The door behind me swings open as I take a step back. I’m thrown to the ground. My head clips the edge of the table and blood trickles down my face. I let out a scream. A six-foot man in a deputy’s uniform lunges over the table, tackling Adam to the floor. I wince as I touch the cut on my forehead and examine the blood on my fingertips. The officer with buzzed cut blond hair and wide shoulders pummels Adam’s face as he straddles him on the ground. Adam is trying to scream for help but struggles as the fists keep cutting him off and adding more blood to his mouth.
I get to my feet, stumble over to the officer and try to pull him off Adam. I punch him in the side of the head and ear. It doesn’t even phase him. Adam’s face is covered in blood, and his right eye is already swollen shut. He’s trying to stop the punches with his arms, but he’s no match for this man who is full of rage. I hit the officer again, and this time he stops for a second, looking back at me. His eyes are arctic blue and cracked with fissures of blood. He pushes me back without saying a word.
Just as I fall into the wall, Sheriff Stevens and Deputy Hudson storm in. They rip the man off Adam, who is nearly incapacitated on the floor. They’re screaming at him to stop.
“Deputy Summers, stop this right now!” Sheriff Stevens commands as he pins him into a corner. Deputy Hudson holds the officer back too. A couple more officers swarm in, holding back this enraged man. The veins in his forehead and neck are prominent. His piercing eyes are bloodshot with rage. Sweat is dripping from his forehead. He’s breathing with such intensity, I think he may collapse. I’ve never seen that much anger in a person. He lets out an exasperated growl. His lips purse in a tight inhalation, right before giving way. His nostrils flare so wide they could split apart. His face crumples, and he lets out a howl. This man breaks right in front of us. Tears pour from his eyes. Snot drips from his nose. His body loses all the tension it had been holding and turns practically into a puddle. The sheriff, deputy, and officers stop holding him back, and Deputy Hudson now helps hold him up.
“Scott, buddy, it’s going to be okay. I would have done the same. I actually tried to do the same.” Deputy Hudson pats his friend on the shoulder.
I lean against the wall. Oh my God. That’s Kelly’s husband. He’s a cop.
Adam is writhing in pain on the floor, barely awake. Deputy Hudson and the officers are coercing Scott out of the room. Sheriff Stevens looks at Adam and shakes his head. He shouts for someone to call an ambulance. Then his eyes bounce to me, and it’s the first time he’s noticed I’m here and that I’m hurt. He runs to me, wrapping one arm around me and inspecting the cut on my forehead.
“Sarah, I’m sorry. Are you okay?” Sheriff Stevens says, clearly embarrassed for what has taken place in his police station. There’s also a tenderness there. He cares that I’m hurt. He touches the cut, and I wince in pain. “Sorry,” he says again.
“It’s okay. I’m fine.”
“Let’s get you cleaned up and looked at.” He tries to escort me out. I push away from him and kneel beside Adam. Another officer is trying to wipe up the blood with paper towels.
I push the blood-soaked hair off his forehead. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he says. I get paper towels and try to wipe some of the blood away from his eyes so he can see me, so he can see that I’m here for him. I run my hand along his cheek, reassuring him that I’m going to take care of this, that I’m going to be there for him.
I turn back to Sheriff Stevens. He closes his open mouth.
“This is unacceptable!”
“I know. I know. I’ll take care of this. Officer Summers is on administrative leave. He shouldn’t have been here. He wasn’t supposed to be here.”
“Then why was he here?”
Sheriff Stevens doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have an answer. He just shakes his head. Two paramedics enter carrying a bag and a gurney, and they quickly begin helping Adam. I’m shooed away as they kneel on each side of him, asking him questions to verify whether or not he’s okay.
I take a couple of steps back, and Sheriff Stevens places his hand on my shoulder. “They’ll take care of him. Let’s get you cleaned up.” It’s more of a suggestion than a command.
I nod and follow him out as the paramedics place Adam on a gurney.
I’m sitting in Sheriff Steven’s office. He returns with a small first aid kit. He leans against his desk in front of me and wipes the dried blood away from the cut on my face. He’s told me more than once how sorry he is, and I think he truly means it. But I’m not sure whether he’s sorry for what Scott did or sorry for the situation that I’m in, or both.
“I don’t think you’ll need stitches, but it’s a pretty good cut,” he says interrupting the silence that fills the room.
I don’t say anything. He continues inspecting my injury, but I think he’s just using this time to investigate me. His eyes keep locking with mine, but it’s me that looks away every time. I’m not sure what he’s trying to figure out. Maybe why I would be with a man like Adam? Maybe why I would stand by him after all that’s happened? He applies some Neosporin and then covers the wound up with a couple of butterfly bandages. He closes the first aid kit and then takes a long look at me. I can tell he wants to say something. I give him a look that I hope conveys that he can ask me whatever he wants. I need to know what he is thinking. I need to know what he is trying to figure out. I can’t read him, and it scares me. I can read everyone. But him—I can’t.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Yes.” I press the bandages down ensuring they’re in place.
He walks to his side of the desk and takes a seat. He pauses, and for a second, I don’t think he’s going to ask me whatever it is he’s wondering. I take a small breath and try to relax. I shift a bit in my chair and cross one leg over the other. Sheriff Stevens taps his fingers on his desk, contemplating. He sits forward in his chair and leans on his hands. “Do you think he did it?”
“What kind of question is that?” I scrunch my face up in disgust.
“It’s just a question.” His eyes lock with mine.
“It’s inappropriate.” There’s disdain in my voice.
“It is.” He nods. He doesn’t care whether or not his question is inappropriate and it’s then that I realize why he doesn’t care. He’s let his guard down. I think I get what he’s trying to say by what he’s not saying. He’s not sure whether Adam did it or not either. Sure, all the evidence points to Adam—but he’s wondering, could this case really be that easy? Is Adam that dumb to kill a woman in his own bed and leave her for the cleaning lady to find? Things are never what they seem.
I don’t think Sheriff Stevens wants to just pin this on Adam and call it a day, even though it would be quite easy to do. I think he wants to help me find out who really did this. It’s completely unorthodox, but at the end of the day, my focus is on defending Adam whether he did it or not; and Sheriff Stevens’s focus is finding the person who did this. He doesn’t care about closing this case quickly; he cares about closing it correctly.
“I don’t believe Adam did this,” I finally say, and I hope that I said it with enough confidence.