Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 78696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
And before any of us could say another word, he was gone, and we were left in silence that he left behind.
“What happened?” Maddison asked softly.
My heart wanted to cry out for him.
“Tanner was his son. He died in a drive by shooting about six months ago,” I said softly, staring at the door like I could will him to come back.
“Oh, that poor man,” my mother said softly.
“Shit,” Remy said. “That just sucks.”
“Is he the one that was killed at his school?” Maddison asked, looking at me.
I nodded. “Yeah, baby. I think that’s him. Although he hasn’t given me many details on how he was killed yet. And I’m too scared to ask him.”
“If he wants you to know, he’ll tell you,” Remy said, sounding so positive about his statement that I wanted to believe him.
I looked up at him, remembering the advice Griffin had given me this morning about how I shouldn’t tell him about Jenna, and smiled at him sadly.
The two men in my life had some serious problems.
And I hated that for them.
“Maybe you should go to his work and check to make sure he’s alright,” Macynn suggested.
I smiled sadly at her.
“I don’t know where he works, baby doll. I’ll be sure to ask him for next time I upset him, though,” I teased.
She grinned at me.
“You plan on upsetting him a lot?” She asked.
I shrugged. “I’m only human, baby, and I have a smart mouth. I’m sure it’ll happen quite a bit.”
But a question did linger through my mind as I went about my day.
Would he run every time I pissed him off or he got upset?
Which led to another question.
Could I live with that?
Chapter 8
The chains on my mood swing just snapped.
-Bumper Sticker
Griffin
“What do you mean?” I asked, leaning across my desk that was situated in the middle of my office.
He nodded to the papers in front of me and I scanned them.
I gathered in a matter of moments the enormity of what I was reading.
“This bill’s effectively repealing the ‘in plain view’ law,” I said in surprise.
What the fuck was that about?
When a police officer was conducting a routine procedure, like pulling a car over, he could use the ‘in plain view’ law to search the vehicle without getting a warrant issued first in certain circumstances.
Like if a police officer saw something, say a bag that resembled a baggie of weed on the front seat of a car during a regular traffic stop, he could legally search the entire car because he saw something suspicious ‘in plain view’ that justified further inspection.
And if during that search he found a stash of illegal guns in your trunk, well, that basically was on you since it was your own stupidity for leaving a bag of weed out in plain view.
“Motherfucker…” I said, shaking my head. “And Justin’s backing this bullshit?”
“Yep. After his assault in January, six months before Tanner’s death, he’d said in his statement to the police that a man had assaulted him because he refused to back the proposed law. Then two days later, he recanted the entire statement saying he was mistaken,” he said. “Which got me to thinking. What high profile court case would make a difference to this right now,” he said, tossing a file folder on the table. “And I found this.”
“So, let me get this straight, with the repeal of ‘in plain view,” I gathered from what I was reading, “This entire case would have to be dropped since without the law the search that was conducted and the evidence that was found was not done so legally,” I finished incredulously.
Wolf nodded.
“That should have never passed,” I seethed.
Wolf nodded his head in agreement. “It had a lot of backing, though, from democrats and republicans alike. It was expected to pass in the senate, and it did. It’s now in the house.”
My mouth dropped open.
“You are shittin’ me,” I seethed.
Wolf shook his head. “Not even a little bit,” he snipped back sarcastically.
“And how exactly does that fucker play into all of this?” I asked, my head starting to pound.
“When it was first proposed, Justin wasn’t going to back it. I’m thinking that, at least at first, it seems like he might have refused,” Wolf carefully explained. “Then from what I can gather, something changed, and he’s on record as a backer of it. I guess they found a way to force him to back it.”
I knew what he was getting at.
They forced him to back it by offing his stepson – my son.
And he had. He totally caved in to them.
“What are you doing?” Wolf asked.
“Going to visit my ex-wife,” I growled in frustration, pushing out the front door of our shared office and heading straight to my bike.
I felt my phone vibrate against my thigh, where it was tucked into my pocket, with an incoming text message.
I didn’t bother to look at it.
It was Lenore.
She’d asked if I was okay three times now.
I’d been too much of a coward to tell her that it hurt.
It hurt every single day.
It hurt even worse at night when my mind wasn’t occupied and I had no distractions.
There was just no way I’d be able to talk about it, though, not when I knew she’d be her gentle and sympathetic self, she wouldn’t be able to hide the worry in her eyes, and she’d want to ask me what I was feeling.
I’d told her just about all that I was willing to tell her.
She didn’t need to know what position my son’s body was in when he’d died.
The way his backpack, the Iron Man one he’d been so proud of when we bought it together, had fallen to cover his face.
She didn’t need to know how he’d crawled about a foot and a half towards the teacher who’d also been shot and killed.
How when I arrived on scene, I’d promptly fallen to my knees at the sight of my little boy in a pool of his own blood right there in the school’s parking lot.