“SO, HE’S WATCHING ME,” I confirm, my hands balled to fists at my side. I’m standing in my boss’s office, with Rob already seated in the chair at my left. “This isn’t news. We figured he’d be gunning in my direction. Just tell me what’s sittin’ on your desk.”
The large padded envelope is addressed to me. There’s no return address, but the script reads from someone who didn’t take much care. The address label is tattered and torn. The red pen marks bleed out at the sides of the label.
I wait with impatience as Riggs watches me carefully while opening the top. As he turns to dump it, newspaper clippings of all sorts and sizes slide out smoothly.
“We’ll have the fingerprints ran, and since Marcos is considered dangerous, they’ll speed this up in Luxson.”
I don’t respond.
Pictures of me in a newspaper black and white lay strewn about. All taken in varying stages of my career, even going as far back as my early years in California when I started as a beat cop.
Some pages are marked up. Some torn at their edges. Some have my face ripped out, clean through the flimsy paper. There’s more information about my professional life on this desk than those my own mother has saved.
“Luxson County has time?” I finally query, continuing to take all this in. “They’re busier than most.”
“Called in a favor,” Riggs informs. “This could be worse than we thought.”
He’s right. Thank fuck for Riggs’s contacts.
“Marcos is obsessed,” Rob asserts, as if the proof in front of us isn’t enough. “But that doesn’t mean he’s stupid.”
“He’s an escaped convict who lived his days inside doing his homework,” I flip. “But at least if he’s focused on me, he’s not focused on little girls.”
“That’s something,” Riggs gives.
For his impending trial, I was Marcos’ lawyer’s only chance for a tried and true character witness. After I’d heard from the prosecuting attorney and saw firsthand the pictures of what that girl’s time with him looked like, I couldn’t deny, let alone fathom what he’d done.
At the time, Penny Blake, sweet as could be, had only been eleven. She was walking home from the bus stop, along a seldom-traveled gravel road, one spring evening when her good luck in life took a sharp turn to hell.
Witness accounts said Marcos had been out all day drinking. Some testified he’d also been smoking weed and crack.
He’d caught sight of her on her way home, backpack in hand, short girlie skirt blowing in the breeze. He’d asked for directions then asked if she needed a ride. She refused to get in his van. That’s when he opened his door, jumped out, and struck her in the head, using enough force to render her unconscious.
During her eleven hours held captive with him in an abandoned trailer, somewhere near her childhood home, she’d been beaten awake then raped until she passed out. This went on repeatedly.
Penny Blake sat on the witness stand, keeping her focus solely trained on her older brother for support, and bravely told the jury every graphic detail she could remember.
Ultimately, her very young and very innocent life had been ruined to the point she’ll never carry children of her own.
“What do you want me to do?” I question.
Riggs puts his hands to his hips and looks down. His jaw tightens, waiting for me to agree to whatever he’s thinking.
Rob avoids my gaze as well, staring into the pile.
“I’m not leaving town,” I tell them both. “Fuck that.”
Katie’s here. Doesn’t fucking matter that I can’t have her the way I want; I won’t leave her again. We’ll build what we can in way of a friendship, and I’ll hope for that being enough. Maybe if I can find peace with how her life has turned out, I’ll be able to move on and find my own.
“What about a justifiable paid leave of absence?” Riggs suggests. “Just until we can figure this out?”
“What’s to figure out? We find Marcos, we end this bullshit. Simple.”
“You’re not thinking this through,” Rob disagrees with my position. “You’re too close to this. I’ll remind you, you testified against him.”
“I’ve testified against the guilty before. If there’s something else you wanna say, just say it. If not, I have shit to do.”
“This is personal to him, Cole,” Rob emits quietly. “You know it is.”
“And it’s personal to me,” I slam back. “Which means, on or off duty, here or somewhere else, I won’t stop looking over my shoulder. At least here, I’ll do it with my gun and badge.”
“This came with it,” Riggs interrupts, shoving a bow into the stack with the edge of a pen. “No clue why, but also no clue why this sick son of a bitch does anything.”
“Penny Blake had a pink bow,” I tell them both. “When they found her unconscious in that trailer, she’d been wearing it.”
“Fucking hell,” Rob utters, looking away.
“He carried it. He put it on the scene fresh. Girl was bloodied tip to toe. Bow was untouched.”
“Christ,” Riggs curses to the ceiling.
“I’m not leavin’,” I reiterate. “Swear to God, you can threaten me, fire me, or worse. But I’m not leavin’ until this shit is done.”
Riggs breathes one of his disappointing sighs. “Well, let’s get to work then. Got shit to do.”
“Fuck yeah we do,” I return, grabbing the handle to the office door and moving to walk through it.