Page 59 of Hidden Ties

“Listen, I had to use Valerie’s computer to track you. I just wanted to be sure that won’t cause her any trouble.”

“No, I don’t think so.” He shook his head. “My bet is Gerard was the one to frame her, so I expect her charges to be dropped in the morning.”

“Sounds good.”

“How’d you get here, anyway?” he asked Sal, knowing he had been stranded at the house.

“I might have jacked my neighbor’s car,” he admitted without remorse, giving him back a different set of keys from his pocket. Why every woman on Prairie Drive thought their neighborhood was so safe from carjacking was beyond him. “Is there any way you could take it back to Katie, our neighbor across the street, and let her know the situation? I think it might be better coming from a cop than out of her thieving neighbor’s mouth.”

“Sure. Anything else?” He laughed, sensing there was.

“There is another thing …” The request Sal was about to ask for was highly different than the last. “It’s about Officer Dunbar.”

Daniels crossed his arms over his chest. “What about him?”

“He gave a speeding ticket to Valerie a few months back.”

Confused as to where this was going, he didn’t understand. “What am I supposed to do about that—”

“It was for eleven over,” Sal revealed, and in that instant, even Daniels’ face couldn’t hide his disbelieve at the weak number. “So, eitheryoulower your partner’s expectation of the people of Kansas City, orIwill.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Daniels told him, getting the message on behalf of his partner’s sake. “You sure you can handle it from here?”

Sal took a deep breath before giving a nod, having only one thing left to do.

“Shall I release the Kraken?” the officer asked, just to be sure.

It had been awfully quiet the last ten minutes, and he could only hope the monster had tired itself out. “Go ahead.”

However, he should have known he wasn’t going to get that lucky when Officer Daniels opened the back of his unmarked cop car, and a trapped Valerie jumped out with a vengeance.

“You motherfuckers.”

TWENTY-TWO

BAGGED MYSELF A BOYFRIEND

“Youbob, and then youweave, Valerie!” Sal scolded her, taking his hand off the steering wheel to show her what he meant by making a zigzag motion. “I don’t understand how you play video games and don’t know that.”

“I know that,” she muttered under her breath with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Then you certainly should fucking know that you don’t bring a goddamn Harlequin cosplay bat to a gunfight!”

“Why the hell am I getting ridiculed right now? I almost died, and you’re the one who’s been lying to me this whole time!”

“Exactly. You almost died. Thankfully, I saved your ass in time because I had your computer in the first place. So, I’m pretty sure that gives me a pass.”

Valerie went to open her mouth to say something smart but had absolutely nothing to say because, frankly, he was right.

“Still hurt you did that, though, especially after last night.” Her voice revealed just how much he had hurt her; they both knew he’d had plenty of opportunities to tell her.

“Listen.” Sal softened his voice a tad but still held a bit of firmness. “Real life isn’t anything like video games. You can’trespawn after you die. I’m only telling you this”—his jaw flexed a bit—“because I care about you, Valerie. So much so that I let a lie by omission get out of hand ’cause I didn’t have the balls to tell you the truth. Then you did the exact thing I was afraid you’d do by running away.”

Valerie no longer held her arms so tightly across her chest. Instead, she loosened them, placing her hands in her lap and feeling awful for leaving him like that. Just how she had fears of him leaving her already, he did, too.

“I’m sorry. I sometimes let my temper get a bit out of hand.”

“A bit?”