Page 34 of Stone Rules

I search his desk drawers for something to debase his precious awards with. In the bottom drawer, under a pile of file folders, I come across a small handgun. It looks like it’s gone untouched for some time based on the amount of crap on top of it.

I pick it up and turn it over in my hand, studying it while musing over my choices. I’ve never held a gun before. It’s heavier than it looks. I have no idea if it’s even loaded. Without much thought, I raise it up and aim it at one of the plaques—a shiny platinum one. I put my finger on the trigger and dare myself to squeeze it. And damn it if I don’t hear Piper Mitchell in my head telling me it’ll make too much noise—draw unwanted attention. I push her out of my head. I don’t want a voice of reason. I want to be unreasonable.

But my best friend is right, so I tuck the gun into the pocket of my hoodie and instead, I take the plaque off the wall and raise it above my head, intending to smash it on the hardwood floor, shattering it into tiny little shards that I’d like to use to stab the man in his tiny little heart.

Then something on the wall behind his desk catches my attention. In the most prominent spot on the wall, highlighted by a spotlight that sets it apart from everything else, is a large frame that holds about a dozen key tags of various colors. In the center of the key tags is a certificate. I step forward and read it.

Anthony Pellman

5 years clean and sober

Nov. 15th, 2015

That date.Oh, God. It’s exactly five years and two days after he molested me.

I hear a noise and my heart rises into my throat. Female laughter echoes down the hallway as footsteps bound through the front door.

The laughter stops. “Baby, you really shouldn’t leave the door unlocked,” the woman says.

“We were just next door for five minutes,” says a hauntingly familiar voice.

“Tony,” she pouts.

“Okay,” he says. “You’re right. I’m really sorry.”

Tiny hairs on my neck rise as that voice and those words take me back to my bedroom in Maple Creek.I’m really sorry, he said over and over, even before he was done with me. It was like his body and his brain were somehow disconnected.

“Thanks, baby,” the woman says. “I love you more than the moon.”

“And more than all the stars in the sky,” he replies.

Their footsteps come closer.

What should I do?Different scenarios hastily shuffle through my head when I see a second door at the rear of the study. I step through it, away from their footsteps and into a kitchen. I spot a door to the outside and hope I can make it there before they discover me.

My sweaty hands slip on the handle of the sliding door, but I get it opened enough for me to sneak through unnoticed and I quietly close it behind me.

Shit. I’m on a balcony with no steps to the yard below.

I try to calculate the distance to the ground. Five feet? Ten? It doesn’t look all that far, but then again, it might not matter either way. It’s broad daylight and they could be in the kitchen by now, meaning I could be two seconds away from being thrown in jail.

I swing my legs over the wooden railing and jump.

Ouch! Son of a bitch, I scream in my head when my leg twists in a direction it shouldn’t be twisting when it meets the hard, frozen grass.

I look back up at the deck. Ten—definitely ten feet.

I find a gate that leads to the alley behind the row of homes and limp through it. I remove the ball cap and lower my hood, trying to blend in with the mid-day pedestrians and not stick out like a thug on the prowl.

I stop walking when it occurs to me I have no idea what I did with the award I was holding when they came home. Did I put it back on the wall? Did I put it on the desk? Leave it on the kitchen countertop maybe?

Oh, my God. The desk.I pat my hoodie pocket, feeling the hard outline of the handgun I’ve now stolen from a man who once raped me.

Chapter Sixteen

Giving my sore ankle a rest, I let my arms do most of the work in the water tonight. I arrived at the gym earlier than usual, needing extra time to work out my frustration.

I wish I would have had a shift at the restaurant today. Maybe then I wouldn’t have sat in my apartment brooding over what was and what could have been.

---