“So? Are the two of you useless deviants coming with me over to the police station, peacefully, or do I have to take the both of you over there in handcuffs? Believe you me, I will. It would give me the greatest pleasure in life to slap handcuffs on the either one of you at this point.”
Liddy was biting her lower lip, so much so, she was now drawing blood; tasted the sticky sweetness on her tongue as she licked her lips for the umpteenth-thousandth time in less than a half hour.
This was not going to be good for either of them. Steam was now coming out of Jake’s eyes. Most of this steam was aimed directly at Liddy. Very little of it was headed toward Debra.
“Oh, and because the two of you have somehow decided, for all intents and purposes, to hash out your old business and your dirty laundry right out in the open, in broad daylight . . . I am putting the both of you in the same holding cell just to cool off.”
“What the hell for?” became Liddy’s first slipped out, slightly foolish comment; of which she regrettably spoke aloud.
Her second thought was inwardly kept to save her soul from continued damnation.
She knew she would not be able to breathe while locked in a tiny holding cell with Jake Giotti. And Jake looked as though he actually wanted to kill her: for being here, for being her. Hell! Just for being alive, she supposed. She might not have live out the rest of her day to see what Theodora Rosebud was intending on calling herself come Monday morning, if locked inside a concrete and steel room with a man she wanted to get rid of.
“What the hell for?” Debra wasn’t one to mince words. “What the hell for? How about we start with for disturbing the peace and for making my day longer than is necessary? We could certainly add more to it, if that’s not enough for you, Liddy. Let’s see. . . . How about for coming back to Preacher’s Bend? For being . . .you. It’s your choice. I am quite certain I can think of a few more if you give me a bit more time . . .”
Liddy’s sigh came out heavy and burdening. “No. Old business and dirty laundry is more than enough to deal with. Thank you very much! You don’t need to tax your brain thinking up anything else, just to be mean.” Her need to sass a bitter sister-in-law was getting way ahead of itself.
Jake cleared his throat and stepped between the two of them—quickly, before any shots were fired. Or before Liddy did something far stupider by telling Debra to ‘go to Hell’.
Yet, this wasn’t going to save the day either. The man was simply trying his best to stop her from saying anything more that could be used against her in a court of law. Or, more precisely, used against him, once she gone from here and out of his life, and he then left to do the necessary explanations.
All Jake needed doing was say her name. It became enough. Shit! The way he’d said it shut her up right quick.
“Lid-de-a!”
Yep. Lid-de-a always did the trick. When pissed, he’d always draw out each letter.
Liddy’s mouth closed quickly. ‘Lid-de-a’ sure as hell beat ‘Darlin’. Or ‘Honey’. Or, gasp, sputter, should she even repeat what her ears did not want to hear? . . . Mrs. Giotti!
The tone and the color of his mercury drowning eyes told her all there was to know about life—Jake Giotti thought her as little more than low-bottom, pond sucking, scum of the earth.
Well, good for him! At the moment, Liddy did not like him very much either.
Unfortunately, Debra then hauled the both of them right over to the police station by gripping not only Jake’s upper arm but Liddy’s, as well. And she wasn’t being very nice about doing it, either.
Jake winced. Liddy was near the tear stage again. A few people passed them by. None she would actually say recognized her with any real certainty. At least it wasn’t many to have witnessed her ultimate humiliation in front of Jake.
Most of Preacher’s Bend were still in church, or at least headed that way. And not one of them walking across the parking lot toward the police station had ever been church going folks. They’d been rather ruined believing in God through circumstances of their births.
“And once I have the both of you locked inside a padded cell with impenetrable bars, of which I am quite certain neither of you can escape from, you, Mrs. Giotti, can then explain to me, in great detail, and for the record, why there is an APB out for your arrest for Grand Theft Auto. For a car you removed without permission from one Mack C. Wells, Attorney at Law, down in Miami, Florida. Said car spotted twelve miles away, stuck in a ditch, and smashed to smithereens against the trunk of old man Peabody’s hickory tree. You seem to be okay. Therefore, I would venture to say it was not you driving said car into the tree. But it was you who took it from Mr. Well’s property. That’s the one thing I’ve got damn straight.”
Liddy tripped on a crack in the sidewalk. Truly! It was a very large crack. It just popped right out at her. The cement physically grabbed the heel of her shoe. Her slight miscalculation as to where she’d been putting her left foot had nothing whatsoever to do with her complete and utter shock Mack would turn on her so quickly. Or, that his car was now totaled against a hickory tree.
Oh, God! She was in so much shit! It was this wretched town. Everything and everyone inside its very walls was out to get her.
Let them try! She’d grown a thick hide over the last ten years.
“Before I do any explaining to you or for any police record, can you at least give me five minutes alone with this man?”
Liddy turned her head toward Jake and glared at a now grinning, highly amused, equally in as much trouble as she was, Mr. Giotti. “Without a witnesses?”
“Why?” Debra supplied. “So you can kill him with your bare hands, while under my watch?”
“Yes!”
Jake started to chuckle, ending up with a full-out roaring belly laugh that had tears in his eyes.
Milliseconds later, Debra was fuming mad, at not only Jake, but at Liddy as well.
And what was Liddy doing? She was suddenly in tears, too. Because not only was she minus one perfectly wonderful man who’d suddenly turned on her, and she was supposed to be marrying in less than three weeks: bridesmaids, groomsmen, and oodles of expensive gifts to open and accept. Thanks to lowlife Jake Giotti she was now minus a custom made, fifty-thousand-dollar wedding dress, trapped in the trunk of a stolen car. A dress stuck in a ditch and smashed against a fucking hickory tree!
And, she was minus at least another forty-two thousand dollars, funds already spent on a wedding that was not going to take place until she could get the laughing baboon’s signature on a lousy piece of notarized paper.
Oh, and she’d lost her dignity along the way.
Her future? In limbo, clamped firmly in her sister-in-law’s wretched grip.
And, what looked to be the beginning of a full confession of her plentiful sins, her sanity had certainly flown the coop. No one could remain sane through all this.
Liddy killing Jake with her bare hands would’ve been far too good for the man. He needed to be dealt with in a more appropriate way, a more painful way. Castration! He was the wretched womanizer and she would enjoy killing him in any other way available to her. The bastard! He was ruining her life—for a second time. What was she stuck in? The twilight zone? A ten-year curse cast upon her soul? A curse she would never be able to escape from, no matter what the distance traveled to avoid this very thing?
The living ghost of Jake Giotti was ruining her life, and a miserable town was letting him get away with this—again.
Chapter Eight
“You, in there, now!” Debra pointed at the holding cell, and when Liddy didn’t move, the deputy shoved Liddy into the cell, locking the door.
“And you!” she barked, setting the right stage to her fury. “You are to sit right here.” Her beefy finger pointed at a chair.
Jake grudgingly moved toward the wooden chair aside her desk as Debra quickly walked to the other side of the desk. He sat down, slumping forward—still hungry, still pissed, and now with a huge problem he’s not likely
to get out of.
“And neither of you is to say another word to the other. Am I clear on this?” Debra looked from one to the other, picking up a ringing telephone and just about ripping the caller’s head off. Saying, “No, Ceril isn’t here. Is he ever here? Oh, yeah, well just call back later when someone’s here who cares.”
Debra slammed the receiver down, then turned to Jake and ordered him not to move a single muscle else she would shoot him between the eyes—with glee.
Jake didn’t dare blink. He lowered his gaze in case of any involuntary action mistaken as ammunition to that proverbial gun.
Debra then pulled out her chair and sat opposite him. “Okay. Now explain to me what the hell you were doing in Sparta last night. Why I got a phone call this morning about a bar fight you were somehow involved in? And what, in God’s name, am I allowed to do to you, that I can actually get away with doing? Because, for the love of God, Giotti! I can’t even fathom why it is you simply refuse to believe anything is ever your fault!”
Jake rubbed his hand over his face and leaned back in the hard wooden chair, sighing heavily. He was thanking his lucky stars there were only two other occupants inside the police station who did not know him, locked in separate cells, but could overhear the confession.
He lowered his voice, mumbling out his answer.
Debra leaned forward, straining to hear him.
When it must have fully registered, she laughed, adding, “You did what?” Two seconds later she hit the top of her desk with her beefy hand. “Ain’t this just priceless! Oh my God, Jake. I’ve heard some stupid shit over the years, but this one tops the cake.”
He trapped Debra’s gaze as the heat crept exponentially into his cheeks, most likely his face beet red. “And you will not say a single word about it, Debra,” he warned her.
“Why ever the hell won’t I?” She even snickered. None too sweetly, just to set him on edge.
“You won’t, because I am politely asking you not to say a word about it, to anyone.” His tone turned soft and regretful. “Don’t you think I’ve been through enough already? Do you really need to make this all the more miserable because of something I can’t change for you?”
Debra simmered down, turned her head toward Liddy, who was now seated on a hard metal bench inside one of Preacher’s Bend’s holding cells with her head buried in her hands, and she then sighed.
Debra would have her hands full for weeks to come—if not those hands full for months because of the foolish actions of Mrs. Giotti. Unless a miracle happened and the charges were dropped against her, Liddy was looking at a good twenty years behind bars. This would surely make his two years in the slammer seem like child’s play.
“Yeah, Jake, I guess you have,” she agreed, frowning.
No matter what else Preacher’s Bend thought of Debra, Jake knew she had a bit of compassion for her fellow man. But usually not his half-sister sharing any of it with him, and certainly none shared so early on a Sunday morning.
Jake was paying a huge price for being tardy with his sibling’s Sunday visit. Now he had to deal with a wife he hadn’t seen in ten long years. If that wasn’t punishment enough to a man, nothing ever would be.
“I’m not letting you off the hook on your very late check in, Jake. I can’t. It’s the fourth time in less than two months. I’m a dedicated police officer, first and foremost. I have to follow the law to the best of my abilities. If I break the rules for you, then I have to bend those rules for everyone else who lives in Preacher’s Bend. I won’t write this down on your permanent record. You don’t need that, any more than you need a hole put in your head, although it would be fun to put one there. However, by sight alone, you have to at least sit it out inside a cell, or my ass is grass, and I just bet Ceril would love getting out his Bossknowsall lawnmower just to cut it down to size.”
“I know, Debra.”
His half-sister turned her head toward Liddy again, then back at him. “Do I need to get Doc to come over here and take a look at you?” she whispered.
Jake shook his head, answering slowly. “No.”
“You sure? You do look a little peaked in the face.” She giggled under her breath, mocking his shame.
“I’ll be fine, Debra. Maybe some ice?”
Peaked? Shit! He felt like he was going to puke on his good shoes at any given moment. The wave of nausea rising quickly sustained only by a man’s misguided pride to hold it back.
Debra rose and went to the back room, Jake watching her grab an ice pack from the tiny freezer he knew she and Ceril used for storing evidence. She carried the ice pack out to him and handed it over, tsking him.
Jake held it in his hands, deciding where to put it first. Head? Guts? Upper arm? All three hurt like a bitch, none more than the other.
Liddy had moved her gaze up and was now watching his actions with sudden interest.
“I still have to lock you up,” Debra told him.
“I know.”
“And it still has to be inside there, with her.” The rest of Debra’s cells held some pretty rough characters inside their walls and Jake was almost glad she didn’t intend to put him into a cell with another guy.
Sharing a cell with a man who’d been drinking too much, brawling most of his night away with another man, over likely very little, was not something Jake deemed as necessary punishment for an hour delay to his parole check-in. What he needed was his head examined. Not incarcerated torture.
“I know,” he groaned, closing his eyes.
But trapped inside a holding cell with his missing, now found wife was the very last place on Earth he wanted to be. Momentarily, his life sucked.
“And you’ll not kill each other while my back is turned?” Debra asked.
Jake raised his head, smiling at this. “Not on your watch, Debra. I’ll only try my hand at killing her when it becomes Ceril’s watch.” He then crossed his fingers over his heart, promising the deputy more than he could afford.
If the pain in his arm wasn’t so damn excruciating, he would’ve liked the offer of enough time allowance to kill Liddy with his bare hands before shoved behind bars. It was all her fault he was hurting as badly as he was. If not for her, he would have never borrowed Theodora’s car, driven down to Sparta late last night, and then tempted fate’s hand by an inevitable tardy return to Preacher’s Bend.
If not for her, he wouldn’t have tried removing her name from his upper arm, of which she knew absolutely nothing about.
Jake chickened out at the very last second, then made up for his lack of courage by drinking away the next two hours of his life inside a dirt bar filled with lowlife bikers.
There’d been a time, way back when, when he would have easily fit in with the rowdy crowd. Low rider, leather, bad attitude, and equally bad temper had been his mottos. But not anymore. He was a changed man.
Yet, even changed men did stupid things now and again.
Shit! If not for Liddy, he wouldn’t have tried to hook up with the wrong woman inside that very same bar late last night, just to forget the last ten years of his existence. Nor would he have come face to face with the woman’s slightly angered husband ten minutes later and a very large fist to his gut.
Jake no longer fought back when punched in the gut. It wasn’t worth another trip to the county jail, another mug shot, or another explanation and recorded detail of his personal life in a police data base.
Hell! If not for Liddy Humphrey-Giotti, her husband would be a very happy man right about now. Jake would be at home. He would be with his bees. He would be taking care of Theodora’s ripening peach trees. The fruit so damn close to perfection, he could swear he smelled them even inside the police station.
He most assuredly would have his sanity intact . . .
So, if Debra did not kill him with confusing kindness, or he died of suffocation while locked inside a tiny holding cell with Liddy sucking up all the air, Theodora was likely to come after him and just plain finish him off. Jake’s main
taining of happy bees was all the old woman lived for. And it was what he was being paid a lot of good money for. What he was supposed to be doing at this very moment.
He decided to put the ice pack where it hurt the most, directly on his wounded heart. Both women looked at him curiously, as a deep groan inadvertently slipped out of his throat.
Oh, yeah? Well, karma was a real bitch.
****
As Debra shut the large grated door and clicked the lock, Liddy could see Jake’s world come crashing to a sudden halt by the frown on his face. She raised her sight to his, nothing else. Her anger was at an all-time high.
She watched with interest Jake clutch an ice pack to his arm as if it had become an actual life raft that could save him on this sinking ship.
Unfortunately, Liddy felt Jake’s boat had sunk to the bottom of the deep long before now. Any such life raft was not going to save him from harm. Her first balled near her thighs, her nails biting into the flesh of her palms, convinced of this.
“Don’t either of you do anything stupid in there. You got that?” Debra warned.
Liddy turned her head the other away. Jake took a seat opposite her on one of the low metal benches; one on the farthest side of their shared cell.
What? Too chicken to sit next to her?
“I have to go and check on what Ceril has been up to. I don’t want to come back here to find this place covered in blood. I don’t like blood. My desire to clean any of it up is right up there with liking either of you. And I don’t want to have to say this again. Is this understood?”
Debra moved from the bars and left them be. “And you two—” she warned harshly to the other two occupants of the police station, “—are to be released just as soon as I get back. I sure as hell don’t want to see either of you for the rest of this week. Even for the rest of my life, if I lucky enough to get this wish.” She rolled her eyes as they nodded in unison. Perhaps the first thing they’d agreed upon since being locked up.
Roundabout Road (Saving the Sinners of Preacher's Bend Book 2) Page 7