Page 138 of The Best Shot

Me: Leave it alone, Annie.

Annie: he shoved her. in her own damn house. so no.

Me: It’s handled. Or it’s about to be. You don’t need to be anywhere near it.

Annie: tell me or i tell Yasmine.

Me: She’s stressed prepping to leave. You’d really dump this on her?

Annie: if that’s what it takes.

I stared at the phone, then called her bluff.

Me: Go ahead then. Wreck her last couple weeks just to get your way.

The pause stretched long enough that I almost thought she’d dropped it.

Then:

Annie: fine.

Annie: i’ll handle it myself.

My blood went cold right there between the chicken feed and the cat litter. Because she absolutely would.

I could already see it—Annie rolling up on Shaun alone, mouth running, no backup, no plan, nothing but fire between her and a man who had already proved he would put his hands on a woman.

Me: No.

Annie: then quit telling me no and tell me when.

Me: Annie.

Annie: you bring me, you control it. i go alone, you control nothing.

Annie: your call, cowboy.

She had me cornered clean. The only way to keep her out of trouble was to keep her where I could see her.

Hell.

Me: Tomorrow night. You do what I say, when I say it. You don’t open your mouth unless I tell you to.

Annie:

Me: I mean it. Not one word.

Annie: wear something i can move in. got it.

Me: That’s not what I said.

Annie: see you tomorrow!!

The bar didn’t have a name. Or if it did, nobody who drank there used it.

It sat off the county road on a lot that had once been a filling station. The pumps were gone, but the concrete islands remained, cracked and bleached by decades of weather. A faded Miller sign glowed in one window. The other had been painted black.

Inside, the air smelled of beer, motor oil, and whatever had been fried in the kitchen twenty years ago and never fully left. License plates covered one wall. A jukebox near the bathrooms played Lynard Skynyrd through a blown speaker. The pool table leaned slightly to the left, which everybody knew and nobody warned strangers about. Outside, a line of bikes sat so straight it looked military.