How About No
Page 41

But now, seeing the angry scowl on Castiel’s face, I stood up as I felt exhilaration start to race through my blood.
“Did you find her?” I called.
I hadn’t meant to say it as loud as I did, but I was too hopeful that he had.
“I did,” Castiel confirmed. “At her house, wrestling in the front yard with her daughter.”
I frowned. “What?”
Castiel nodded once. “You heard me right. They’re both pretty banged up…so I brought them here.”
I smiled for the first time since I’d gotten the call that my wife had been shot.
Moving swiftly to the young woman that was manning the front desk—the one in charge of letting people know how their loved ones are or if there were any updates to be had—I stopped in front of her and said, “I’ll be downstairs. Will you please call me if there are any updates?”
The woman nodded. “I have your number on file, sir.”
I’d already been up to talk to her eight times. She was likely happy to see me go.
“Thank you,” I replied gruffly.
And, as one, nearly eighty-five percent of the waiting room got up with me.
I held out my hand to them. “Stay.”
The men snorted, but Conleigh and Izzy retook their seats—both side by side.
The men followed me, and honestly, I couldn’t find it in me to care.
I liked that they wanted to be there, and I liked even more that I had their support.
Taking long, fast steps, I didn’t once notice the bite of pain in my leg, nor did I notice how angry I looked.
If I’d been thinking more clearly, I likely would’ve tried to control the look on my face, or change my body language to not give away my murderous intentions.
Instead, I barreled down the hall, only stopping long enough at the elevator to find out what floor they were on from Castiel.
Unlucky for me, they were in the ER, which was filled with too many people for me to really do the damage that I wanted to.
But, I was going to do what I had to do to. Right then, I wasn’t a cop. I wasn’t a nice person. I was a man, who had just seen the aftermath of his wife being shot by a woman who didn’t realize who she was messing with.
I was about to show her.
And none of the men at my back were going to stop me.
I came to a stop outside of the curtain where the two women responsible for this entire shit storm were located. I was contemplating walking in there and wrapping my hands around the throat of the woman that had been the reason for all my pain and agony over the last few hours but held myself in check.
Barely.
“Shut up, Debbie,” the woman snarled. “This is all your fault. If you’d focused on doing it the right way, and not being a goddamn dumbass, this might’ve all worked out the way it was supposed to. And for God’s sake, stop worrying about the goddamn dog that she stole. Worry about the fact that you’ll never see your babies again.”
“My husband will bring them to see me in prison,” she said. “Have you never seen that show on Netflix?”
“I don’t think you’re understanding the gravity of this situation,” Debbie’s mother hissed. “This is not a goddamn TV show. This is real-fucking-life. I shot someone today!”
“Shh,” Debbie whispered too loudly. “If you don’t admit it…”
I’d heard enough.
The two imbeciles behind the curtain obviously thought they were in a private room or something. They weren’t.
I yanked the partition away and stared at the two women.
One was someone I’d seen quite a few times before she stopped coming into the daycare. I’d often gone to visit my wife during the rush hour of dropping kids off in the morning. Debbie. The other was obviously Debbie’s mother. Hannelore Petty.
They both clammed up tight at the sight of me—not to mention the other men at my back.
Their eyes were jumping in between each other at a high rate of speed.
Had anything in this situation been funny, it would be the look on their faces at seeing me.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t in the laughing mood.
“You shot my wife,” I said to Hannelore.
Hannelore didn’t say a word, but her eyes did flare.
“No, she didn’t,” Debbie lied. “Someone else did.”
I didn’t spare the idiot a glance. My eyes were all for the mother.
“You thought that what? You’d get away with it?” I questioned.
She still said nothing.
“She was watching my kids all day,” Debbie said. “I was also at home. You can check my ankle monitor status.”
It’d been checked the moment that things had settled down enough for everyone to think rationally. After Castiel made sure that Landry had made it to the hospital alive, he’d immediately set out to investigating the whereabouts of Debbie—who surprisingly had been released on bail that morning.
Unfortunately, her alibi had been easy to check out because she did, indeed, have an ankle monitor. The judge had deemed her a flight risk and made the monitor a condition of her bail—which had been posted by her mother. Surprise.
I wonder if that’d been her mother’s goal, to have Debbie do the dirty work. It was possible that she hadn’t known about the monitor when she’d bailed her out. I hadn’t known about it.
I also hadn’t known that she’d gotten out. Though that was easily explained by Castiel, who’d informed me that he’d had someone monitoring her twenty-four seven, and there was no way in hell that she was going to slip past them.
Which, I suppose, she hadn’t.
“It’s already been checked, and you did leave your house,” Castiel came to stand beside me. “In addition, we’ve had a positive identification on both of you. Once we get you cleaned up, Ms. Petty, we’ll be taking you to county lock-up for the attempted murder of Landry Johnson.”
Hannelore’s mouth fell open in shock. “You can’t pin anything on me!”
“Yeah,” Debbie said. “She wore a mask. You can’t pin anything on her.”
She seriously couldn’t be that stupid, could she?
“What color mask?” Castiel asked inquiringly.
“It was black. I bought it off of Amazon during hunting season last year. It has a really cute Under Armour symbol right here.” She pointed to her forehead.
“Like this one?” Castiel asked.
Hannelore was shouting “I’m going to kill you with my bare hands” vibes at her daughter, but Debbie seemed clueless.
It wasn’t until Castiel pulled out a folded piece of paper that showed the mask—symbol exactly where it was—on Hannelore’s face. The best angle Castiel had been able to find was one of a side profile shot with Hannelore tugging it down over her face. The only thing visible was her hairy goddamn chin.
“That is the one,” Debbie confirmed.
Castiel looked at me. “Why did we allow her to continue visiting with her children?”
It was more than obvious that he thought Debbie was an imbecile.
I happened to agree with him.
But, since it was giving us what we wanted, I couldn’t fault Debbie for being a dumbass.
Debbie shot me a smug look, and I balled my fist up tightly to keep myself from doing or saying anything that might get me sent to jail right along with them.
Luckily, before I could act on the urges and desires that were running through my veins, my phone rang, interrupting the tense silence now happening around us.
The moment I placed it to my ear, I could hear the caution in the volunteer’s voice that was on the other end of the line. “Um, Mr. Johnson? This is the volunteer that works in surgery? The doctor just called and gave me an update. They finished.”
She didn’t give me anything more, and I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like the reason why.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I told the girl. “Thank you.”
The girl didn’t wait for a reply. I didn’t give her the time of day.
My mind was now completely on Landry.
“You’re okay here?” I asked Castiel.
I trusted the man with my life.