Page 123 of Love is Angry

Chapter 52

Rhue

I’ve got my gun pointed at Jake’s back through the window. I see him twitch, and I’m ready to squeeze the trigger. Before Jake can do more than twitch, though, a rifle slides through the front door, its barrel pointed at Jake’s chest. A man in full SWAT gear follows it, and two other men follow him. Jake drops his gun, chuckling.

“Damn, Maddie,” he says. “You got me, good. All that talk about happily ever after with my Laura—just a ploy to keep me from killing you so your little friends could come grab me. Good one. No, I mean it, I am impressed. Way to play the player, Maddie.”

I’m boiling at the casual way he flings her nickname around. My trigger finger itches—but if I give in to the impulse, I’d be the bad guy. Jake and Mackenzie are outnumbered and overwhelmed, and it doesn’t take long for the SWAT team to get them out of the cabin. One of them releases Maddie, who rushes over to the window. I switch the safety on and tuck my gun back in my jeans, then lean through the window to kiss her.

“I thought I was going to die in here,” she says, her eyes glittering with tears. “You saved my life.”

“I thought I was going to die out there,” I confess. “Mackenzie’s blinding white booty shorts saved my life. Perfect target.”

She laughs helplessly and leans against me. EMTs quickly pull us apart to tend to the raw patches and blisters on her wrists and ankles. While they’re doing that, I stroll around the cabin—kissing through the window is great and all, but I’d rather not climb through it. Before I get to the door, the sheriff stops me.

“Listen, son. Rochester PD is blowing up my dispatch, trying to tell me the case is theirs. I don’t know how they figure, since the lady was kidnapped in my county and held in my county—but they seem to think this has something to do with a drive-by shooting up near the lake.”

“It probably does,” I tell him. “The guy you just arrested went and explained the whole thing to his apprentice—girl with the extra hole in her ass—and I recorded the whole thing.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” he says. “Those nightbirds do sing sweet, don’t they? Damn surprising coincidence you happened to stumble onto a crime seen while recording nightbirds on public land.”

I can’t help but chuckle. “Damn surprising coincidence indeed, sir.”

That nightand the whole next day are full of questions and answers. The Tompkin’s county sheriff’s office is a lot less reluctant to go after my dad than Rochester PD is. Even so, they only have Jake’s word that Julian hired him. Mackenzie refuses to corroborate, and has denied all knowledge of everything, even after the interrogators showed her my recording. She claims tohave been talking about a rabid squirrel, and says she was shot by her own ricochet.

I’ve given them copies of every scrap of evidence I have, and they’re continuing to investigate Jake and Mackenzie; but so far there is no concrete evidence linking them to Julian. The bastard covers his tracks well. It’s a little disheartening—but at least Maddie’s out of danger for now. At least until Julian finds some other hit man to take her out—one who isn’t so amused with his own voice, maybe, whose work ethic is aligned more closely to Mackenzie’s. The thought makes me sick to my stomach.

I think the investigation would be going a lot faster if Rochester was willing to work with Tompkins, but from all I’m overhearing, they seem to be stonewalling. It’s frustrating as hell. I haven’t needed the cops much in my life—but the few times I have, I’ve never known them to be incompetent. I’m going to miss class for this, but I’ve got to head back to Rochester. There’s going to be fallout, and I don’t want any of it hitting my sister—or Maddie’s family.

I take the long way to drive by Sibel’s place. I don’t know why, exactly—maybe just to prove to myself that the nightmare really did happen. I find Contreras parked outside her house, staring up at the window and sipping coffee. Curious, I pull over and step out. As I walk up, I see that the crime scene tape is still in place.

“Thought your men would have this processed by now,” I say casually, leaning against the car beside him.

Contreras grunts. “Polls have Echeveria ahead by a huge margin. At this rate, his seat’s guaranteed.”

“So?”

He gives me a flat, world-weary look. “She worked for your mom. The bullets match the spiffy new SBD guns your dad’s been investing in. Kid down in Tompkins swears up and down he was hired by Julian Echeveria—he’s holding out on a deal beforehe shows proof. A deal he’s not gonna get until there’s some kind of guarantee that we can use it. Monroe DA and Tompkins DA been on the phone together all morning.” He sighs and swirls his coffee. “Until that city council seat is taken, nobody in law enforcement will move a muscle.”

“I don’t get it,” I tell him with a scowl. “If he’s arrested for murder, wouldn’t that make him more likely to lose the election?”

“He won’t be arrested for murder,” Contreras says flatly. “At most, he’d be arrested for conspiracy to commit. Processed and out the same day. A half-decent defense attorney would have his record wiped squeaky clean by the end of the week. Media’ll spin the whole thing as a dirty political plot, and he’ll win. When he wins, everybody involved in his arrest loses their jobs.”

“Come on, it’s a city council seat, not the goddamn mayor’s office.”

“Goddamn mayor is your daddy’s BFF,” Contreras says. “Two of them have a deal. Julian gets the city council seat fair and square, Mayor Benson helps Julian into the big chair in a couple years. Benson and Julian are both buddy-buddy with the governor. You see where this is going, kid?”

“Protection from the top down,” I realize out loud, my heart sinking. “Well how the fuck are we supposed to fight that?”

Contreras shakes his head. “Too late, now. Once he’s in that seat, he’s locked in. Unless some kind of miracle happens, Julian is going to get away with everything.”

“What kind of miracle?”

Contreras sighs. “At the end of the day—no matter how much back room bullshit these politicians pull—they work for the people. Only way I see this changing is if all of Rochester suddenly starts screaming for Julian’s head on a plate.” He shrugs and crumples his empty cup. “Well, say goodbye to the crime scene, son. First thing Wednesday morning, it’ll be writtenoff as random violence. Wouldn’t surprise me if they fabricated a whole Turkish Cartel narrative to explain it away—nothing like a dash of xenophobia to make a lie convincing.”

I clap a hand on his shoulder and stand in silence with him for a moment. Unable to find any words to say to make this situation any brighter, I leave him and go back to my car. My phone was on silent while l was talking to him, so I check it before I start the engine. I’ve got two texts, and they both make my soul feel tired.

Laura: How far are you from Rochester?

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