Page 83 of The Wicked

“Burford, it’s simple. The man had no business creeping around the Baldwin estate at midnight, not unless you count committing a felony as a valid reason. I shot him in the fucking face with a legally registered firearm while he was in the process of trying to kill me.”

“Your father’s currently campaigning for tighter gun controls.”

“Fantastic, let him. They can start by taking the guns away from the criminals.”

“You know what the press is going to say.”

“Have you been speaking with Angela?”

The door opened, and Sheriff Newman walked in. The guy had to be at least eighty, and his rumpled attire suggested he’d never been near a tailor or even an iron in his life.

“How are you holdin’ up, son?”

“That’s the question I should be asking my girlfriend. How much longer are you going to keep me here?”

“We need to make sure we cross all the i’s and dot all the t’s. I spoke with your father a few minutes ago—great guy—and he’s sendin’ a car for you.”

“I already have a car.”

“Just repeatin’ what he said. Do you know a young lady called Angela? She called 911 and told the dispatcher she was concerned for your welfare.”

For the love of fuck. “I’ll deal with it.”

“Women.” The sheriff rolled his eyes. “Can’t live with ’em, can’t shoot ’em.”

“Do you really think that’s an appropriate joke to be making tonight?”

He held up his hands and backed out of the room. “Just sit tight, son.”

The door closed, and Burford snorted. “I’m sure this investigation is going to be handled in an entirely thorough and professional manner.”

“Call Angela,” I ordered, heading for the door myself. “Tell her to stop wasting police time.”

“Where are you going?”

“To find Saralisa.”

Except I didn’t get far. When I pulled the door open, Luca and Colt were on the other side of it.

“We need to talk,” Luca said.

“Don’t you have enough information already? What would you have done in that situation? Invited the asshole in for coffee?”

“It was a righteous kill, but that isn’t the issue. You’ll walk on the shooting. The first problem is that he was wearing a backpack, and in that backpack was a pair of handcuffs, zip ties, duct tape, a knife, condoms, and what we believe might be a type of sedative. The lab will need to confirm.”

He’d come to Saralisa’s home with a fucking rape kit? My hands balled at my sides, and I wanted to put a fist through something, preferably what was left of that motherfucker’s face.

“I wish I could go back and kill him again. Slower this time.”

“I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“What’s the second problem? You said ‘the first problem,’ which means there must be another.”

“The second problem is more of a question: why was he there?”

“I thought you just answered that.”

“That’s merely logistics. I’m asking—and so is Sara, incidentally—why a stranger to this town ended up at the pool house on the Baldwin estate in the middle of the night. It’s not the kind of place a rapist would head to by chance.”

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