For You (The ‘Burg #1)(96)
Author: Kristen Ashley

“Will she understand?” Mrs. Harris asked, her voice slightly higher, worried.

“She already does,” Colt assured her. “We figured some of it out already. She’s not okay with what was done to Amy either.”

Mrs. Harris nodded, a tear slid down her cheek and she looked to her husband.

“We heard things, since we been back to town,” Mr. Harris said. “Are they going to get him?”

“Yes,” Colt said, knowing he shouldn’t. Anything could happen, you didn’t give assurances you couldn’t stake claim to, but he said it all the same.

Mr. Harris gestured to the envelope. “Amy would want you to use that, if you need to,” he opened his jacket and pulled another envelope out, this one smaller, white, “and this,” Mr. Harris finished, putting the white envelope on top of the yellow one.

“When did you receive these?” Colt asked.

“The day Doc called,” Mr. Harris answered, running an arm around his wife’s waist and pulling her close. “We were out, didn’t open the mail, not until after he called. We thought it could wait until we delivered it to you, face to face.”

Colt nodded. Amy had planned her death precisely and he hated it that those plans were the last thing she carried out in this world. As he nodded, he heard Mrs. Harris’s breath hitch.

“You need us anymore?” Mr. Harris asked, pulling his wife closer, wanting to get out of there.

“No, sir.”

Mr. Harris nodded and led his wife to the door. Colt followed and watched the older man stop at the door then turn.

“Please don’t talk to Craig ‘less you have to.”

Colt nodded.

“She’d want you at her funeral. Will you do that for her?”

Colt didn’t miss a beat. “Feb and I’ll be there.”

“Mean a lot to Amy.”

“We’ll be there.”

“Tomorrow, three o’clock. Service before. Markham and Sons.”

“We’ll be there,” Colt repeated.

Mrs. Harris lifted her wet face to Colt and whispered, “You always were a good boy.”

“And Amy always was a sweet girl,” Colt returned, she nodded, fresh tears falling from her eyes, both her lips disappearing around her teeth.

Her husband bustled her out and Colt followed them close like a guard down the hall, through the bullpen with police and Feds studiously avoiding looking at the grieving couple, down the hall, through the front doors, down the stairs and to their rental car on the street.

Mr. Harris stopped, shook Colt’s hand. When her husband moved away, Mrs. Harris got close, wrapped her fingers around his upper arm, leaned up high and Colt bent low so she could touch her cheek to his.

“Life lands blows you don’t expect,” she whispered against his cheek. “They wind you and there’s some you never get your breath back. We didn’t know, we asked, she never answered, but we suspected. Amy never got her breath back.” She pulled her face away but stayed close and looked him in the eye. “Get your breath back, Alexander, Amy would want that for you.”

“All my life, had good people looking after me,” Colt promised her. “I get winded, I recover. Now, even with that, I’m breathing just fine, Mrs. Harris.”

That last was a lie, but she didn’t know that.

Though he wasn’t lying, he’d recover.

She squeezed his arm, nodded again, let him go and turned away.

Colt watched the street long after their car disappeared.

Then he turned, took the front steps two at a time then the inside stairs the same.

“Colt!” Sully called but Colt kept walking to interrogation one.

“Not now, Sully,” he called back.

He hit interrogation one, grabbed the envelopes, headed out, dropped the white envelope on his desk and went back down the stairs at a jog. Then out of the Station. When he hit the sidewalk, he was running.

He pulled open the door to J&J’s and Feb, behind the bar, looked at him.

“Office,” he said before she could do the jaw tilt.

He watched her head twitch as he covered the ground in less strides than it normally took him. As he went she hurried down the bar. She hit the office barely a second after him. He took her arm, pulled her inside, slammed the door and then pushed her against it. He moved into her, fully invading her space, his arm with the hand holding the envelope went around her waist, low, pulling her h*ps to his. His chest leaned deep, pressing her shoulders to the door. His other hand went to her jaw and he dipped his face close.

“I didn’t violate Amy and I don’t have a kid,” he told her.

He watched her blink fast, twice.

“What?” she asked.

“What’d you see when you saw us?” he asked.

She shook her head, jerky, back to blinking.

“What?” she repeated.

His fingers tensed on her jaw, “Baby, what’d you see when you saw me and Amy?”

He knew by the look on her face she didn’t want to relive it but she was also looking at his face, she read it and she did it, for him.

“You were under the covers, moving, you were on top of her, you were kissing. I could see her knees up, you were between her legs.”

“Were we dressed?”

Her eyes grew dazed, unfocused then she came back to him and she answered, “Yes. I think so, up top I could see, but you were under the covers. I didn’t –”

He pulled slightly away and held the envelope between them.

“Read this, Feb. It’s from Amy. Her parents gave it to me.”

She stared at it like Ryan stared at the pad, like he suspected he’d looked at that envelope half an hour before.

He ran his fingers down her jaw before his hand fell away and he said, “It isn’t easy to read, baby. Lowe raped her.” She gasped, her eyes flew from the envelope to him, he gave her a squeeze with his arm and went on. “It’s ugly but it isn’t surprising. I thought it’d hurt you anymore than he already has, I swear, Feb, I wouldn’t let you touch it. But Amy wanted you to see it.”

She stared at him for awhile before she nodded and took the envelope but Colt didn’t make her read it on her own. His arm went around her and he pulled her lower body close until it touched his and he kept her there while her eyes slid back and forth across the page. She flipped the first paper then she moved to the next, flipping that too. Colt watched as she read and her eyes filled with tears, her bottom lip quivering, but she held them back.