spit a lump of something on the ground, screamed out like a bull, and charged her.
She rose and easily sidestepped him, tacking on a roundhouse kick to his ass as he passed by her. That and his momentum caused him to launch over a bush and land face-first in the grass.
He rolled over, screamed a string of profanities, and lurched to his feet.
“Now you’re dead,” he hollered.
He charged again.
A second later the Beretta Nano Pine pulled from her ankle holster was pointed at the man’s crotch. He pulled up so fast the toes of his boots caught in the dirt and he fell forward again, landing at her feet.
He looked up to see the muzzle of her weapon now pointed at his skull.
“You have the right to remain silent,” began Pine slowly, the collective pains in her shoulder, head, ribs, and wrist worsening. “And I strongly suggest you fucking use it.”
Chapter 33
STUPID.
That had been the first word that came to Pine’s mind as she sat in a chair at the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office. Going out alone at that time of night to a secluded place and nobody knew where she was? It was just the sort of insult she would have screamed at anyone, in particular a woman, for doing what she had done.
She had an ice pack on her bruised shoulder and tape around her aching ribs and right wrist. And there was a yellow-and-purple lump on her upper forehead where she’d head-butted the first guy.
“Deke” was in the hospital with a concussion and other assorted injuries but was expected to make a full recovery just in time to go to prison. His buddy was in a holding cell yelling that he wanted a lawyer and, “That bitch started it.”
The cops had shown up about ten minutes after she had called them. Deke had still been unconscious, and the other moron was still screaming at her for busting Deke up.
“Just wanted a good time and there she was, what’s wrong with that,” he kept saying over and over, as though that was perfectly reasonable and should have been enough of an explanation to let him and his buddy go on their way. “I mean, why else would a gal be out there at that time ’a night ’less she wanted some?”
She had told her story to the first cops on the scene after she called them. She had told her story a second time to a detective with a notepad and a tired expression.
“They obviously didn’t know you were armed,” said the detective.
“Obviously,” said Pine. “Not that it would have resulted in a different outcome.”
He had looked askance at her comment. “They were two pretty big guys.”
“The bigger they are, the easier they fall.”
“Right. I’ll go do the paperwork. We’ll need you to sign your statement when it’s ready.”
“With pleasure.”
And she had sat right there, signed her statement, and was about to leave when she looked up to see a flustered Max Wallis hurrying down the hall toward her. She inwardly groaned as she saw who was trailing him.
Eddie Laredo.
It was six in the morning. She had not phoned Blum yet. But she was thinking about it. She knew she would get the same lecture from the woman that Pine would have delivered to anyone dumb enough to do what she had. That was principally why she hadn’t called. She could imagine everything the older woman would say to her. And Blum would be exactly right.
Wallis drew up a chair across from her. Laredo just stood there, arms folded over his chest, something between a smirk and a scowl on his features, at least to Pine’s mind. Inwardly seething, Pine thought that the night had been shitty enough without this, too.
“You want to tell us what happened?” said Wallis. He patted his pockets for something, pulled out a single, bent cigarette, and popped it, unlighted, into his mouth.
“I’ve already told it twice and signed my statement.”
“Please. Just a courtesy.” He took out his notebook.
“What are you even doing here?”
“Got a call that lifted me out of my bed. Female FBI agent in some sort of trouble. You’re the only one in town.”
“I’m glad they get so gender specific down here.”
“You’re an anomaly. They get noticed.”
This came from Laredo.
She didn’t even look his way.
Pine told her story. It took her all of twenty seconds delivered via five practiced sentences.
“What were you doing out there at that hour?” asked Laredo.
“Following up a hunch.”
“And that was?”
“The position of the body over