Page 2 of When Autumn Arrives

My grip on her tightened. She told us about the ex. He was abusive, and Thea was someone I’d classify as soft. Not in a bad way, but in the sense that she didn’t seem aggressive, or the type to act rashly. She was sunshine and perfection. She wasn’t someone who would fire a weapon without a reason.

She sniffled, swiping at her tears with the backs of her hands as she pulled away from me.

“You didn’t read the report,” she said through a disbelieving laugh. “You saw the charge and assumed the worst.”

“I’m just trying to understand, Thea. That’s all.” Hendrix raised his hands up in surrender.

“The liquor license is in Chris’s name,” she explained. “And that charge hasn’t been pressed yet. It’ll…” She inhaled a shaky breath, still trying to calm herself. “It’ll be dropped. They won’t go to trial. My lawyer is confident.”

“What’s his play? Self-defense?” Hendrix asked. “Because it stopped being self-defense, the second your ex left the property and drove away.”

Thea shook her head. “My lawyer is… He knows how to make things go away.”

“That sounds… not good,” I settled on. “How is he making this go away?”

She peered up at me, watery brown eyes begging for me to stay. Not to give up on her. “Kyle didn’t realize that I installed a security system that has cameras. He can press charges against me but won’t because what he did before that is worse than me shooting at his car.”

My brows furrowed, so many more questions rising to the surface. What had he done? What did she do? Why was he there? Why were the charges still there?

“But the police department can press them, Thea. You were in public.”

She turned toward him. “That department runs off the policy of “no victim, no crime”. Kyle rescinded his statement. They’re going to drop it. The chief is just dragging his feet.”

“Why?” I asked, so lost in this conversation. They might as well be speaking a different language. I rubbed my temple. “Can we start from the beginning?”

Hendrix let out a sigh. “I’ve been trying, but she went into defense mode the second I sat down.”

“Maybe because you came at me like a starving dog fighting for a bite of prime rib,” Thea snapped.

“Oh my god,” I said when Hendrix opened his mouth to rebut. I was going to have to mediate this shit-fest if he didn’t get a handle on himself. “Sit down. Both of you.” I gestured to the table, and both of them, with their tails between their legs, headed back to sit.

Hendrix took up a seat, sitting like a normal person instead of his laid-back backward way, and I sat at the end while Thea sat across from Hen. Her arms were crossed again as she glanced at a spot on the table.

“Hen?” I said his name, a brow raising while I waited for him to fill me in on whatever it is he found. “Why did you run her?”

He shot me a look that told me he wasn’t going to tell me exactly what he knew with Thea here. Fine, we would discuss it later.

After a beat of silence, Thea jumped in. “Yeah, Hen. I’d like the answer to that.”

“Well, you won’t get one,” he shot across the table.

“Fine. Moving on to the next question. What did you find? You said something about child endangerment?” I interjected before Thea could pounce for blood.

“There’s a pending charge of child endangerment, of using a deadly weapon. The report was closed, which I found odd. Usually, I can get into public records just fine.”

“That’s because it’s not a public record,” Thea said. “My ex’s brother is a sergeant at the police department. The charge was bogus and was just a way to keep Kyle from jail that night. I was the one arrested and my d—“ she caught herself, shaking her head.

Ahh, so more secrets she wasn’t ready to share with us.

“Kyle, my ex,” she said, inhaling. “He threw a rock at my window that night. He broke into my home and he…” She stopped again to take another breath. “I was in survival mode, and I reacted without thinking. The child endangerment charge was just because they said a stray bullet could have struck a bedroom. It was bullshit, and it would have stuck if my lawyer wasn’t good at his job.”

“So, what did Kyle do that was worse?” Hendrix asked. “Worse than running around waving an armed gun like a crazed person?”

“It doesn’t matter. Next question, please.” She turned her head away.

“Thea,” Hendrix whispered, finally using a soft tone. He realized that maybe she had reason to keep her secrets hidden from us.

She glanced at him, tears welling in her irises all over again, threatening to spill out with the wrong word or move. “Please. Don’t make me say it out loud.”

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