Page 97 of Smoke Screen
“Phin!” Zeke hollered. “Get the fuck in!”
No more thinking. Thinking never got him anywhere good. He scooped up the phone, did what his brother told him, and got in. Zeke hit the gas. Up ahead, a sheriff’s cruiser flew around the corner, followed by an ambulance, a fire truck, and two more squads.
“Ambulance coming around the corner. Is he dead?”
“He had a pulse. Not much, but there.”
Hands trembling from the adrenaline rush, Phin peered down at a photo of a diamond bracelet.
He’d done it. Grabbed the phone in time. He swiped up, found the settings icon, tapped.
“What the hell are you doing?” Zeke roared.
“Changing the password.”
“You’re tampering with evidence!”
As if he didn’t know?
“Shut up a second.”
He finished changing the password, dropped the phone in his lap, and held his hands up. Done. Jesus, how much time could that get him?
“It has pictures,” Maddy croaked from her spot on the floor. “The phone. There are pictures of where the jewels are.”
18
“Ms. Carmichael?”
Maddy lifted her head and stared up at a woman with honey-brown hair tied in a ponytail. She wore a uniform, a gun holstered at her waist.
“This is water,” the woman said.
Maddy accepted the cup, guzzled its contents like she’d been stranded in the desert for a week. The icy blast cleared the fog in her brain and she lowered the cup, holding it with both hands, battling the jitters consuming her.
The woman set her hand on Maddy’s shoulder. “You’re probably in shock. Do you need a doctor?”
Maddy shook her head. “I’m … okay.”
And she was. Still alive and unhurt. Physically, at least.
She peered around the table where Phin, Zeke, Cruz, and Rohan also sat.
Zeke had driven them here. To the sheriff’s station, where they’d waited in this conference room, mostly in silence, for an hour.
Maddy glanced back at the woman, still standing beside her. She lifted the cup. “Thank you.”
“More?”
“No.” Maddy set the cup on the table. “I’m good.”
The officer held out her hand. “I’m Sheriff Maggie Kingston.”
Oh. Wow.
A female sheriff. The one who’d chased the reporters from in front of the Blackwell property. How cool was that?
Maddy shook her hand. “Hi. I’m sorry, I thought … Never mind.”
