Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 71625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
I nodded. “Okay, now tell me what’s going on.”
That’s when I saw Winnie in the room across the expanse of the large, open ER…with the same man that I’d forced onto the bus during the hurricane only a few days ago.
“What the fuck?”
I didn’t wait for them to explain, only charged across the room and came to a bone-jarring halt next to Winnie’s side.
She jumped a foot in the air when I appeared beside her, and the little fucker on the bed started to guffaw.
“What the fuck?” I said. “Why are you here?”
“I’m hurt, Officer. Really hurt. I’m having chest pains.”
He didn’t look like he was having chest pains. He looked like he was sitting pretty in the ER for reasons unknown. The little fucker wasn’t hurt in any way. Hurt people didn’t smile when they were getting an IV placed in their arm.
Winnie finished placing the IV and then threw all her trash away before washing her hands.
“Your doctor will be in with you in a minute,” Winnie said, then took hold of my hand.
I gave the stupid ‘patient’ one more angry look, which he volleyed back with a laughing one of his own and a thumb up, before following her out the door.
Once she was out of the cubicle, she pulled the curtains, then trudged forward.
She not only passed the ER, but then she went even farther past the group still gathered at the door and continued until she was outside the ER entrance altogether.
“It’s him.”
I blinked. “Him who?”
“Him.” She repeated. “The man I sent to jail. I finally realized why he was so familiar to me. He’s the man I testified against.”
“Are you sure?” I questioned. “It’s customary for someone to call regarding the release of a person that someone testified against. You didn’t get any calls letting you know that he was out?”
She shook her head. “Could he have called Matt? I haven’t received anything in regards to him getting out. Not a phone call. Not a letter. Nothing. The detective promised me that if he ever got out, he’d let me know. He was sincere, but this,” she gestured to the ER with her hand. “Caught me off guard. And he’s enjoying the fact.”
I gritted my teeth and tried to gain my composure.
“Only one way to find out,” I growled, then placed the phone to my ear.
Two minutes later, I was listening to Matt try to explain away why he hadn’t informed Winnie of the man she’d testified against getting out of jail.
“I meant to,” Matt explained. “But we were on bad terms.”
“You were on bad terms,” I repeated. “If the situation were reversed, and this had happened to you, would you care if there were bad terms between you and Winnie if she had important information pertaining to your safety to tell you? You let her down, allowed her to get caught off guard. Had we known that he was getting out, we could’ve filed a restraining order against him preemptively. But you didn’t let her know, and she was not only blindsided today at the hospital, but she was also ambushed in the dark while we were down south helping with hurricane relief. She could’ve been killed because of you.”
“Don’t put this on me,” Matt countered.
“This is on you. You’ve known he was getting out for a month. The detective in charge of this case sent you a certified letter and called you. He trusted you, as Winnie’s former husband, to relay the news. Something he wouldn’t have done if you hadn’t said that you would. She could’ve been raped or killed, Matt.”
Winnie lost all color in her face, and I cursed again as I reached forward and hooked one arm around her back, pulling her to me.
If she fell, I’d at least catch her.
My eyes scanned the area as I spoke with the dipshit on the phone, listening to his pathetic excuses for allowing his ex-wife to be in danger, and found my eyes focusing on the glass windows that blanketed the automatic doors.
And found not just my son watching me, but Tommy Tom, Tally, Ellen, and Naomi as well.
I rolled my eyes as they watched us, whispering like the little children that they were.
Gossips. All of them.
“Bring me the information to my office by end of the day, and Matt?”
“Yeah?” Matt asked warily.
“You have a duty to Winnie. You may not be married to her any longer, but as a decent human being and an officer of the law, you should’ve let her in on this. At the very least, if you were on such bad terms with her, you should have told me or another officer to tell her. If anything happens to her, Matt, that’s on you.”
Winnie shivered in my arms, and I squeezed her tight before hanging up the phone.