The Last Straw (The Jigsaw Files #4) - Sharon Sala Page 0,10
most of the afternoon, testifying in a court case, and Wyrick was in the office at her desk, shopping online at Whole Foods, contemplating which box of cereal to order, when the phone rang. She paused, then swiveled around and reached for the phone.
“Dodge Investigations.”
“I need to hire Charlie Dodge. I’m being blackmailed and—”
Wyrick frowned. “Then call the police. Charlie Dodge is in the business of finding people who’ve gone missing.”
“I can’t! If I call the police, my wife will—”
“Your mistakes and your pissed-off wife are your business, but nothing my boss will ever get mixed up in. You have two choices. Pay your blackmailer, or call the cops.”
She hung up, then turned back to her pending grocery order, moved the cursor to sugarcoated rice crisps and clicked. Charlie liked those.
A short while later she got a text from Charlie.
Lock up the office and go home when you want. I’m still waiting to testify. The judge gave the opposing council a thirty-minute recess. Just be careful.
She sent him a thumbs-up emoji, and went about shutting things down. There were two cherry Danish left at the coffee bar from the assortment she’d brought this morning, so she boxed them up to take home, then grabbed her things and headed for the door.
She had her bag over her shoulder, and the key in her hand as she opened the door to go out. She had just enough time to see a tall, skinny man in jeans and a black plaid shirt coming at her, pushing her back inside. She kicked at him, sending him stumbling backward, but before she could get the Taser out of her bag, he swung at her. She ducked. His fist hit her on the shoulder instead of her face, knocking her backward.
She knew when he kicked the door shut that he’d come to kill her, so she grabbed her bag, yanked out the Taser and fired as he was pulling a gun from the waistband of his jeans.
The prongs hit him in the face.
He flew backward as if she’d punched him, slamming against the door, and then falling onto the floor, seizing and jerking from the electric shocks rolling through his body.
Wyrick rolled over, dug her phone from her pocket and called 911. As soon as help was dispatched, she hung up, then ran into Charlie’s office for a pair of handcuffs, went back to where he lay jerking and moaning, kicked the bottom of his shoe, then leaned over him long enough to meet his enraged gaze.
“You are a true piece of shit,” she said calmly, then rolled him facedown and yanked his arms behind his back and cuffed him, before she pulled the prongs from his face, then dragged him away from the door and opened it wide, so the police could get in.
Spittle was running from the corner of his mouth, and he was moaning between every other breath, and yet he managed to mumble.
“Devil woman.”
The skin crawled on the back of her neck. She should have known! He was one of them. She leaned over and dug the wallet from his hip pocket.
“Thief,” he hissed.
She could see the side of his face was turning splotchy and red where the Taser prongs had penetrated the flesh, and blood was oozing from the wounds, dripping down his cheek onto the floor beneath him. But she had no empathy for his pain.
“The pot calling the kettle black. You’re the one who came in here to kill me, and it’s all on video,” she muttered, and then the moment she touched the wallet, she knew he was part of The Righteous.
She pulled out his driver’s license, took a picture of it, put it back in the wallet, then shoved it in his pocket. She had a new enemy and he had a name.
Barrett Taylor.
Taylor heard the click when she took the picture, and guessed what she’d just done. And when she’d returned the wallet to his pocket, he began to panic. His people wouldn’t be happy this had happened.
“Others comin’...know what you are,” he mumbled.
A chill went up Wyrick’s back, and then she got mad. More coming? No, by God! Not again!
She kicked the bottom of his boot again.
“And now I know who you are, too...and where you live. And, I know what you are, and what you came to do. The Righteous are not going to be happy with you. You know what they’ll do. They don’t like failure, do they?”