***
“Did you think more on what I told you?” A-shift FAO, Ton Jackson, asked.
I thought back to what he’d told me that day.
“Fatbaby told me to tell you something,” Ton said.
I blinked. “Me?”
He nodded.
“He said something about his wife and that she was responsible for everything,” Ton explained.
My brows furrowed.
“We already knew that,” I said. “He was the one who told us.”
Ton nodded.
“I know that. I was just wondering…why would he say that when we already knew? Why wouldn’t he say something else? Possibly identify the car that hit him in some way?” He asked.
“I did. But I haven’t been able to come up with any other reason,” I said. “He’d already told us all of that. Maybe he was just saying sorry?”
Ton frowned.
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe.”
I slapped Ton on the shoulder. “Thank you for telling me, though. I don’t think I ever said that.”
Ton’s lips lifted up in a small smile.
“Wish I didn’t have to tell you that at all, man.”
Me neither.
My hand tightened on the ring in the palm of my hand.
Fatbaby’s ring.
The same ring that’d been the reason for so many fights between him and his wife.
It was a big, bulky thing, and I wondered how Fatbaby had worn it throughout so many of the fires and calls we went on.
It seemed almost too big.
But I’d take it to his wife because it seemed so important to her.
And I wouldn’t yell at her or call her a bitch.
I’d be respectful.
I repeated this mantra to myself, over and over again, as I drove to their place.
The usual spot where Fatbaby’s Ford was parked, sat empty, and the garage was partially open.
Knowing that the front door wasn’t used, I slipped under the partially open garage door and came to a sudden, shocked halt.
There were two cars in the garage.
One was his wife’s. It was fine, it looked exactly like it always looked.
What wasn’t normal, however, was the old Impala that Fatbaby had bought to restore.
It was…broken.
Jagged metal was crunched in on one corner of the front bumper. Scrapes and dents dotted the sides.
And suddenly, it all made a sick, horrible sense.
Witnesses say it was a rusted up piece of crap. Something older and boxy. Massive. Said the car took the truck out with barely any warning, ran it into the side of that building, and then fled the scene.
Swallowing thickly, I backed out of the garage and then started walking to my truck.
I’d left my phone in the seat.
I’d just gotten to the driver’s side door when I heard the garage door start to go up.
I reached into the driver’s side window, grabbed my phone, and dialed 9-1-1 into the phone before the door reached its max height.
“9-1-1 what’s your emergency?” Ellen, the dispatcher that worked on C-shift, asked.
“This is firefighter Taima Stoker. I’m at 4423 FM 2299 at firefighter Aaron Sim’s place. The car that was used during the hit and run that almost killed Aaron is in the garage,” I said urgently.
I hadn’t carried my gun on me today.
Normally I did, but today I’d gotten off shift, where I wasn’t allowed to carry it. I’d come straight here, and hadn’t even stopped by my place on the way home.
Which was why I was well and truly fucked when I looked up and saw Fatbaby’s psychotic wife staring down the barrel of a gun aimed directly at me.
My hands went up into the air as I stared at her.
My phone had dropped to the ground near my feet, and I hoped that they’d heard what I’d said about Lynn Sims.
“Why’d you come here?” She asked.
I looked up and down the street, half hoping that someone would step out and see what was going on, and the other half hoping that they didn’t come out just because I didn’t want anyone to get hurt.
I swallowed.
“Found Aaron’s ring,” I said.
I made sure to call him by his real name. She hated when we called him Fatbaby, mostly because she was a bitch and had refused to return the boots that had given Fatbaby his nickname.
So as not to incite her, I chose not to use the name we all knew and loved him by.
“You did not,” she hissed.
I started to reach down, but she fired a warning shot…at my truck.
It hit my baby with a ping and the back right wheel instantly sank to the ground.
I closed my eyes and put my hand back up.
She wasn’t just psychotic; she was also certifiably insane.
A dangerous combination that explained the fucked up mess that was Fatbaby’s wife, Lynn Sims
“Aaron’s ring isn’t in your possession. There’s no way you could’ve found it out there,” she hissed.
I narrowed my eyes.
“It’s in my pocket,” I said with a certainty.
She must’ve read it in my eyes or the posture of my body, because she aimed the rifle once again.
At my head.
I started to get sick to my stomach.
Not because death was staring at me but because of what my death would do to the people that I loved.
I just hoped that when she shot me, I didn’t have to live the rest of my life on a freakin’ ventilator or something, paralyzed from the waist down.
That’d be the pits.
Never being able to enjoy Mia’s warm…
“What are you doing?” Lynn screamed, spittle flying out of her mouth in her haste to get the words out.
I blinked, coming back to myself and the situation I was in and pushing thoughts of Mia’s hot, tight pussy and how much it would suck if I couldn’t have it any more, out of my head.
I looked down and noticed I’d managed to back myself up behind the bed of the truck, a much better position than the one I started in with just the open windows of the cab between me and her.
“I thought you wanted me to come to you,” I said.
“I do,” she said stiffly.
I winced and started moving.
I never actually realized just how awkward it was to walk with your hands in the air.
It wasn’t that it was difficult…just weird.
I made my way up the front lawn, calculating what kind of damage the bullet in the AR-15 she was holding would do to me this close up.
It’d surely kill me.
I wouldn’t have to worry about being a vegetable.
“Go into the garage. Then into the kitchen,” she ordered, backing away from me.
I did as I was told, following in between the two cars that were parked there.
I tried not to look at the Impala.
I really did, but it was like a train wreck.
I couldn’t not look at it.
There was white paint covering the majority of the right side, and the entire front end was smashed in.
It was a wonder that the damn thing had been able to make it home. It didn’t look like it’d make it a fucking block.
“Move,” I was poked in the back with the gun.
Needless to say, I moved.
When I got into the house, my first thought was that she’d cleaned.
Lynn didn’t clean.
And then I saw all the boxes.
She was moving.
More like running, my subconscious said.
I linked my hands at the back of my neck, trying not to think about how they burned, and turned to face her.
“You thought you were so funny, bringing that ring here. I left that with him. He deserved to have it back after he’d given it to me with the news that he was divorcing me,” she sneered. “Where is it?”
I gritted my teeth.
“Left front pocket,” I said.
She smiled and moved forward, and I tried to hold the smile inside.
Just a little closer. Come on.
She froze when something loud banged outside and turned, making a big mistake in my favor.
I moved lightening quick, pushing the gun down and bringing my left elbow down on her right forearm.
She cried out in pain as the bones of her wrist snapped.
I caught the rifle before it could fall all the way to the floor and had it turned on her before she sank all the way to the ground while cradling her arm.
I didn’t have a single fuck to give as I kicked her down onto her face and proceeded to tie her arms behind her back with a piece of fabric that I’d yanked off the apron that was hanging next to the door.
She cried out in pain, but I chose to ignore that, too.
Searching her body and finding her clean, I kicked open the door that led to the garage and then hit the button that lifted the big door up, not at all surprised to find three, black-clad figures pointing their guns at me.
I set the gun down on the concrete floor of the garage and then raised my hands above my head once again.
“You okay?” One asked.
Nico.
I nodded. “I am.”
“That Lynn Sims?” Another asked.
I nodded again. “It is.”
He nodded and directed me out with hand signals.
I would’ve followed him, too, but a flash of brown caught my eye as I saw the little reporter that watched me find the ring, dash around the corner of the living room.
I winced.
“The reporter’s here,” I said. “She just went into the back hallway.”
Two of the men in front of me split off in opposite directions while Nico called it in.
“Got a runner heading towards the back,” Nico said into the mic at his shoulder.
I walked along the side of the garage to the driveway and noticed that the entire street was now lined with police cars.
Down the street beyond the police cars sat the ambulance, far enough away that Winter and Baylee wouldn’t get caught in the crossfire if the situation deteriorated.
“You can put your hands down,” Nico said. “Just head towards Downy.”
I found the redheaded officer in front of one of the SUVs with plans spread out on the hood in front of him, and headed straight for him.
Right about that time two more black clad figures rounded the house with the cute reporter in tow.
“I didn’t do it!” She cried. “I was just here to say I was sorry!”
Funny, if she’d done that earlier, it might’ve been believable.