The men had been placed only four feet apart; neither man capable of reaching the other through the steel bars. This looked to be exactly how Debra had planned it. She now had Jake and Liddy to deal with. Too many criminals and the deputy’s brain might be taxed.
She grabbed her hat, her gun, her badge, and started heading for the door.
“Hey! What about us?” Liddy blurted, moving quickly to the bars while watching her sister-in-law getting ready to leave.
“What about you?” Debra slammed her hat on her head. She’d holstered her gun.
“You can’t just leave us in here!”
“Wanna bet?”
“This is not legal, Debra, and you know it.”
“Legal? Says who?” Debra’s questions came back to Liddy as a near growl.
“Says . . .” Liddy paused. She had to give it some real thought. Debra had her over a barrel. She was supposedly wanted for Grand Theft Auto. Jake still hated her. The whole of Preacher’s Bend wanted her gone.
“Says me. You have to charge me with something. You can’t just lock me up like this. I have my rights! There are laws against the use of improper restraint.”
She’d been quiet while seated inside the cell and all by herself. But the very minute Jake got pushed inside it, she figured remaining mute was literally for the birds. She had an awful lot to say. By the looked of things, very little time in which to say any of them. Debra was about to leave she and Jake alone—together. Not good.
Jesus! Not good at all!
Liddy could barely breathe, let alone contemplate the idea of being left inside a holding cell with this man.
Debra merely laughed at her face. “Rights?”
“Yes, Debra. Rights.”
Liddy watched the deputy place her hands on her hips, and then glare. She knew any glare was only because Debra hadn’t seen her in over ten years. They’d never gotten along back then, and the dislike was coming back at full tilt.
“Mrs. Giotti, you have about as many rights as that husband of yours. He’s sitting in there because his parole appointment was, shall we say, slightly delayed on the account of you just showing up here unannounced. He gets to sit it out for seventy-two hours, thanks to this lofty legal system you deem as grand.” Her sneer matched the fury in her eyes. “You, on the other hand, get to stay inside there until Mr. Wells either drops the charges against you or you get a court date set, whichever comes first.”
“You can’t do this to me!” Liddy screamed, placing both hands on the bars. She shoved her face to those bars, receiving the imprints of the steel.
“Oh, yeah? Watch me.” Debra sauntered toward the door with a nasty grin on her face, turned the knob, then waited.
“I’ll sue! I’ll sue you, this town, and anyone who dares cross my path while stuck in here.”
“Go ahead. It’ll be fun. I ain’t got much. Neither does Preacher’s Bend. But you just go ahead and sue for all you want out of us, Miss Fancy Pants. Right now, I’m looking at a woman who hasn’t got a leg to stand on, a pot to piss in, or any real brains inside her head. Does the mention of a stolen car ring any bells for you, Miss Hussy?”
With that, Debra slammed the station door shut and left.
Oh, if the fat deputy called her Hussy one more fucking time . . .
She turned to Jake who was now grinning from ear to ear as only an arrogant beast of a man would.
“What is so hilarious to you?” Liddy’s temper snapped like a twig.
“You.” He moved the ice to his upper arm and flinched.
Liddy caught Jake’s flinch and wondered about it, but she did not ask. Not yet anyway. Besides, she had other more pressing matters to deal with than wonder why he looked as though he was in tremendous pain and about to puke on the floor.
“You’re what’s so damn funny,” he repeated.
Liddy had to bite her tongue to only say, “And why is that?” The remaining thoughts in her had would have provoked him into physical violence.
He slowly set the ice pack onto the metal bench. Without answering her, he gingerly shrugged out of his suit jacket, wincing.
Liddy gasped when she saw his white dress shirt’s sleeve was covered in blood. She moved quickly over to him and sat down next to her husband on the cold bench. If there was one thing in her life she could never ignore it was someone with blood on themselves. It stemmed from her wanting to be a nurse before shacking up with a lawyer, and then wanting that occupation—him—more.
This, in hindsight, was what likely caused all the trouble in the first place. She’d started working for a man who loved to control things.
“What the hell happened to you, Jake?”
Jake drew his eyes away from the dried blood and looked right at her. “A long night. Other than that, nothing much.”
“Your arm is completely covered in blood. Don’t give me your ‘nothing much’ attitude. Why didn’t you tell Debra you’re hurt this badly?”
“The ice pack.” He quickly jerked his head toward the pack. “She knows about this.”
“But that’s blood, Jake. I tend to panic when it fresh.”
He again looked at his upper arm. “So it is. But it seems to be dried blood Liddy, not fresh. So stop panicking. There’s no need to get your undies in a bundle over nothing, Sweetheart.”
“Fuck you, Jake! You don’t have to be so smug and arrogant all the time. Let me have a look at your arm.” She made a move to grab for his shirt sleeve, but Jake anticipated the action and moved to the far side of the cell, distancing himself from her reach.
“I can look after myself, Liddy,” he said. “I’m quite capable of it. Christ, I’ve been doing it for some time now. And I have certainly thought myself as a grown man, but I could be wrong.” His words didn’t quite match the sudden pallor of his face or the fact he was now staring at her as if he was going to pass out.
“I didn’t say you couldn’t take care of yourself, Jake. I was only going to take a look at your bleeding arm,” she reasoned. “Help you, if need be.”
“Well, I sure as hell don’t want your help, and you don’t need to take a look. Do you? I’m fine. It’s not fresh blood. End of story.”
“No, you are not fine. You’re in pain. And no it is not the ‘end of story’. You can’t always have your way.”
He flared his nostrils. “Jesus! You just don’t quit, do you?” As his eyes turned to hers she witnessed the destructive path of fury about to hit. “You’re now an expert on how I should feel?”
“You’re white as a ghost, Jake.”
“Well, shit, Liddy! That probably has a lot to do with you sucking up all the oxygen inside our cell with your incessant misplaced chatter and stupid observations. Any lack of oxygen could easily cause a man’s pallor to turn into a ghostly shade.”
“You really are a bastard. Anyone ever tell you that?”
“It certainly takes one to know one . . . Hussy.”
Liddy gasped, then turned her body away from him. Seconds later, she picked up the discarded ice pack to throw it at him, aiming for his head. Of course she wasn’t lucky enough to actually hit her target. Jake easily caught the flung object with his good arm. Sitting opposite her, he replaced the ice to his upper arm, then stared her down.
Liddy, by then, had become so absolutely furious with her estranged husband she didn’t dare speak another word to him. All they had to do was survive the next seventy-two hours trapped inside a holding cell with each other.
How hard could this be?
Then again, Liddy was more aware she was going to be stuck in here for some time. It usually took a couple of weeks to get a judge to come through and set a court date for any of Preacher’s Bend’s criminals. A town this old tended to drag its feet according to the usual guidelines of the law, and these backwoods hick rednecks certainly gave the place a proper definition to backwoods hicks.
And Debra seemed in no hurry to process her captured car thief any more than she was at changing her attitude about
her half-brother. She hadn’t even taken down any personal information from Liddy.
Good God! Was she so stupid not to have noticed? No. Not stupid. Dumbfounded. There’s a difference.
Debra, that fat-ass, disturbing deputy, shoved Liddy inside a cell, then locked the door. Mind you, with a bit of triumphant glee in her eyes. If Liddy hadn’t known any better, she would’ve thought Debra as stalling on throwing the book at her on purpose. But this made no sense. Why would Debra not want to be rid of her, as much as Jake wanted her gone? As a free woman, she could leave Preacher’s Bend—for good.
Leave, and never come back to a place sucking the lifeblood from her veins.
Sighing heavily, she eased her sight from his and moved it to the other two men sharing holding cells with them. Each man was grinning from ear to ear.
“What the hell are you looking at?” Since both had gained her wrath, she was in a suddenly sharing mood.
“Nothing,” the first man offered.
“Me, neither,” came out from the second.
“Then stop staring at us like we’re zoo animals out on display,” she scolded.
“We can’t,” both men added. Their noses pressed tight to the steel bars.
“Why the hell not?”
“Because this is some seriously funny shit, Lady,” the larger of two said.
This time Jake manned up and took charge. “The lady told you to shut the hell up.”
Liddy whipped her head around. “You’re not helping, Jake.”
“Don’t really give a shit if I am or am not, Liddy,” he said.
Liddy growled, then returned her attention back to the other men.
“I mean some really funny shit,” restated the smaller man. “You get stuck in a holding cell with a hot chick for seventy-two hours, and you can’t do a damn thing about it? I’d say that’s funny. At least to me it is.”
By this time, Liddy was shedding tears as if every single one of them would save her from damnation.
“Now I? I would much rather let Duke beat the living snot out of me again,” he pointed at the other man in distaste, “than be stuck inside a holding cell with a hot little mama . . . and Little Darlin’, let me be the first to say you are one fine looking woman . . . and then not able to do a damn thing about it. Deputy Bitch from Hell will be watching your every move, Mr. So, yeah, it is sort of funny to me.” He even chuckled to the vile thoughts running about his thickheaded skull.
To Liddy’s heated opinion, too thick to have any brains insides the bones.
“You have a really filthy mind,” Jake rued. “Someone should take care of that problem for you.”
“I’d like to see you try it, tough guy.”
Thankfully, Jake wouldn’t dignify the man with an answer.
“But at least I will be let out of here in a couple of hours with my filthy mind intact by the time you’ve mulled this over a bit more thoroughly. Hell, by the time I find a good looking woman, not as fine as she, but good enough to get the job done, you’ll be sweating it out like a rabid dog. You’ll have to let it grow, watch it wither and die, and she’ll be allowed the benefit to gloat. Debra ain’t about to let you have a poke at such a fine-looking woman while in the poky. Get it? Poke? Pokey? Kind of a play on words there, ain’t it?”
“Shut the hell up, Larry. It ain’t that funny,” Duke suddenly argued through the bars. “You might hurt yourself trying to be so damn philosophical.”
“Sure it is, Duke. Our good buddy here won’t be able to get any action without getting it caught on tape. That, my friend, is funny!”
“The man’s right, Larry,” Duke warned his partner in crime. “You have a really sick mind. Someone should fix that problem for you.” He sounded as though he would be willing to take up the job offer; right where he’d left off, given half the chance.
“That might be the case, my co-incarcerated jail mate. But at least my sick mind is still working this morning, whereas yours’ stopped brain functions late last night.”
“Is that so?” Duke ground out, clenching his jaw. He drifted back from the bars to ball his fists.
Liddy suspected he was getting ready to fight it out in only words; for there was a four-foot distance and large metal cages between them in which to stop Duke from beating up loose-lips Larry again.
Yet, through it all, she’d heard more than enough.
“Would the three of you just shut the hell up?” came out, while a steady stream of tears poured down her face. “None of this is funny! Jake is not getting into anyone’s pants—today, tomorrow, and certainly not within his next ten lifetimes . . .at least not with me! No one is taping anything. And for the love of God, just shut the hell up!”
All three men answered quickly, “Yes, Ma’am.”
Just as they got their words out, Rachel entered the police station carrying Jake’s tie. She moved through a relative maze of desks, file cabinets and empty doughnut boxes straight to their holding cell.
“Jake, Darling. I am so sorry about this. I didn’t know what else to do. You were making such a scene with this . . . this woman! It was driving away my paying customers. And you know Debra. When you don’t show up for one of your parole appointments, she can get pretty mad at you. I thought I might be doing you a favor, settle our debt. None of us wanted to watch you pick trash off the highway again. Good God, Jake! Is that blood on your arm?”
He stood and took the tie she handed him through the bars, ignoring the question.
While Rachel’s fingers lingered on his, he asked one of his own. “You’re the one who called Debra?”
Liddy snorted in the background; Jake turning his head to glare at her.
His sudden smile pissed her off; he seemed amused by the fact she’d shown any emotion at all.
“Like I said, I didn’t know what else to do. You don’t usually bring any of your, um, problems into the restaurant.”
“Rach, honey. Real sorry about that. It’s just she is . . . ,” he started, pausing.
Liddy—the man’s problem—cut him off at the knees before he dug himself into a hole he’d never be able to get out of. “Hey, Rach?”
Both sets of eyes turned swiftly toward hers. And Liddy was going to thrust her opinion directly into their ensuing conversation post haste, whether either cared to hear it or not.
“You want to do all of us a huge favor here and get your greasy little paws off my husband?” Her tone was dripped with enough venom to take down an elephant, because, with everything she had inside her, Jake was still her husband. What was hers . . . was hers! All others had better back off or suffer the consequences of ill-bred manners.
A little defensive, one would think, for someone wanting to get rid of that same husband ten years ago and a repeat of it now.
Rachel looked taken aback. For one brief moment, she must have realized she had her hands on Jake. She quickly sputtered, “Your what?”, as she removed her fingers from his flesh in slow motion.
Liddy swiped any remaining moisture off her face with the back of her hands, then stood up a bit taller than she actually was.
“I said get your greasy diner paws off my husband!”
Rachel’s gaze snapped hurriedly to Jake’s. “What the devil did you do, Jake? Go and get yourself hitched to . . . to this . . . woman? Come on. Even for you, that’s pretty foolish.” She moved closer to the bars then whispered the rest. “She ain’t exactly your type. I mean . . . look at her.”
Jake smiled at Rachel’s objectivity while easing his hand from the bars. “Tell me about it,” he said, grinning sinfully.
“Oh! This is getting good,” Larry added. “Really good. Jesus! This is much better than anything I could’ve thought to get involved in.”
Both Liddy and Jake blurted out toward his cell, “Shut the hell up!”
With what looked to be regret, her husband then admitted the sordid truth to Rachel, aloud. “No. I did not get hitched to this woman last night, Rachel. I did something even stupider.”
He groaned under his breath what this was, exactly. “But I did get hitched to her ten years ago, and back then—” he stalled upon, turning to face Liddy, his tight-lipped smile saying it all. “She wasn’t exactly my type back then, either.”
Rachel might have wanted a piece of Jake, but that piece had been promised to Liddy, and yet Liddy could no longer look him in the eye on this latest dig, too pissed to give the man a second of her time.
“Oh!” Rachel said in response.
This followed by Larry blurting out, “Damn! Now it ain’t as funny as it was if she’s your wife!”
“Would you please. . . Shut . . . the Hell . . . up?” Liddy repeated toward a man trying to hold his own ten feet away.
Rachel backed away slowly from their shared cell. “Um, I think I had better get back to my customers.” In other words, she needed to get back to the start of Preacher’s Bend’s very long gossip line.
Liddy wasn’t stupid. She knew how this worked. Within the hour those who hadn’t known she was back . . . would.
Jake nodded, reluctantly. He, too, aware the sooner Rachel left this police station the sooner all hell would break loose on his ass.
“That would probably be best,” he said.
Of course it would be best! Within seventy-two hours Jake would be a free man. He’d be able to hide himself in Theo’s shack with his bees for at least another twenty years or so.
Yet his ease of voice was nothing compared to the unsteady beat of Liddy’s heart while she’d been mimicking his words behind his back; even rolled her eyes when he’d called her ‘the woman’.
Preacher’s Bend’s elders were likely to get wind of her return, and she could see Jake had no real desire to be around her when this happened.
Once Rachel was out the door and only the four of them were left inside the local police station, Jake turned on his heel, stormed over to her side of their shared cell, manhandled her to her feet, and yelled into her face. “What the hell was all that about?”
She watched her husband grimace to pain the rather foolish maneuver made. A second later, Jake broke into a cold sweat.
Roundabout Road (Saving the Sinners of Preacher's Bend Book 2) Page 8