Page 86 of Stay in Your Lane!

My head still fucking hurt, though. The EMTs had thrown around the word“concussion,”a few times, and I thought they’d meant it in reference to the blast from the flashbang. And they kind of had—except thanks to said blast, I actuallyhada concussion. Lucky me.

The emergency room doc sent me for a CT to make sure the concussion wasn’t severe, but he didn’t seem too worried. I got the impression it was more of a standard procedure thing than awe’re-genuinely-afraid-you’re-going-to-bleed-outthing. Fine. But could they hurry the hell up so I could get out of here and help Everett? Because he was not safe in the custody of cops who were willing to kill to keep us quiet. Not safe at all.

I’d barely shot off a text to my dad—I need you at the ER right now!—when a cop stepped around the curtain partition beside my gurney. He looked familiar, but what cop in this town didn’t?

Except he was familiar in the sense that we’d crossed paths outside of“I work with your dad/brother.”My concussed brain couldn’t quite place him, though.

“Mr. Bowman.” He crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Glad to see you awake. I’ve got some questions for?—”

“I don’t talk to cops without a lawyer,” I gritted out.

His eyebrows shot up. “Mr. Bowman, you’re not being interrogated or detained. I just want to ask?—”

“I don’t talk to cops without a lawyer.” That was my policy in any situation because I’d been raised in a house full of cops. Ever since Ricky Leighton’s death, that policy had become non-negotiable. And today, my head was throbbingandmy ears fucking hurt, so I really wasn’t in the mood for this.

The officer’s lips pulled tight beneath his stereotypical cop mustache. “You’re involved in a very serious situation here, so?—”

“So get me a damn lawyer,” I snapped, “and we can get to your questions.” Ugh, I was already in pain, and every word he or I said just made my ears hurtmore.

He scowled. “I don’t think you want to make this situation worse for yourself than it already is.”

The words“is that a threat, Officer?”were on the tip of my tongue, but I bit them back. Right then, my dad replied to my text, letting me know he was on his way inside.

Please hurry,I wrote back.There’s an officer grilling me and won’t let me get a lawyer.

Then I set my phone to record and rested it facedown on my leg. With a sigh of resignation, I said to the officer, “How am I going to make my situation worse?”

His eyes narrowed just slightly—probably an unconscious response to his own thought that I was finally complying. He came a little closer, positioning himself beside the gurney instead of at its foot, and I glanced at his nametag.

Hansen.

Officer Hansen.

Right then, a synapse in my jostled brain fired, and I remembered him being pissy with me that he’d had to babysit a crime scene longer than he’d expected.

Ricky Leighton’s crime scene.

And now he was here, beating my dad to my bedside and wanting to grill me before I’d even been discharged from the hospital. Was he in cahoots with Detective Reardon too? Fuck my life.

Though my guard was still fully up, I put on the face of a tired, open book. “What’s going on?”

He lifted his chin a bit and glared down his nose at me. “That’s what I’d like to find out.” He took out his notepad and clicked his pen. “Seems like you and the Mulligan kid are in a lot of trouble. You want to tell me why that is?”

“‘Trouble’?” I asked, playing stupid. “Why? We were just doing our jobs, and then we?—”

“That why you took off to a safehouse?” He narrowed his eyes a bit more. “Seems like the kind of thing someone would do if they have something to hide.”

“Or if they’re being threatened.”

“Wereyou being threatened?” His arched eyebrow suggested I answer that very, very carefully. “Or was it the natural consequences of sticking your nose where it didn’t belong?”

I gulped, grateful I was no longer attached to any machinery that would give away my skyrocketing pulse. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t play stupid,” he hissed, leaning in closer. “You and the mortuary kid were warned—repeatedly—to move along. But you didn’t, and now here you are.”

I drew back as much as the hard pillows would allow. “You’re working with Detective Reardon, aren’t you?”

“Detective Reardon is trying to clean up a mess you and your boy made,” he growled. “But you just can’t leave well enough alone, can you?”

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