Gave It to Her Good
Coert
Present day . . .
LARS KEPT IN SHAPE IN prison, and when he got out, Coert could tell as they chased him through the forest outside Shepherd.
Coert might be in better shape but it didn’t matter because the Shepherd cops and Coert’s deputies, who were in foot pursuit with him, were younger than both of them, faster, and pissed since Lars had shot at them.
As he ran, all the officers’ flashlights bobbed and weaved through the dark night, keeping Lars in their sights. So they saw when Lars turned and squeezed off two rounds blind.
But in the direction of Coert.
Coert kept running but did it jagging behind a tree as those around him kept shouting for Lars to freeze. Coert kept with the pursuit, gun in hand but only his flashlight in his other hand was raised.
He’d been counting and he might be off a round or two, but since they’d run Lars off the road and he’d taken off on foot, he hadn’t had time to reload. So by Coert’s count, he was either out of ammo, or he only had a round or two left.
This was important but within seconds it wouldn’t matter.
When Lars twisted again to raise his weapon toward Coert, he wasn’t looking where he was going and ran smack into a tree.
He careened around it, losing balance, firing off a shot straight up in the air, probably more reaction than desperation, and with no aim.
Lars hit the dirt and Coert saw the gun fly to the side. He was barely down a second before one of the Shepherd officers was on him, kicking the gun through the leaves.
One of Coert’s deputies got to him next. Rolling him to his stomach, he twisted his arm, knee in his back, other hand going for his cuffs.
Coert and the four others in pursuit stopped, fanned around, guns at the ready, but it was only Coert that was breathing heavily.
Time to carve some of it out to start running regularly again.
“You wanna read him, boss?” Clarke, Coert’s deputy who was cuffing him asked.
“I don’t even wanna look at him,” Coert muttered.
Clarke gave a terse nod, finished cuffing Lars while he read him his rights then got off him and yanked him up to his feet.
Coert had holstered his weapon, and as Clarke turned him around, he caught Lars’s eyes.
“Fuckin’ pig,” Lars spat, literally, aiming saliva Coert’s way after he said it.
Unfortunately for him, at that exact time, Clarke started pushing him and Lars ended up spitting on himself.
Coert didn’t smile.
He just watched Clarke guide Lars back through the forest, the other officers moving in behind.
Then he followed them.
Coert waited until after he’d called Kim to let her know they got him and it was all okay. He waited until he’d called Malcolm and Tom in Denver to let them know it was all good. And he waited until he’d told Monica to call Cady and share that she was again safe.
The last being what Coert did first.
Only after he’d done all that and Lars had long since been processed and was sitting cuffed to a table, ankles in shackles in one of Coert’s interrogation rooms, did Coert go in.
It was a blow, being alone in that room with that man after all these years.
But the blow was not about Lars.
It was about all he brought back in regards to what Coert had done to Cady.
“Man, fuck,” Lars bit out on seeing him. “Just fuckin’ fuck off, you fuckin’ pig.”
Coert moved opposite the table to him but didn’t sit.
He stayed standing, looked into his eyes and spoke.
“We have your notes, receipts and other detritus, the stuff you left at your pad in Blakely. We have the Denver investigator’s travel notes and reports, all of these linking to information we found in Blakely and we’re likely to find in that mess of a car you left us. We have your gun and the ammo you left behind. Different guns used in seven murders in five states, but the ammo you left behind matches four of those murders. We have clothing with residue on it of the accelerant used in fires set in Magdalene, Denver, Reno, Cheyenne and Litchfield, Minnesota. We can place you in all of those locations at the time of the murders. You’ve been processed here but we’re extraditing you tomorrow to Colorado. You’ll be tried and convicted there for four fires, four murders. From there, I don’t know. We’ll see how much travel you’ll be doing. But since you’ll get life, and you gotta hope you get a decent attorney or you might face the injection, it might end for you in a lotta ways in Denver.”
“You like this don’t you, standin’ there, thinkin’ you’re the shit, big man sheriff, shiny badge?” Lars asked snidely. “But you’re a piece of shit.”
“We have very different definitions of that, Lars.”
“Pretty red pussy feels that way, I can tell,” he sneered, and Coert had to fight his body tightening. “You lied your ass off to her, to me, to all of us. Now that defines a piece of shit. You sure must know how to use your dick, she’s still panting after it after all this time. After you totally fuckin’ played her, buddy. My good buddy. Not a word outta your mouth was anything but shit. We all got buried under it but she was fuckin’ it. You were good with that mouth in a lotta ways, I can tell. Bet you talked your shit real pretty to her. Gave it to her good with that mouth. The man she was so fuckin’ addicted to, she couldn’t tear her eyes off you anytime you were anywhere near. Such a great guy. Such a big dick. Tony.”
Coert felt his scalp prickle but he just stared down at Lars.
“Goodbye, Lars,” he muttered, turning to leave.
“You didn’t have to get her a dog,” Lars called, and that prickle got worse at this proof that Lars had been watching Cady. Him and Cady.
But Coert didn’t stop moving to the door.
“I wouldn’t have hurt sweet Cady. No, buddy. The way I’d fuck sweet, stupid Cady right up the ass is makin’ her live a life in a world without you. She’d end herself that happened. And I wouldn’t have to do dick.”
The door closed on the word “dick,” and through Lars’s last Coert didn’t even turn around.
But that didn’t mean he didn’t taste the bile that had risen up his throat.
He was on his way home after Lars Pedersen was cozy in his cell and Coert had confirmed all the arrangements to get his ass out of it and on his way to Colorado the next day.
He looked down at his phone and saw it said Cady Calling.
The prickling came back to his scalp.
He didn’t answer his phone.
The next day, Coert was sitting at his desk dealing with Lars Pedersen paperwork, when his cell chimed.
He looked down at it.
It was a text from Cady.
Can we talk?
He let it lie and only answered hours later.
Busy. Sorry. Lots to do.
She texted back.
OK. That’s understandable. Maybe later. Hope you’re OK.
Coert did not reply to her text.
Two days after that, Coert was moving to his truck after work and his phone went with a text.
He pulled it out and looked at it.
It was from Cady.
Do you have time to get a drink?
He waited until he’d driven to Kim’s house before he answered.
Got Janie starting tonight.
He turned off the ringer and pulled himself out of his truck.
“Daddy!”
Coert crouched and smiled as Janie came at him. When she got there, he swung her up in his arms and smiled at her after she gave his jaw a big kiss.
“Hey, cupcake.”
“Hey, Daddy. I’m ready!” she cried.
“Good.” His eyes slid to Kim then back to his girl. “But can you do me a big favor? I gotta talk with your mom real quick. Can you run up to your room and color for a while? We’ll call when we’re done. Okay?”
She looked at him, to her mother, back to him and nodded.
He put her down and said, “Go, baby. But when you come back, be sure you got Shnookie.”
“I’ll be sure!” she said, tossed him a nothing-ever-fazes-me smile, threw it her mother’s way and then dashed out of the room.
Coert looked to Kim who was looking freaked.
“Is everything okay with that guy you caught?” she asked.
“Everything’s cool with that, Kim. We just need to talk.”
Now she was looking sick.
He did that to her.
Arguably, she’d bought it, but that didn’t mean he had to do it to her.
“Do you have time?” he asked.
“I . . . well,” she visibly swallowed, “sure.”
He moved in from the door and got closer to her, but not too close.
“I wanted to thank you for keeping it together while that whole thing with Pedersen went down. You didn’t freak. You didn’t freak Janie. I know you were worried and scared, but you kept it together and didn’t give me anything else to worry about and you gotta know, I appreciate it.”
She stared at him like she’d never seen him before.
“It was cool of you, Kim. Says a lot. About you, about how you get it that your kid’s dad is the sheriff and about how good a mom you are.”
“I, um . . . wow, Coert,” she whispered. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me for you having it together.”
“Okay, right,” she murmured, no longer looking sick, but still looking freaked and now also embarrassed.
“There’s more we gotta talk about.”
She shuffled her feet, realized she was doing it, stopped and replied slowly, “Okay.”
He launched in.
“Not long ago, you were trying to be cool with me and I threw that in your face. That was totally uncool. However it happened, it happened and even if how it happened wasn’t right, we got Janie out of it and she is right. So I’ve had a think about a lot of things and what’s done is done. I gotta put it behind me and be a good dad. And being a good dad means getting along with my kid’s mom.”
“Right,” she whispered, her eyes glued to him and they were wide.
“So Thanksgiving is comin’ up and we have all that stuff doled out with Janie. But I think, since I get her in the morning and you’re takin’ her to your family in the afternoon, instead, you should come to my place in the morning. I’ll make breakfast. We’ll eat it together and watch the parade. I’ll ask but I’m sure they’ll be cool with it, but after that, since I’m having Thanksgiving with them, we’ll all go to Jake and Josie’s and hang together and watch football. Then when it’s time, you can take her to your Mom’s.”
“I . . . I . . . that would be great, Coert,” she agreed swiftly.
“If we do this we gotta do it so Janie doesn’t get confused,” he warned. “Not Mom and Dad getting back together. Mom and Dad getting along and being Mom and Dad for her at all times, important ones and the not important ones. So we’ll keep things separate but we’ll still give her together, especially during the important times.”
He’d been watching her closely, and although her face fell when he noted they weren’t getting back together, she hid it quick and squared her shoulders slightly, indicating she was keeping her shit tight.
“This would be good for Janie,” she stated.
“It would. We can do Christmas the same. You get her in the morning, me the afternoon. I’ll come over in the morning for presents and breakfast and then leave you to it. You can bring her to me in the afternoon.”
“You can stay Christmas Eve,” she said quickly. “Sleep on the couch.” Her voice lowered. “You know Janie gets up early but it’d help a lot, you around to help me play Santa.”
It also might give Janie the wrong impression, couch or not. She was too young to get that and never had a man and woman do that with her around and old enough to put two thoughts together. She’d just think Mom and Dad were together and might take that in the wrong direction.
But it’d still be freaking fantastic to be there when his baby girl got up on Christmas morning. Since she understood Christmas, that was the best few hours of the year and it sucked, missing every other one.
“I’ll think about it,” he replied.
She looked like she was going to move toward him but stopped and told him, “I think this is good, Coert. Really good. And I think it’s gonna work.”
“I think we need to make it work, Kim, but I also think you’re right. We can do this. We can give this to Janie. If life changes, you get a man, we’ll discuss how we’ll need to alter things. But at least she’ll have it for now.”
She nodded and said, “And if you get, you know . . . a woman.”
“Right,” he grunted.
She gave him a tentative smile. “Okay . . . I . . . okay, Coert. I really think this is gonna be awesome and I’m really glad you had a think about things because I think it’s gonna make Janie real happy.”
“That’s the goal.”
She kept smiling at him.
He tried it out and it worked so he smiled back.
She took it in, looked like she was going to cry for a second then she looked at the door, drew breath in her nose, and again caught his eyes.
“It’s time for her dinner so you should probably go.”
“We should.”
“But . . . Coert . . .” she said these two words fast but didn’t say any more.
“Yeah?”
She took a few seconds, they were long ones, then she went for it.
“It was messed up.”
“Kim—” he started, bracing.
She lifted a hand and shook her head. “I know it was messed up. I didn’t know it then. You were . . .” She paused and when she began again her voice started to get thick.
Shit.
She pushed through it.
“You thought I was funny. It felt so good when I made you laugh. You . . . you just always seemed like you were sad. Not up front, but deep down, like you were trying to hide it. So it felt good to make you laugh. You always made me feel pretty. You made me feel safe. You fixed things in the house and never complained and it was nice to have someone take care of stuff like that. Take care of me. You were so sweet and so protective,” an awkward smile cracked her face, “and not hard to look at. I fell, got deep, knew from things that happened with you and Darcy that I wasn’t gonna . . . I wasn’t gonna—”
“Kim—”
“Make it,” she forced out. “I panicked and did something stupid and—”
“And we got Janie.”
“I know but—”
“Kim,” he cut her off, “that’s the focus. It wasn’t right but we got Janie. And that’s our only focus. It wasn’t right but if we both keep focused on that I’ll stay pissed and you’ll keep feelin’ guilty and where’s Janie in all that?” He didn’t wait for her answer. “Not in a good place. So it wasn’t right but in the end it was the rightest thing in the world and that’s all. Done. Over. Moving on. Yeah?”
“Yeah, Coert, but I still want you to know I’m sorry.”
Shit.
That felt good.
“That means a lot, Kim. Know that,” he told her.
She pressed trembling lips together and nodded.
“I gotta get our girl fed,” he reminded her.
She unpressed her lips to whisper, “Yeah.”
“Janie, baby!” he shouted. “Your mom and me are done talking!”
“Okay!” he heard shouted back.
“Don’t forget Shnookie!” he yelled.
“Shoot!” he heard his girl cry, then footfalls he heard coming their way changed direction.
At that, Coert smiled at Kim.
Kim smiled back.
“You okay, Daddy?”
“I’m totally okay, baby.”
They were in his truck heading to his house.
And he was lying to his kid.
“What do you want for dinner?” he asked.
“I love you, Daddy,” she answered.
Coert’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel and he turned his eyes to the rearview mirror to get a look at his daughter in the dark.
She was looking out the side window.
Yeah.
She absorbed everything.
“I love you too, Janie. You know that?” he replied.
“Yeah, Daddy.”
“A whole lot, you know that too?”
“I know. I love you a whole lot too,” she said and added, “A whole lotta lotta lot.”
He felt his face get soft.
“And I love you a whole lotta lotta lot and then a whole lot more. But you can’t eat love, cupcake,” he teased, glancing back to the mirror.
He saw her face forward and smile his way.
Coert looked back out the windshield.
“I bet if you could, it’d taste good,” she declared.
She’d be right.
Because Coert knew what love tasted like.
It tasted like sunshine and balloons and sloppy kisses with lollipop residue from his little girl.
And it tasted like cinnamon and moonlight and toffee from redheads with emerald eyes, that coming from lips and tongues and between her legs.
“I think I know what love tastes like, Daddy,” Janie stated.
He had to clear his throat before he asked, “What does love taste like, Janie?”
“Cupcakes!” she proclaimed.
Coert chuckled at the windshield.
Then he said, “You’re probably right.”
“So we can go to Wayfarer’s and get a bunch so we can eat a whole lotta love.”
“How about we do that? But you gotta have something else so what’s it gonna be?”
“Grilled cheese and chicken noodle soup,” she decided.
“That’s a deal,” he told her.
“Hurrah!” she cried.
Coert chuckled at the windshield again, and at the end of the street he made a right toward town and Wayfarer’s instead of a left, toward home.
It wasn’t until much later when Coert got out his phone, turned on the ringer and looked at the screen.
OK. Maybe we can set something up next week. Have fun with your girl.
This was from Cady.
It tore him up.
But Coert didn’t reply.