Page 103 of Wild Card
“I think?—”
“Think carefully about your answer, young lady. You’re a new deputy. Inexperienced. Maybe you made a mistake.”
Chloe swallowed, eyes darting to me, expression uncertain. Sheriff Hale was a master of gaslighting.
“Chloe called me in as a more experienced deputy,” I said before she could second guess herself. “I assessed the situation and agreed the driver appeared intoxicated and uncooperative. It was my decision to book him.”
“Because you’re a pain in my ass.” He pulled out his keys and unlocked Dallas’s cuffs. Gave him a shove. “Go get some coffee and wait for me in the lobby.”
“Aye, aye, Sheriff!” Dallas walked out, weaving enough that anyone with eyes could see he was still drunk off his ass. Chloe stepped aside to let him through the door.
Sheriff Hale gave us a hard look. “Deputies, we’ll call this a big misunderstanding.” He jabbed a finger at me. “The last one, if you want a job.”
He started toward the exit and paused beside Chloe, lips curling into a creepy smile.
“You’re young, Deputy, but you’ll learn once you have a real man giving you advice.”
He patted her arm, his hand lingering a beat too long, then went out the door.
Chloe shuddered.
“That’s exactly why I didn’t want you getting involved,” I said.
“Because Sheriff Hale is a creep? I knew that the day he hired me and warned me not to distract the other deputies too much. Apparently, Ifill outmy uniform nicely.”
I cringed. “Jesus, and you took the job?”
She gave me a flat look. “Do you think it’s easy being a woman in a male-dominated field? Every department has creeps. This one happens to be my boss, but I don’t spend much time alone with him. At least he’s not the guy riding in the car with me.”
For a split second, I thought she meant her training ride-along with me.
She rolled her eyes. “Not you. My partner in Hayworth. He couldn’t handle that I didn’t want a little extra partnership on the side. It got old fending him off.”
“Creeps!” an old guy called from one of the jail cells midway down the corridor, making us both jump. “Dirty old men!”
“That’s right, Elmer,” Chloe said. “Preach it!”
“Dirty creeps need to be locked up, not me.”
Poor guy ended up in the drunk tank on the regular. He was as sweet as could be, but when he got drunk, he stripped down no matter where he was. He got booked on public indecency at least once a month.
Chloe chuckled and shook her head. “Come on, Harvey. Let me buy you a drink for taking the hit for me. It’s the least I can do.”
I considered the time. “Nah, I’ve got somewhere I need to be.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Hot date?”
“Maybe.”
Axel had left me on read when I asked him about meeting up tonight, but I wasn’t going to make it easy for him to keep me at arm’s length. If he didn’t want to see me again, he’d have to tell me to my face.
She grinned. “Well, at least the night isn’t a total loss.”
I hoped she was right. Because I needed to get out of my head. Needed to silence the voice that was telling me to walk out of here and never come back—or to step up and take responsibility for the whole dang place.
I just wanted to do my job, keep it simple, not be responsible for my fellow deputies’ lives. But things just kept getting worse. I didn’t know how much longer I could watch Hale poison everything I believed in—including me.
CHAPTER 26
