Page 73 of When I'm Gone
“Damn it,” Luke cursed to himself. “He hurt you, didn’t he?” Forgetting to keep his distance, he took her braced hand carefully. “I thought I was helping. I’m so sorry.”
“Hey, you didn’t break it; he did.”
“No, I knew it was a risk.” Luke ran his thumb over the palm of her hand. “I was being selfish. I didn’t want you to leave.”
“Well, it worked.” She pulled her hand away and gestured to the car. “I told Terry I’d take you over to the hospital. She’s there with May. They filled me in on what happened.”
“Yes, please. I was on my way over there when all this happened. But wait.” He touched Annie’s elbow, stopping her from turning away. “Brian won’t mind?” he asked, trying to keep his bitterness toward Brian from leaking into his feelings for Annie. Though itwasstrange getting picked up from a night in jail by the wife of the man who put him there.
Annie stopped, keys in hand. “Luke, Brian is under arrest.”
“What?”
“He’s going to jail for a very long time,” she said with a confidence she rarely displayed. “Get in the car; I’ll explain on the way.” She kept walking, unlocking the car with a beep. The wind caught in her shirt, blowing the sleeves back, away from her body. For a second she looked like she was flying.
CHAPTER 32
Luke tossed the plastic bag into the backseat of the car and ducked into the passenger seat. Annie already had the car running and backed out of her parking spot as soon as he closed the door, her unbraced hand crossing over her damaged one as she turned the wheel. Could Brian really be in jail?
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Luke asked, turning his body to face Annie until the seat belt pressed against his neck. He felt impatient; he wanted to get answers quickly, but sitting in the car together reminded Luke of their road trip and how close he felt to her on that drive home.
“I turned Brian in,” she said calmly, as if it wasn’t the bravest thing she’d ever done. “I’ve been compiling evidence against him for weeks now. I was going to use it if he ever hurt me again”—she held up her wrist—“but then Terry called and asked Brian about finding an experienced lawyer. I knew he was behind your arrest as soon as I saw his face. So, I put it all together, got my own lawyer, and went down to the police station first thing this morning.”
“And they believed you?” Luke asked. It seemed pretty far-fetched after twenty years on the force.
“It wasn’t that simple.” She shook her head, eyes fixed on the road. “They brought Brian in for questioning, and I gave them permission to search the house. Once they found the pills, I mean, the evidence tags were still on some of them,thenthey started to take me seriously. In the end, it was Brian who got you off.”
“He seemed pretty set on sending me away for a long time when he came to see me last night.”
“Oh God. He came to gloat? Did he hurt you?” She shot him a quick glance, checking him over with her eyes.
“No. I’m fine.” Luke pushed his hands farther under the hem of his untucked shirt. Self-inflicted wounds were far more embarrassing to explain. “He didn’t admit to anything openly, just implied it.”
“Well, he screwed up on the denial game during the interrogation. My lawyer was listening in, and he said that once they presented him with the evidence, Brian didn’t try to avoid the possession claim. His excuse was that the drugs weren’t for him. He’d borrowed them to set you up because”—she hesitated, embarrassed—“because you were sleeping with his wife.” Annie flicked on the turn signal and glanced an extra three times down the road to make sure it was empty. Luke chuckled despite Annie’s discomfort.
“Hmm. I’m guessing his fellow officers didn’t seem to find this a good excuse for stealing evidence.” Brian had been so sure that his time on the force would save him. Luke was relieved to see that his coworkers despised crime from any perpetrator.
“Nope. And this is serious stuff. He’s in big trouble.” She shook her head as she spoke, almost as though she were delivering bad news. “There’s so much evidence against him, no way he’ll be getting out anytime soon.” Her words turned up a little at the end, sounding almost boastful, but her eyes were moist. “At least I hope not.”
“You are so brave.” Luke looked at her with new eyes. Annie saved him. She was the reason for his freedom and why Brian was behind bars. After all these years of abuse, it took having to save someone else to motivate her to leave. Why was saving herself never enough? She was stronger than he’d ever been—she stood up to her abuser, freed herself. She was his hero. “I’ll help you. You’ll never have to face him alone. I promise.”
A blush crawled up the side of her face he could see, her lips twisted to the side hiding a smile. It felt so right having her back in his life.
“You know that letter Natalie sent me?”
“The one you told me I could never read right after you waved it in front of my face?”
“Yup,” she chirped.
“Nope, never heard of it,” Luke teased, feeling lighter than he had in nine months. It was gone, his obsessive desire to read any and all of Natalie’s letters. If he never saw another flash of blue when he collected the daily mail, he’d be okay.
“Do you want to know what it said? ’Cause there’s a lot about you in there.” She took another right turn onto the street with the shopping center with Kroger and a semidecent Chinese place he used to sneak Natalie egg rolls from. They were getting close to the hospital.
“Only if you want to tell me.”
“I want to tell you.” She looked at him out of the corner of her eye as they pulled into the hospital parking lot.
“Then I want to hear it.”
