Page 50 of Shield
“Please help me, officers? He’s going to hurt Poppy soon.”
Did we really look that much like cops? Guess so…
Mack began to reply. Phil, in all his Zorro scar-faced glory, charged at the door and grabbed Karen by the hair, his eyes wild and glazed. The baby inside the tiny apartment wailed more loudly as Phil slammed Karen’s face into the door jamb. She went slack. Phil threw her at Mack, then dove at me. He wasn’t a large man, not nearly as tall as me, but he had some meat on his bones. We stumbled back into a door, our bulk and force busting the flimsy lock.
I felt the impact of something into my side. A knife probably, thankfully, blocked by the Kevlar vest I’d pulled on before our little social visit.
“Philip Miscotti, you’re under arrest for assaulting an officer, as well as under the suspicion of attempted murder of Lazlo Richter,” I shouted at Phil in English, then in Spanish. “You have the right to?—”
“Fuck you, pig!” he snarled, his pupils blown, clearly on something. Then, the fucker tried to bite me on the cheek. I grabbed his head and pushed back.
“Remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. Fuckhead, stop trying to bite me!”
He shook his head like a mad dog as he tried to chomp down on my forearms now. “I eat pork!” Phil growled.
“You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be provided to you. If you decide to answer questions now without an attorney present—stop trying to bite me!”
“Pork, pork, pork! Yummy raw pork!” His jaws snapped together rapidly.
“Without an attorney present, you will still have the right to stop answering—goddamn it—at any time until you talk to an attorney. Do you understand these rights as I have read them to you? Ow, motherfucker, stop trying to bite me!”
His teeth found purchase on my thumb. I yelped.
An older woman in a checkered dress appeared out of nowhere, shouted at Phil in rapid-fire Spanish, then cracked him over the head with a steel frying pan. Phil collapsed on top of me in a heap, his head bleeding and coated with what looked to be fried ground beef, avocado, rice, green and red peppers, and pinto beans. The rather delicious-smelling concoction tumbled down over me as well.
“He is a shit-faced woman beater,” the woman announced in Spanish while I shoved Phil off me, then sat up, pinto beans rolling to my lap.
Footsteps thundered down the hallway as I sat there flicking beans off my pants while my savior informed me of every offense Phil had ever visited upon her. Guess he got his just desserts.
I suspected poor Karen would agree.
ChapterNineteen
Oliver
In the kitchen,the only sound was the quiet hum of the refrigerator and my own steady breathing. It had been two days since I’d last seen Jackson, and the sparse messages that passed between us did little to fill the silence left in his absence. The demands of his badge consumed his time—that much was clear.
Today, I’d made my way to the clinic, slipping in through the back to avoid any unnecessary attention. Seeing Lazlo back at work, his smile a little less bright, but just as determined, had been a relief. And Joe, although still visibly shaken, was holding up. I knew there was more to the story, details that Jackson held, but for now, I was thankful that the good guys hadn’t lost. Not this time.
Jamie had turned in for the night after our customary check on the girls, who were sound asleep. Tomorrow promised a rare rest day for the team before the flight to New York in the afternoon—a trip that made me nervous, anxious, but also so damn excited.
I was just about to lock up when the gate buzzer cut through the stillness of the night. Moving to the intercom, I pressed the button, and the screen flickered to life, revealing Jackson on the other side. My heart skipped a beat at the sight of him.
“Jackson?” I said, my voice betraying my surprise.
“Yeah, it’s me. Can I come in?” His voice was the same, steady and sure, but I heard an undercurrent of something I couldn’t quite place.
I opened the gate for him, then waited at the front door, anticipation coiling tight in my stomach. What brought him here so late without warning? Was it because he was as desperate to see me as I was him? His footsteps on the gravel announced his arrival, and then, he stepped into the light of the porch, and I was down the few steps in an instant, yanking him into a hug and breathing in the scent of him as he buried himself in my neck. We stood there for the longest time, and when he pulled back, he rested his forehead on mine.
“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” he whispered.
“I missed you.”
“Not as much as I missed you,” he deadpanned.
“Let’s go inside, okay?”
He nodded, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yeah, just… it’s been a long couple of days. I was going to wait to get a shower, or… but I just needed to see you.”
