Bright turned, obviously startled to find Simi so close, and reacted to her nearness—which, to be completely transparent, wasn’t all that close at all—by shoving her so hard she fell to the dirt on her ass.
I was out of the trailer, hopping right out the food window before I’d even processed what I was doing.
“You need to control yourself,” I growled, bending down to pick Simi up. “Because the next time you put your hands on her, I can guarantee you that you won’t like what happens next. Cop or no cop.”
“Please tell me one o’ you got that on your body cam,” Sheriff Bright snarled, taking a threatening step toward me.
“Personally,” I said when I had Simi in my arms, my body vibrating with anger now, “you would have to turn on your bodycams to get any footage on it. Which none of you have done.”
The single man that had it on him hadn’t had the damn thing on.
Fury boiled out of Bright’s pores as he said, “Unhand her. I have plenty of witnesses. I don’t need no fuckin’ footage. People tend to side with the law.”
“People tend to question everything,” I corrected him. “And I can guarantee you not a single person here would side with you, seeing as you hurt one of their most beloved.”
Truly, it was a work of art when Bright looked around and saw all the furious faces of the circus family he’d pissed off.
Hell, even a few big, burly men in the back—ones I’d seen perform onstage today using their bodies to throw women in the air as high as a trampoline could bounce them—were vibrating with their own rage.
It was obvious that the woman in my arms meant a big deal to them.
“Arrest her, Tad.” Tad looked at Keene, who was finishing off his Coke, then let him go.
Keene wandered closer, his body so close to mine now that Tad had to get uncomfortably close to both of us to “arrest her.”
I noted that neither time did “Tad” read them their rights.
That’s when I said, for both Stratt’s benefit and Bright’s, “Are you not going to have him read her her rights? Generally, that’s what happens when you arrest someone, so they know their rights. Which is imperative.”
I had no doubt in my mind that Simi was smart and already knew her rights, but that didn’t negate the fact that Bright was doing this “arrest” dumbly. And he should know it.
“Where she’s going, she won’t need no rights,” Bright muttered.
Was he really that stupid? Or was he just putting on an act?
Truly, I wanted to know.
“You hear that, Lawyer Stratt?” I said with a grin in my voice. “Where Simi’s goin’, she won’t need no rights.”
“I heard,” Stratt sounded like he was hastily walking to his car as if he was prepared to meet us at the station. “I’ll be at the station to meet them.”
“Oh, that makes me happy,” I replied. “I’ll be right behind them.”
“Keep everyone calm,” he ordered. “When they leave, give me the complete rundown.”
I would.
“Get her the fuck out of here and to my car,” Bright muttered to Deputy Tad. “Get the big motherfucker to yours.”
I assumed the “big motherfucker” was Keene.
He was large, sure. He was one of the men that threw his sisters around in the show. But he wasn’t as big as me.
“Yes, sir,” Deputy Tad said meekly. “I’ll get that done now.”
He pulled, and I was forced to let her go from my arms.
“Be good. We’ll be getting you out sooner rather than later,” I informed Simi.
Simi smiled up at me, then followed dutifully behind the deputy, who led her to a cruiser parked partially on top of a tent not too far away.
Anger rolled through me at the destruction of property, too.
Who the fuck was this guy?
“I’m so sorry,” one of the other deputies murmured quietly. “He gets like this when he’s challenged.”
That was fucking perfect.
Someone that couldn’t be challenged or questioned definitely shouldn’t be in a position of power. There were reasons there were people underneath you when you had a job like he did. It was all about checks and balances.
“Looks like someone needs replacing,” a man murmured at my back.
I couldn’t agree more.
The deputy shook his head, then said, “Shall we go, sir?”
As if Keene had a choice.
“Sure,” he replied congenially.
“I’ll be following behind,” I muttered to Keene. “Don’t freak out. Don’t antagonize him. He’s already off his rocker.”
The deputy that had a hold of Keene made a grunting sound that he apparently agreed with us, and I cursed inwardly.
If that deputy thought that, then this behavior was obviously unusual for the sheriff.
Or maybe it wasn’t, but this time he was just so fucked up in the head it was a surprise to them.
Which only concerned me more as I watched Simi get driven away by the sheriff, peeling out of the parking lot as he did.
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered as I mounted my bike, then followed.
CHAPTER 12
Smells like slut in here.
-Simi to her sisters
SIMI
“Can’t fuckin’ believe you lot thought you could get away with killing a poor old lady,” Bright grumbled.
I didn’t bother to reply. Incriminating myself more at this point seemed like a poor idea.
To say that Sheriff Bright was pissed would be an understatement.
He drove like a goddamn maniac, taking turns so fast that I felt my heart leaving my body with each slide of his back tires.
Keene’s car was nowhere near ours, meaning that Bright was driving unsafely fast. So unsafely fast that the other deputies weren’t comfortable driving as fast as he was and had pulled way back.
I couldn’t see the motorcycle that I knew was following too.
He’d been keeping up until he got to the curves in the road, then he’d fallen back as if he, too, knew that it was too dangerous to go that fast—especially at night.
“Think you can make a fool out of me?” Bright muttered, his hands clenching and unclenching from the wheel. “I’ll show you.”
I could see a car’s taillights in the distance, and my heart thundered in my chest.
I looked down at the seat belt that wasn’t around me, then made a hasty decision to get it on.
It was as if Bright didn’t see the man getting closer and closer to him.
Mostly, his eyes were on his rearview mirror, as if he didn’t trust his deputies to bring Keene in without his eyes on them, forcing them to follow orders or else.
I watched, heart in my throat, as the car kept getting closer and closer and closer.
“Uh, sir,” I felt myself say. “There’s…the…the car!”
I screeched that last part so loud that the sheriff finally took his eyes off the road behind him to look in front of him.
But it was too late.
The car in front of us had started to slow down for a turn.
A turn that came much faster than he’d expected because he went from slowing down gently to slamming on his brakes, and the sheriff hadn’t expected it.