Page 66 of White Raven
The tips of Scott’s ears turned as red as blood, and Foley thought for a moment he could almost see steam pouring from them as his face began to flush the same color with his boiling rage. His blue eyes burned like a thousand suns with his hate, and his pain, and his fists clenched until his knuckles turned white at his sides. He wasn’t sure how long they stood there in blistering silence. Scott turned on his heel and slammed the door in his face. It took a few long moments before Foley could move himself away from the vacant door. His own bubbling anger roared in his ears, and he slowly turned around to start down the steps and onto the short, cobbled walkway back to his car. Thefront door opened again behind him, and Scott rushed back out with a small brass key, Brynn hot on his heels as Foley turned and faced them.
“Dad! What are you doing? Who the hell is this guy?” Brynn asked, seemingly torn with the idea of that key leaving her father’s hand. Scott approached him, stopping about a foot away.
“All that’s left of her mother is in a storage building on the west side of town. You want this, then it comes at a price. A price I’ve been dying to make you pay for sixteen fucking years.” Brynn stepped up to his side, shaking in anticipation and staring between them with her mouth open.
“Everything in that storage locker is mine. It’s my only way to be with her!” Brynn’s voice broke, and her lip quivered. “Who the hell do you think you are to come and take that from me?”
A cruel smile tugged at Scott’s mouth. “He’s the reason you don’t have a mother anymore, Brynn. This is the man that killed your mom.”
Checkmate. Well played, Trainor.
Brynn’s face paled, and he wanted so badly to hug the young girl…the only part of Lindsay that still mattered. She took careful steps towards him, staring into his eyes, and reminding him so much of his partner. “You’re him. You’re her partner,” she choked, a tear rolling down her cheek.
“I was, yes. I’m sorr—”
Brynn’s fist struck his mouth, and it was like being knocked into the past—in the training center with Lindsay, watching her grin behind her gloves when she took a cheap shot. She hadn’t had the chance to teach her daughter how to fight—and didn’t need to. She was spitting image of the woman he loved. Just as fierce, and just as tough. Just as determined.
“Whatever you take from that unit, youwillput back,” she said through clenched teeth. “I’m studying law. I leave today to go back to school. If you’re the man I think you are, then my mom must be looking down on me. I’m spending every second I have learning how to bury you. If it takes me the rest of my life, I’ll make you pay for what you’ve taken from me and my dad.”
With that, she turned and stormed back into the house. Scott flicked the small key into the air towards Foley, and he caught it, licking the blood from the side of his mouth. “Corner of Fawkes and Sutton. Mail the key back when you’re done pushing your way back into a life you never belonged in.”
“I’m sorry, Scott. For whatever it’s worth…I’m truly sorry. For everything.”
It only seemed to make him more angry. That was fine. He was too proud after seeing that fire light up inside Brynn Trainor to be anything else. Scott seethed, checking his self-restraint. “We broke bread at this house. Drank beer and watched football. You were there when my daughter was born. You stood next to me at that fucking funeral. How can you live with yourself, Malcolm? I always wanted to know. How can you call yourself a captain, let alone wear a badge you don’t deserve?”
“I’ve never claimed to be a good man, Scott. But I’m trying my best to change that. I don’t expect you to forgive or believe me. I’m gonna find a way for us all to be at peace. Or die trying.”
“If you do, I hope I get to be the one to piss on your grave.”
Foley hung his head, nodding. A faint smirk crept across his face. He turned and started towards his car, stopping at the end of the walkway. Scott still stood, watching him.
“She choseyou, you know. You and that little girl were the only thing that ever really mattered to her. I hope you chooseto live. She wouldn’t want it this way, and you know that. Thank you for your help.”
Trainor didn’t say a word as Foley got into his car. They exchanged a long stare through his passenger window before he finally cranked it and pulled out onto the street.
Rhaena’s teeth chattered in the January air as she stepped out of the truck and tucked her chin beneath her scarf, approaching Foley at a sketchy storage facility on the west end. Her heeled boots did little to warm her, and the wind was biting like a starving animal today.
“Alright, I’m here. Are you gonna tell me why we’re freezing our asses off, and what’s so important in this ramshackle shit heap?” she asked, watching him struggle with the rusty padlock on the unit door.
Foley scoffed, laughing as he bent over and tried to force the key inside the bottom of the lock. “Your bark is getting about as bad as your bite lately, Gloves.”
“I blame the men in my life. Where are we?” She looked around, her hair blowing everywhere as she looked for any signs of life in this place. “This place gives me the creeps.”
“You know…I was just thinking I might have been set up. Maybe you should go.” He stood, cursing under his breath as he looked at the key in his hand and then back down at the weathered lock that seemed a lot older than that key.
“Set up by who? What the hell is going on?”
He sighed, and blew warmth into his hands, rubbing them together as flurries started to fall around them. “I went to Lindsay’s this morning to talk to her husband.”
Her eyes dropped to the split in the corner of his mouth, and it all made sense. “Yikes. Is that who gave you the new battle scar?”
“Actually no,” he smiled affectionately, confusing the hell out of Rhaena as she shook with cold. “That was courtesy of her daughter…she’s got a perfect right hook.”
“Are you gonna tell me what’s going on, Malcolm? If this is a long story, I’d rather do it somewhere warm—and safe.”
“Scott Trainor has every reason to want me dead. Long story short, I went to ask if they had any of Lindsay’s things left at the house. Particularly anything that could help us figure out what she was up to before her death. If she was keeping it all a secret, she would have worked from home. Maybe there’s something buried in her belongings. They gave me the key to this unit…but I’m starting to think I’ve been purposely misled.”
“Lemme see that,” Rhaena said, reaching her hand out for the key. The number on the key matched the number on the bottom of the lock. It had to be right. She got the blade of the key about halfway inside, and it struggled, but didn’t seem like it was because it didn’t fit. Clearly no one had been here in a while, and the weather hadn’t been kind. Rhaena spit into the bottom and jiggled the key a little, feeling it give and pushing the blade the rest of the way in. She turned it, and the lock screeched open, leaving rust on her frozen fingers as she maneuvered it off the door.
