they’d taken them out of someone’s locker and whoever they’d belonged to had sweats or something else to wear.”
“They weren’t and I didn’t. They left me there, and later when you wore them, I thought you knew they were mine.” He glanced down, embarrassed. “You looked right at me and laughed the next day as you walked past.”
I ran a hand through my hair and winced when my fingers brushed over stitches. “Owen, I wasn’t laughing at you. I was just, I don’t know, laughing. Probably at something Jessica said.” Jessica had been my best friend growing up before I made the mistake of telling her too much about me.
“Well, I know that now,” he said. He stood and stalked to the window that overlooked the college campus.
“But there’s more to that story, isn’t there?”
He nodded and turned away. “I couldn’t leave the restroom. It was the end of the day and everyone went home, and I was just there, stuck in the restroom with no pants. So, I waited for all the buses to run, tied my jacket around my waist, and started walking home.”
I cringed. The embarrassment he must have felt. “Oh, my god,” I said, as the memory of that time rushed back, “you were the kid. The South Nines beat you up.”
After a long moment, he nodded. “They caught me in an alley and basically kicked my ass for not wearing pants.”
“But you were at school the next day.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t tell anyone. I told my mom I crashed my bike. If the Nines had kept their mouths shut, no one would ever have known. Then when I saw you wearing my pants the next day and everyone laughing…”
My hand covered my eyes, trying to block the memory. “Talk about adding insult to injury.”
“I just couldn’t forgive you. The Nines never left me alone after that. I had to face them every day.”
“Owen, I’m so sorry. That’s why you withdrew. Neil Gossett said you just kind of drifted away from them.”
“Being harassed on a daily basis has that effect. Still doesn’t change the fact that you’re a bitch.”
“That’s true.”
He turned back to me. “But you just take this shit and take it and keep coming back for more. The guys in my division can’t figure out if you’re really good or really stupid.”
I peeked out from between my fingers. “It’s a fine line.”
He lowered his gaze. “I wanted you dead.”
“Yeah, I got that when you came after me in your dad’s SUV.”
“I wanted to drag your lifeless body down the street, dropping limbs along the way.”
“Okay, but you’re over that, right?”
“Not really. But you’re all fucked up, so I can’t give you a hard time. We can pick this back up when you’re better.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
The next day, I woke in the late afternoon, a soft sun filtering through the window. Uncle Bob was there as well as Cookie, her eyes rimmed with a redness that hadn’t been there before.
“Are you getting enough sleep?” I asked her.
“You’re one to talk,” she said with a sad grin. “Everyone’s been here. And it’s all over the news. About the man who’d been in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. I think Reyes is going to be famous.”
“So he doesn’t have to go back to prison?”
“I talked to your friend Neil Gossett,” Uncle Bob said. “They’re going to keep him in minimum security until all the paperwork goes through.”
“But why don’t they just let him out now?” I asked, alarmed. “The man he went to prison for killing isn’t even dead.”
“For one thing, they have to prove that really is Earl Walker. Then papers have to be filed and a judge has to review the case. It’s not like in the movies, hon.”
“So how is he?” I asked.
“Farrow is fine,” Ubie said. “He’d called the police before he ever got to your place and was there when we got there. He surrendered with no complications. And that is really the man he went to prison for killing?” he asked at the last.
I knew he would take it hard. Sending a man to prison for a murder he didn’t commit would wreak havoc on the heightened moral codes of a good cop. “There was no way for you to know, Uncle Bob. Wait.” My brows slid together. “What do you mean he surrendered? He didn’t really have much of a choice, did he?”
“Actually, the first officers on the scene were a little busy. They had no idea who he was. He identified himself and told them the guy lying in a heap of broken limbs was Earl Walker.”
“He told them? With the gunshot wounds?”
Ubie and Cookie exchanged glances. “He wasn’t shot, sweetheart,” Cookie said.
“Oh, my gosh, he’s faster than I thought. I could have sworn he was shot. I mean, I saw Walker pull the trigger. I saw the bullets head straight for his heart.”
Again with the glances. Cookie took my hand. “Hon, that wasn’t Reyes.” She bit her lower lip, then said, “That was Garrett Swopes.”
I blinked in confusion, closed my eyes, and replayed the memory. A tall man came bursting through the door, and Reyes had been on his way. I’d just assumed.
“Swopes?” I finally muttered. “Garrett came through the door?”
“Yes,” Uncle Bob said.
“Garrett Swopes was shot?” I simply couldn’t wrap my mind around it. “No, that was Reyes. It had to be. He crashed through the door and … the gun went off.”
“Sweetheart, why don’t you get some rest.”
“You must be mistaken.” Shock and denial fought for a front seat in my convertible to la-la land. They had to be mistaken. Garrett was shot? Because of me? I struggled to get out of bed. “Is he here? I have to see him.”
Uncle Bob lowered me back onto the mountain of pillows. “Charley—”
“I can’t believe I got him shot. Again. I need to see him. He’s going to be so pissed.”
“You can’t, hon.” Uncle Bob lowered his head, sorrow and regret coming at me in white-hot waves.
I glanced at Cookie, at her red-rimmed eyes, and the dread that crawled up my spine was so cold, so crushing, it swallowed me where I lay. I forced myself to look at Uncle Bob. And waited.
He visibly struggled with what to say, how to word it; then he raised his lashes and whispered, “He didn’t make it, hon.”
And everything else slipped away.
Chapter 26
Sometimes that light at the end of the tunnel is a train.
Slowly, and with a sharp pain that echoed off the hollow walls of my heart, the realization that I’d actually gotten a man killed, a friend, sank in. There comes a time in every woman’s life when she has to reevaluate her priorities. Did I really want to kill off all my friends one by one?
Another thought surfaced, one that centered on the fact that the men in my life found me incapable of walking and chewing gum at the same time. True, my track record didn’t instill a lot of confidence, but I’d solved case after case, I’d weathered ridiculous odds, and damn it, I’d looked good doing it.
A momentary sense of pride swelled inside me until I once again remembered I’d gotten a man killed. Not just a man. Garrett Swopes. My Garrett Swopes. A bond enforcement agent with more talent in his little finger than
