling you,” Stokes grumbled, “this whole mess is just another example of why not to get married.”
Annie rolled her eyes. “I don’t think you have to worry.”
“You’re gonna wind up on the wrong end of a jealous husband, is what’s gonna happen to you,” Nick said.
“We don’t know that isn’t what happened to Marc Mercier,” Stokes said, pointing at the timeline on the whiteboard. “There’s still a couple of hours unaccounted for between Cody Parcelle punching him in the mouth at Outlaw and these women blowing Cody’s face off. He could have gone and done Marc in before he went home to beat the missus.”
“He could have, but I don’t think so,” Nick said. “Our new wrinkle here is that I have video of Marc Mercier leaving Goal Post Saturday night, and the first car that leaves that parking lot after he walks out of sight is a blue Toyota Corolla.”
Annie sat up like she’d been shocked. “What?”
“It’s the same car Danny Perry chased out of the Merciers’ neighborhood last night. So, if that’s Marc, he’s still alive.”
“What the fuck?” Stokes said, tipping his hat back on his head.
