“She’s a nurse anesthetist,” I answered.
Winnie’s eyes went wide. “They make at least one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, Steel.”
My brows went up. “Yeah?”
Winnie nodded. “Oh yeah, if not more. She has to be smart, too, if she got a job like that. She probably has a pretty good pension going herself. Maybe lay claim to half of that, too. You might also bring up the fact that alimony works both ways. You could actually wind up being the one who gets it since you make less money than her.”
I stared at Winnie in surprise. “You’re devious. How do you know all of this?”
Winnie’s lips thinned. “Just went through it, remember?”
Understanding dawned. “I…”
The front door slammed and Cody ran out, his backpack on his back but the zipper hanging wide open. Each step he took he lost something out of it.
First his folder. Then a library book. A sweatshirt. Papers.
I started to laugh and nodded my head toward him. “Check out your boy.”
Winnie turned, saw what was happening, and shook her head.
“Hey, boyo!”
Cody stopped and looked up. “Yeah?”
“You’re losing your stuff.”
Cody looked behind him where Winnie had gestured, and he threw his hands up in the air. “Awww, man!”
Chuckling under my breath, I waited for Winnie to turn back around before I said, “I’ll call her now.”
The front door slammed again, and Conleigh’s stomping feet could be heard on the porch.
I looked up to see that she was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt that said “Buck” on it. I shook my head and returned my eyes to her mother.
Winnie sighed and fished her keys out of her front pocket. “You do that. I gotta get these kids to school.”
“Have fun at work.”
She held her thumb up. “Will do. You, too.”
My lips twitched as I watched her walk away. Then I pulled my phone out and placed a call to Lizzibeth.
“I’m not budging on the alimony or the car,” she greeted me.
I watched Winnie start her car and then Cody and Conleigh pile in before she backed out and accelerated down the street.
Then I went about explaining what was going to happen now.
“Is that what you want me to do?”
“Those horses are mine. They were mine before we married, and you don’t like horses. You even said so multiple times when we were married.”
“I don’t remember saying that,” I agreed. “But I’m finding a sudden fondness for them now.”
“Fuck you,” Lizzibeth snarled.
“Sign the fucking papers.”
Then I hung up and got into my cruiser and drove to work with a huge fucking smile on my face.
Chapter 13
Being an ugly woman is like being a man. You’re going to have to work.
-Things not to say to a woman
Winnie
The creeper was in the ER, and it only took one second after he gave me his name for me to understand exactly why the man had given me the creeps in the first place.
“Anderson Munnick.”
I shuddered as I processed his name.
“And can you tell me why you’re here …” I trailed off as the name finally sank home.
Anderson Munnick. The man that had followed me home. The same man that I’d testified against.
The same man that had been in prison for ten years.
The same man that I was supposed to be notified about if and when he ever got out of prison.
Ten fucking years.
He only had to serve ten fucking years? What the absolute fuck?
And then the fear started to sink into my bones.
I couldn’t defend myself. Conleigh was a young girl of age. She was fucking beautiful. She looked exactly like me but still in her prime. The exact same type of girl Anderson Munnick liked.
My stomach convulsed.
I stood up so fast that my chair kept going and hit the wall behind me.
“Get out,” I hissed.
“I’m not getting out,” he disagreed, leaning back calmly in his seat. “My, my, have you changed. You put on weight. Tisk-tisk.”
I had put on all of three pounds since he saw me, three of those pounds being in the last year due to my lack of exercise.
But he wasn’t really caring that I put on weight. He only wanted me to know that he noticed that I did. That he paid close attention to my body.
“Get. Out,” I repeated.
“But I have a cut on my hand.” He held up his hand to show me.
The cut on his hand was tiny. Miniscule. A single tiny slash that was already starting to clot.
A papercut at most.
“Get out,” I repeated.
“Think the lady said to get the hell out.”
I had never, not in my life, felt so relieved to see a man who had denied me a job.
But there Sean was, and I instantly sagged in relief.
Sean was former military, jacked, and intimidating…also, highly protective for some reason.
His eyes took in everything in a glance, and before I could so much as explain what was going on, he was standing between me and Anderson.
“Go,” Sean repeated.
“This is a county hospital,” Anderson smiled. “Funded by the county. That means that I have a right to be seen here.”
“She also has a right to screen you out,” Sean said. “Because it’s a waste of county tax money. Trust me on this, go before the police get here.”
Anderson’s eyes narrowed.
“I know my rights,” he said. “And I’m having chest pains now.”
He clutched at his chest and feigned—poorly, might I add—pain.
That was when the doctor came in, looking highly upset.
“Winnie, what’s going on here?” Dr. Stratton asked carefully.
“This man came in for a papercut on his finger. I informed him that he would likely be screened out, and now he’s feigning chest pain.”
Dr. Stratton was not my favorite doctor. In fact, if I could name one doctor that I would never, ever want to work on me, it’d be him.
If I came into the ER—emergency room—with a broken arm and he walked in, I’d get my shit and leave. He had a terrible bedside manner, was condescending to anyone he felt was ‘lower’ than him, like me, and made disgusting jokes when it was least appropriate.
“Well, if he’s having chest pains, you know we can’t turn him away. Bring him back, start an IV, and then get a couple of leads on him so we can run an EKG,” Dr. Stratton instructed.
I shook my head. “I can’t treat him.”
“Then why are you here?” Dr. Stratton snarled.
I opened my mouth to reply when the charge nurse on call made her way into the tiny room as well.
Overall the room was eight feet by eight feet with a desk in the middle of the room. Behind the desk stood me, Dr. Stratton, and Tally Tomirkanivov—the charge nurse. Sean was in front of me, and then Anderson on the other side of the desk.
Outside of the tiny cubicle room stood two of the security guards that were stationed across from my room in case a patient got unruly.
All the while, Anderson smirked.
“He’s faking it,” Sean boomed, startling me. “I watched him antagonize Winnie, and when she asked him to leave, he faked his new condition. Trust me on this, he ain’t hurtin’.”
“Unfortunately, you can’t be sued if you’re wrong. The hospital, however, can be. We have no choice but to take him in and check him over. Now, Winnie, do your job.”
I ground my teeth together and almost refused.
Almost.
But then I saw the smug look on Anderson’s face.
He would be happy if I refused and then got fired.
I saw it in his eyes.
&nbs
p; So I steeled my spine and gestured to the door. “After you.”
***
Steel
I brought a suspect in to get checked over, and walked in to see Sean, Tally—Tommy Tom’s wife, Tommy Tom—also a member of the MC, Naomi—Sean’s wife, and Ellen—Jessie James’ wife who also happened to be a member of the MC, all standing in the entrance of the ER.
They were whispering furiously about something, but Sean kept looking toward the back of the room as if something back there was of supreme interest to him.
“What’s going on?” I asked, shoving my perp at an ER tech. “Can you take him and get him cleaned up?”
He nodded and gestured to the first open bed which was about eight feet from me.
My eyes turned back to the group, and I could see that Sean was extremely pissed.
“What’s up?” I asked, then frowned. “Since when do you two work together again?”
Sean and Naomi were both paramedics; however, since they’d gotten married they weren’t allowed to be partners any longer. Now they both worked opposite shifts except for one time a week—which wasn’t today because otherwise, I’d be watching their children.
“I was called in to work,” Naomi explained. “And since the kids are at daycare, I went ahead and did it. I should be done by five, though, in time to pick them up.”
I nodded. “Okay, now tell me what’s going on.”
That’s when I saw Winnie in the room across the expanse of the large, open ER…with the same man that I’d forced onto the bus during the hurricane only a few days ago.
“What the fuck?”
I didn’t wait for them to explain, only charged across the room and came to a bone-jarring halt next to Winnie’s side.
She jumped a foot in the air when I appeared beside her, and the little fucker on the bed started to guffaw.
“What the fuck?” I said. “Why are you here?”
“I’m hurt, Officer. Really hurt. I’m having chest pains.”
He didn’t look like he was having chest pains. He looked like he was sitting pretty in the ER for reasons unknown. The little fucker wasn’t hurt in any way. Hurt people didn’t smile when they were getting an IV placed in their arm.
Winnie finished placing the IV and then threw all her trash away before washing her hands.
“Your doctor will be in with you in a minute,” Winnie said, then took hold of my hand.
I gave the stupid ‘patient’ one more angry look, which he volleyed back with a laughing one of his own and a thumb up, before following her out the door.
Once she was out of the cubicle, she pulled the curtains, then trudged forward.
She not only passed the ER, but then she went even farther past the group still gathered at the door and continued until she was outside the ER entrance altogether.
“It’s him.”
I blinked. “Him who?”
“Him.” She repeated. “The man I sent to jail. I finally realized why he was so familiar to me. He’s the man I testified against.”
“Are you sure?” I questioned. “It’s customary for someone to call regarding the release of a person that someone testified against. You didn’t get any calls letting you know that he was out?”
She shook her head. “Could he have called Matt? I haven’t received anything in regards to him getting out. Not a phone call. Not a letter. Nothing. The detective promised me that if he ever got out, he’d let me know. He was sincere, but this,” she gestured to the ER with her hand. “Caught me off guard. And he’s enjoying the fact.”
I gritted my teeth and tried to gain my composure.
“Only one way to find out,” I growled, then placed the phone to my ear.
Two minutes later, I was listening to Matt try to explain away why he hadn’t informed Winnie of the man she’d testified against getting out of jail.
“I meant to,” Matt explained. “But we were on bad terms.”
“You were on bad terms,” I repeated. “If the situation were reversed, and this had happened to you, would you care if there were bad terms between you and Winnie if she had important information pertaining to your safety to tell you? You let her down, allowed her to get caught off guard. Had we known that he was getting out, we could’ve filed a restraining order against him preemptively. But you didn’t let her know, and she was not only blindsided today at the hospital, but she was also ambushed in the dark while we were down south helping with hurricane relief. She could’ve been killed because of you.”
“Don’t put this on me,” Matt countered.
“This is on you. You’ve known he was getting out for a month. The detective in charge of this case sent you a certified letter and called you. He trusted you, as Winnie’s former husband, to relay the news. Something he wouldn’t have done if you hadn’t said that you would. She could’ve been raped or killed, Matt.”
Winnie lost all color in her face, and I cursed again as I reached forward and hooked one arm around her back, pulling her to me.
If she fell, I’d at least catch her.
My eyes scanned the area as I spoke with the dipshit on the phone, listening to his pathetic excuses for allowing his ex-wife to be in danger, and found my eyes focusing on the glass windows that blanketed the automatic doors.
And found not just my son watching me, but Tommy Tom, Tally, Ellen, and Naomi as well.
I rolled my eyes as they watched us, whispering like the little children that they were.
Gossips. All of them.
“Bring me the information to my office by end of the day, and Matt?”
“Yeah?” Matt asked warily.
“You have a duty to Winnie. You may not be married to her any longer, but as a decent human being and an officer of the law, you should’ve let her in on this. At the very least, if you were on such bad terms with her, you should have told me or another officer to tell her. If anything happens to her, Matt, that’s on you.”
Winnie shivered in my arms, and I squeezed her tight before hanging up the phone.
“I can’t say that I’m surprised by the fact that he kept this from me,” Winnie admitted.
“Me either,” I grumbled. “Me either.”
The sliding glass doors opening had us all turning to look.
It’d been a little over twenty minutes since we’d exited the hospital, and apparently, that was enough time for Anderson Munnick to realize that he wasn’t getting the attention that he required.
“Sir!” A nurse followed him out. “You can’t leave. If you leave, you’ll be AMA—against medical advice—and won’t be readmitted.”
Anderson scoffed. “Like I care.”
“You’ll be flagged,” Winnie said. “When you leave AMA, they don’t like that. You’ll be labeled as a dumbass and they won’t allow you in unless you’re obviously having an actual emergency that’s visible. You won’t get to just walk in like you did today and get seen.”
Anderson saw Winnie in my arms, and his eyes went wide, while his smile dimmed.
“Is that right?” he asked, coming to a stop about four feet from us, crossing his arms over his chest.
The bad thing was, Anderson Munnick was quite appealing. I could see how women would be attracted to him. Why did he have to rape to get a woman?
And we all knew that he was a rapist.
I’d looked him up once I got back home a few days ago in the police database.
He was charged with only one count of rape but was also suspected of not just a few, but many more. They couldn’t actually pin anything else on him due to lack of evidence in the other cases, and it was only Winnie’s testimony that had tied him to the location of the rape that he was convicted of. Who knew what he’d been doing since he was out.
The automatic doors opened, but I didn’t take my gaze off of Anderson long enough to see who’d come out.
But when I felt the familiar hand of my son on my shoulder, I felt an inner peac
e that allowed me to calm down.
“Time to leave, buddy.”
“You can’t tell me to leave. I’m standing in a parking lot.”
“Loitering,” I murmured, gesturing to a state police car that was pulling into the lot. “Which I’m sure we can find a way to take you in for. It’ll be fun…how about you continue. Any arrest, even loitering, is a violation of your parole. Which then means you’ll be heading back.”
“They won’t send me back to jail because I was loitering,” Anderson countered.
Aaron pulled up in his cruiser and got out, leaving the door open as he did.
He didn’t say a word, but he didn’t need to. His presence was enough to cause that extra little bit of worry that I needed for Anderson to leave.
Sometimes I hated being a cop.
I hated standing here with my hands tied behind my back. I hated the fact that I couldn’t just walk up to the motherfucker and punch him in the face, threaten his ass to stay away from my woman.
Everything came screeching to a halt inside my mind. My woman?
“Do you want to find out?” Sean asked, stealing the words from my mouth. “Because that’s what is about to happen. Personally, I think you should give it a try. See how it goes.”
There were times when my son was younger that I didn’t appreciate his smart-ass mouth, but now that he was older, I could find the humor in it.
Like now.
“Time to go,” I said. “Either leave or get arrested.”
Anderson sneered at me, my son, and then stopped when his eyes landed on Winnie.
Or more particularly, Winnie’s head.
She wasn’t looking at Anderson. She was looking at the crowd that I could feel gathered behind my back.
My family.
“See you soon, sweet Winnie.”
Winnie ignored him, but I didn’t.
I charged forward, pushing Winnie from my arms, and stopped inches from the little fucker’s face.
“Listen here, Anderson,” I said quietly. “Don’t give me a reason to do this. Don’t. Because you will not win. You might think you will, but you won’t. I’m older, wiser and have a lot more experience in this life shit than you do. Don’t be stupid. Get out of town, stop raping women and live your life. Trust me on this.”
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