Divorced, Desperate and Dead

by Christie Craig

  “The vest caught it,” Cary muttered, realizing Chloe had saved his life.

  He went back to the other side of the door.

  The guy standing in the entrance of the hallway turned toward the living room, toward Turner. Without thinking, Cary moved out and took his own shot.

  The guy slammed against the wall and screamed.

  “Now you’ve done pissed me off!” The guy still in the bedroom yelled. “I’m gonna—” His words came to an abrupt halt at the same time a loud crash echoed.

  “He’s down,” a voice came from the bedroom.

  Danny looked at Cary with questions.

  “J.D.?” Cary called out.

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “Did you shoot him?”

  “No. I knocked him out.”

  “That’s good,” Cary said, still feeling a little short of breath. “I’m gonna need you to step out of the room with your hands over your head.”

  “You gonna shoot me?” J.D. asked.

  “No,” Cary said. “But we have to make sure you don’t have a gun. You understand?” Cary heard Turner requesting an ambulance on his cell phone.

  “Yeah,” the kid’s voice sounded weak.

  In a few seconds, the young boy, even paler than his normal albino state, stepped out in the hall. Blood, lots of blood, ran down his shoulder onto his light blue shirt. He wobbled on his feet.

  “Get on your knees,” Cary said.

  The kid did, though he almost fell doing it.

  “Lie face down on the floor and put your hands behind your back.”

  The boy complied. Unfortunately, now his hand rested only a foot away from the gun the other gang member had dropped when shot.

  “Stay away from the gun!” Turner yelled, stepping into the doorway, his weapon aimed at J.D.

  “You shot?” Cary moved out quickly and kicked the weapon a few feet away. Then kneeling down, he started searching the kid for a gun.

  “Yeah,” the boy said, his voice low.

  Turner moved in the hall, giving the gun another shove farther away. He pointed his gun at J.D. as Cary searched the kid for weapons.

  Cary looked up at Turner, hoping to convey to his friend that he had this. “You got anything sharp in your pockets?” he asked the teen on the floor.

  “No.” J.D. said.

  Danny, gun still drawn, brushed against Cary and moved into the bedroom where J.D. had just walked out..

  “He’s clean,” Cary said, looking at Turner.

  “Cuff him,” Turner said.

  “I gotta do this,” Cary said to J.D.

  “I know,” the kid said, sounding defeated.

  Cary put the cuffs on him, but made sure they were comfortable. “Can I help you get up?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” J.D. said.

  “He’s secure,” Danny said walking out of the room.

  Cary looked back at Turner cuffing the unconscious teen. “Is he. . .”

  “Alive. Yes,” Turner said.

  Danny chuckled. “He used the toilet lid to knock him out.”

  “It’s all I could find,” J.D. said.

  “It worked, that’s what matters.” Cary went to pull him up, but the boy’s knees buckled and he landed on his butt. “We’ve got an ambulance coming, okay?”

  He looked up at Cary and then down at his shoulder. “The angel answered my prayer. It doesn’t hurt.”

  “What angel?” Cary asked, half expecting to see Beatrice Bacon pop up.

  The boy blinked as if fighting to stay conscious. “The phone, it’s under a piece of loose floor by the window . . . in the bedroom. The video’s on it.”

  “That’s good.” Cary said. “Lean your head back and relax.”

  “I . . . Sorry I shot you. I didn’t really mean to hit you.” The boy’s eyes fluttered shut. “I was . . . I was scared. I thought you’d duck and I could drive away.” His head slumped over.

  “J.D.” The boy didn’t answer. “Shit. I said relax, not die!” Cary knelt down and laid the kid flat. Blood poured out of his shoulder.

  “J.D.? Stay with me. You are too damn young to die.”

  Cary yanked off his vest, pulled off his shirt, bundled it up, and held it against the wound, hoping to slow down the bleeding.

  “Careful with the blood!” Turner snapped.

  Cary looked up briefly. “Get help here now!”

  “They’re on their way.” Minutes later, sirens echoed outside. The paramedics charged in and started doing what they did best. Saving lives. Right behind them came Chase Kelly and Jason Dodd.

  Turner showed up and handed a shirtless Cary a Glencoe police jacket. Cary slipped it on and then made sure the paramedics worked on J.D. first. The kid in the hall, the one Cary had shot, appeared in bad shape, but he’d woken up and the paramedics seemed to think he’d live to spend a long time in prison. Only then did panic fade and he realized he could have taken that kid’s life.

  The guy who’d had his head bashed in, who Turner had identified as the leader of the Black Bloods, had come to as well, and was giving the paramedics hell.

  Still finding it hard to breathe, Cary leaned against the wall and placed a hand over his sore ribs. It could have been so much worse. And would have, if not for Chloe.

  Cary didn’t leave the kid’s side until the paramedics loaded him into the ambulance and drove off. They didn’t say how bad it was, but Cary could see from their expressions, it wasn’t good. As Cary stood by the street watching them drive off, he couldn’t help but wonder if J.D. was in Room Six right at that moment.

  “Be good to him,” he muttered to himself, imagining Beatrice Bacon’s face.

  “What?” Danny asked from behind him.

  “Nothing.”

  “You okay?” Danny asked, glancing at Cary’s hand pressed to his side.

  “Just bruised.”

  “I guess the vest came in handy,” Danny said.

  A female paramedic walked up right then. “Okay, tough guy, come with me and let’s take a look at you.”

  “I’m fine,” Cary said.

  “Take the jacket off and let her look at you,” Chase Kelly called out. “It’s that, or I’ll have them haul you to the hospital, too.”

  “Never known that guy to have a hard time taking his clothes off for a woman,” Danny muttered and everyone laughed.

  “Yeah, he did that stripping undercover gig, didn’t he?’ Jason Dodd asked..

  Frowning, Cary followed the paramedic to the last ambulance and stood in the back where the light spilled out.

  “Pull your jacket off,” she said and smiled at him as if she’d heard what the guys had said.

  He removed the jacket and let her see his side. She looked and then pressed a few fingers to his side. “You’re bruised,” she said. “You might need to be X-rayed just to make sure your ribs aren’t cracked.”

  “They aren’t cracked. I’ve felt that once, it’s just a bruise.”

  She didn’t look convinced. “Fine, but if you start hurting . . .”

  “I won’t. Thanks.”

  She smiled. “Just doing my job. But anytime a good-looking cop takes his shirt off for me, it reminds me of why I love my job.”

  He realized she was young and pretty and three weeks ago, he’d have been trying to get her phone number. He didn’t want her number. The only number he needed was Chloe’s. And he needed to call her. He would, as soon as he secured all the evidence.

  “It’s always good to like your work,” he said to the paramedic and started back to the house.

  “You need to be seen by a doctor?” Chase asked, still standing on the porch.

  “No, the paramedic agrees it’s just a bruise.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but close.

  He walked into the house and into the bedroom, looking for a loose piece of flooring. Walking around the window, he tapped his foot on the wooden planks. One finally felt loose. Dropping to his hands and knees, he pulled it up, and sure as hell a phone was hidden there.<
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  “Hey, guys!” he called out and brought everyone in.

  Five minutes later, using gloves, they played the phone’s videos.

  While it didn’t show the shooting, it showed Tommy with half his head missing.

  “Damn,” Turner said. “What kind of freak would film that?”

  “The stupid kind,” Chase Kelly said. “He’ll go down for this.”

  At the end, it even showed J.D. in the corner of the street, puking. Evidence that J.D. wasn’t cut out of the same cloth as the other gang members.

  Running a hand over his face, he prayed the kid lived and that the DA would offer him a good deal. And while he prayed, he added a thought about the kid he’d shot. He might have deserved to be shot, but Cary didn’t deserve to have his life on his conscience.

  Ten minutes later, he, Danny, and Turner all stood back on the porch with Chase Kelly and Jason Dodd as the CSI guys went over the place.

  “Good work,” Chase said to them all, but his gaze lingered on Cary.

  “Good work would have been if no one was shot.” Cary knew he hadn’t had a choice, but it didn’t make it okay.

  “They’re all alive. That’s what matters,” Chase said.

  “You called it right on the J.D. kid,” Danny piped up. “And I admit, I thought you had it all wrong.” He shook his head. “That kid would have died if you hadn’t shown up.”

  He still may die. “I should have listened to the messages earlier and he wouldn’t have been shot.”

  “Shit, don’t beat yourself up,” Turner said. “You were off of work because he shot you.”

  Cary recalled the apology he’d gotten from the kid. “If he lives, we have to get him a deal.”

  “It shouldn’t be that hard. You got the recording where he called you at the station,” Jason Dodd said.

  Cary heard Turner talking, and he looked back to see him on the phone. Talking to Reese, no doubt. Immediately, he remembered how worried Chloe had sounded.

  He realized how good it would feel to go home to her. To lose himself in her arms. Too make love to her as slowly as she’d made love to him.

  Of course, it wasn’t going to be anytime soon. CSI would be here for several more hours, and then they had reports to fill out. He wanted to go by and see J.D., too.

  He pulled out his phone. “I need to make a call.”

  • • •

  Chloe had parked in front of Sheri’s apartment building, but still sat behind the wheel, trying to control the emotional chaos dancing on her heart.

  Cary Stevens had a girlfriend. And it wasn’t her.

  At least she’d stopped crying. She was done with tears. Moving on. Pulling up her big girl panties and stiffening her backbone.

  Taking a deep breath, she started to get out when her phone rang.

  She looked at her cell, breath held, praying it was him saying he was okay. Praying it wasn’t him because she didn’t know what to say.

  His number lit up her tiny screen and her heart took another blow.

  Swallowing a lump down her throat, she answered the call.

  “Yes?” Don’t scream and yell at him. Don’t bitch or whine. You told him no promises.

  “Hey,” he said.

  One word, and already her eyes stung with tears. But nope, she was done crying.

  “How many pages have you done?” he asked.

  Could he hear her breath shuddering? Hear her heart breaking? “You okay?” she managed to ask.

  “Thanks to you.”

  “What?” She reached for the steering wheel and tightened her fist around it.

  “I wore a vest.”

  “Were you shot?” She bit down on her lip.

  “Just bruised, thanks to the vest.”

  She inhaled. “I’m glad.”

  “Me too.”

  The silence lingered and awkwardness snuck in. “J.D. was shot,” he said, and she heard the heaviness in his tone, and it only added to the heaviness in her own heart.

  “Is he—?”

  “He was alive when they took him in. I’ll probably go by the hospital and check on him before I come home. I hate this.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said and she meant it.

  “Yeah. I wanted . . . hold on a second, someone needs me.”

  She could hear him talking to someone.

  “I’m back, but I need to go. I’m going to be tied up here for quite a while.”

  “It’s okay. I’m. . .” I’m not at your place anymore. How did she explain this? The man had just been shot. “I uh . . .”

  “I’m sorry, I have to go. I’ll see you. Miss you.” The line went dead.

  She swallowed another lump down her throat. She was gonna miss him too.

  Wiping her tears, she admitted feeling relief that he was okay. But then all that pain twisted and turned in her gut and she felt it again. Anger. Fury.

  He’d lied to her. She was a frog’s hair away from falling in love with him.

  She felt the dampness on her cheeks. So okay, she wasn’t finished crying after all. Mentally, she reached down and tried to find the elastic on the big girl panties that were obviously hanging around her ankles.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  “Everything okay?” Turner asked, walking over.

  “Yeah,” he said. He’d been going to tell Chloe about shooting the kid, but it hadn’t felt right.

  “Was that Chloe?” Turner asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Is she worried?”

  He nodded and slipped his phone into his pocket.

  “It takes them a while to work around the whole cop thing,” Turner said. “I swear Reese was a basket case the first few weeks. It gets easier. Or I should say, they stop freaking out so much.”

  “Yeah.” Cary remembered Chloe saying she was beginning to see the downside of dating a cop.

  “You know, sometimes I put myself in her shoes and I realize if she was a cop chasing after lowlifes, I don’t know if I could take it.”

  “Yeah,” Cary answered.

  Turner looked at him. “You really okay?”

  “Sure,” he said, knowing he would be, but he wasn’t at this moment. He could still see that kid with his bullet in him being wheeled away. But he wasn’t ready to talk about it. At least not with Turner. But tonight he knew he’d talk to Chloe about it. How had she gotten so close?

  The answer came echoing back. She’d completely gotten under his skin. In his head. In his heart.

  The realization should have scared him shitless. It didn’t.

  “It was a good shot,” Turner said, somehow knowing what was on Cary’s mind. “Don’t even second guess it. He had a bullet with my name on it if you hadn’t gotten him . . .”

  “I know,” Cary said.

  “Still hurts like hell though, doesn’t it?” Turner asked.

  “It does,” Cary admitted.

  “Come on. Let’s get this wrapped up so we can go home and let our women make us feel better.”

  “That sounds good,” Cary said. “Real good.”

  • • •

  “Oh, crap! What’s wrong?”

  Leave it to Sheri to not beat around the bush. And Chloe had even spent the last thirty minutes drying her eyes and practicing a fake smile.

  She should have known. She was never good at faking it.

  “I . . . I screwed up.” She set Cupcake’s carrier at her feet.

  “What did you do?” she asked.

  “I trusted him.”

  “Ouch. That doesn’t sound good.”

  “It isn’t.” She hiccupped and her eyes started producing tears. More tears. Wasn’t there a limit to how much one person could cry? She must be dehydrated by now.

  “Oh no. You’re crying. This must be bad. You hardly ever cry. What happened?”

  “Cary has a girlfriend.”

  “And that would be you, right?”

  Chloe didn’t have to answer.

  “Oh, damn!” Sheri took a deep breath.
“Okay, how do you want to do this? I know a Hell’s Angel who said he teaches people lessons for a small fee. We can run over him. Make him some arsenic cookies. Options. I love options.”

  “How much?” Chloe asked.

  “How much what?”

  “How much is it to have the Hell’s Angel guy teach someone a lesson?”

  Sheri’s eyes grew round. “I wasn’t serious. I was being empathetically sarcastic. This guy’s a cop. I’ve seen that show ‘Orange is the New Black.’ I wouldn’t do well in prison. That said, I’d help you key his car. Or . . . I knew one girl who hid a ten-pound fish in her ex’s spare tire. I don’t think we’d have to do too much time for that.”

  “No. I don’t want to teach Cary a lesson. Me,” Chloe said and batted at her tears. “I’m the one who needs to be taught a lesson. I knew going in that he was temporary. I knew he was the love-’em-and-leave type. I just didn’t think he was the love-’em-and-love-another-one-until-caught type.”

  “I hate that type,” Sheri said.

  “Me too.” Then she shook her head. “I’m lying. I don’t hate him. I almost fell in love with him. Or maybe I did fall in love with him.” She covered her face with her palms. “Oh, damn. I’m in love with him,” she muttered through her fingers.

  “No. No. Let’s look at this differently. You had great sex with him and now you’re done with him. You’re ready to go find someone else, someone who’s not a cheater, to have great sex with.”

  “I don’t want to be done with him. I don’t want to have sex with anyone else. I want . . . just what I told him I didn’t want. I want promises.”

  “Oh, baby. Come in, I’ll pour you some pickle juice.”

  Chloe reached for the cat carrier and then looked at her. “Pickle juice?”

  “It’s the strongest thing I’ve got. I haven’t been to the liquor store in weeks.”

  “Then put it on the rocks,” Chloe said

  Ten minutes later, they had the litter box set up and Cupcake and Taco were running around the house like best buds. Sheri and Chloe were huddled up on Sheri’s red leather sofa.

  And they each had a glass of pickle juice.

  “You still really drink this stuff?” Chloe asked, staring at the glass.