Page 143 of The Best Shot

Sal ended it the way a man might separate two fighting dogs. One hand. No hurry. More disappointed than angry.

I never saw him cross the lot. One second, I had a fistful of Shaun’s shirt and both of us were going down into the gravel. The next, Sal’s forearm was braced across my chest, moving me backward whether I wanted to go or not.

He didn’t say a word, but he didn’t need to. When a man built like Sal decided the night was over, the night was over.

Now we stood in the two camps he’d made of us.

Shaun leaned against his truck with a rag pressed to his mouth. Blood showed on his teeth whenever he pulled it away to check. He kept checking every few seconds, as if the result might change.

Annie stood beside me, cradling one wrist, her eyes still hot enough to start the whole thing over.

“Let me see.”

“It’s fine.” She flexed her hand and winced. “The grab was worse than the shove.”

I held out my hand.

She sighed and gave me her wrist.

No swelling yet. Nothing that looked broken. But the skin was hot where his fingers had closed around her, and I could feel four places it would come up dark by morning.

My jaw tightened. I let go before my grip tightened with it, and made things worse.

Annie glanced toward Shaun, then back at me. “For somebody who told me to stay quiet, you sure got loud.”

“He put his hands on you.”

“I noticed.”

“I’d already been looking for a reason.”

“Noticed that too.” Her mouth tipped up. “Happy to help.”

“Don’t.”

Sal stood several yards away with his arms crossed, watching all of us.

He’d made one call from the doorway a few minutes earlier, the phone looking small against his ear, his eyes on me the whole time. I hadn’t heard what he said, but I didn’t need to.

A man didn’t keep a place like this running by letting a fight in his parking lot grow legs.

The law was coming.

I should have been worried about that. Instead, all I could think about was Yasmine.

She had two weeks left. Then a plane. Then the biggest thing she had ever worked for waiting at the end of it.

If this landed on her, became something she carried down to the ice and turned over at night when she should’ve been sleeping, then I hadn’t protected her from anything. I’d handed her one more weight and called it love.

Headlights came up the county road and slowed. A cruiser turned into the lot, dirt grinding beneath its tires, and stopped near the building.

The engine cut, and a deputy climbed out, late twenties, uniform crisp, moving with the tired patience of a man who already knew what he was walking into.

He went to Sal first.

They spoke near the door, Sal’s voice too low to carry. The deputy listened, glancing toward us twice. Once at Shaun and the bloody rag. Once at Annie holding her wrist beside me.

Whatever Sal told him, he accepted without much surprise.