Page 13 of The Secrets We Hide
Emmy felt the shard of glass threaten to lodge in her throat again.
Thankfully, Sherry gave a quick nod, and the condolences were out of the way. She looked back at the house. “I don’t envy you having to navigate this sticky situation. Where are we on the clock?”
Emmy looked at her watch. Time never made sense in these situations. “I’d guess thirty minutes from the first gunshot. I’m trying to keep a lid on it until we find Bill.”
Sherry shook her head at the mention of the man’s name. Coach Bell had had the same reaction. Everybody knew about Bill’s temper, but nobody ever talked about it. “Don’t count on that lid holding anything down. You know cops can’t keep a secret. At least not with each other.”
“The crime scene …” Emmy struggled to find the right words.The bloody handprints on the windowsill were bothering her. The black nitrile glove on the flat roof. Some cops called it a hunch, or an instinct, or, if it was a female officer, intuition. Her father had called it DFR, which was as good a description as any. “Doesn’t feel right.”
“In what way?”
Before Emmy could respond, a black Dodge Durango Pursuit slid to a stop a few yards away from the house. This was the sticky situation Emmy had to navigate. The driver was Reggie Wilder, the Clayville chief of police. He was Allison’s former boss.
He was also Allison’s former lover.
“Brett, you’re with me.”
Emmy motioned for Cole to cover the front door as she jogged toward the Durango. She could hear the equipment on Brett’s belt hitting his legs as he matched her pace: Glock, pepper spray, handcuffs, telescoping metal baton—all the things Emmy wished she had at her disposal, because Reggie Wilder was used to giving orders, not taking them.
He whipped off his wraparound sunglasses. His eyes were wet with tears. He was only a few inches taller than Emmy, but obscenely muscled from going to the gym before and after work every day, and filled with a kind of simmering anger that could quickly come to a rolling boil.
She said, “Reggie.”
“Is it true?” His voice strained on the last word. “Where the hell is Bill? Why aren’t you out tracking him?”
“Let’s go somewhere to talk.”
“I ain’t going anywhere until I see what that bastard did to her.”
He started walking toward the house—an active crime scene where his ex-lover had been murdered and any DNA and fingerprints could be easily contaminated.
Bill Garrison wasn’t the only suspect in this case.
“Reggie.”
There was a limp to his gait where he’d torn his ACL last year, but his stride was still twice that of Emmy’s. She had to jog to catch up with him.
“Reggie, stop.”
He didn’t stop. “I need to see her.”
“Reggie.” Emmy tried to block his path. “You can’t—”
He sledgehammered his shoulder into hers. She felt a twinge in her back from the sudden twist. Cole tensed like a runner on his mark, but Emmy shook her head, telling him to stay put. She could feel every eye in the street trained on her. Jude looked worried. So did Sherry. They all knew this could get bad.
“Reggie, listen to me.” Emmy put herself directly in front of him, walking backward as he kept moving relentlessly forward. “You know the house is a crime scene. I can’t let you—”
This time, she saw it coming. Reggie raised both of his hands and gave Emmy a hard shove. She had a millisecond to brace herself by shifting her weight to her right foot. What she didn’t account for was the loose-fitting shoes. Emmy tripped and landed flat on her ass.
Several things happened very quickly.
Cole took off toward her. So did Jude. So did Sherry.
Emmy jumped back to her feet. Grabbed the baton off Brett’s belt, swung it through the air and slammed it into the side of Reggie’s knee.
He didn’t have the breath to scream. He crumpled to the ground, clutching his leg, groaning. The pain was so intense that vomit coughed out of his mouth.
Cole stopped in the street. Jude and Sherry did, too.
