Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 163802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 819(@200wpm)___ 655(@250wpm)___ 546(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 819(@200wpm)___ 655(@250wpm)___ 546(@300wpm)
“—have framed an innocent single mother and arrested her for murder! They don’t even care that the real killer is getting away free!”
“That’s enough!” Kaplan roared, charging her. “Put that way! All of you, put your phones away or we’re arresting you for obstruction!”
Kaplan grabbed her wrist. It probably wasn’t even that hard, but she screamed like he tried to tear it from her body.
“Get off me! Help, help! Police brutality!”
“Let go of my wife, you brute!” A two-hundred-and-fifty-pound rocket rammed into Kaplan.
The problem was, there was an entire officer standing between him and Kaplan, and said officer was linked arm in arm with her colleagues—trying to form a blockade between the angry crowd and the detectives. When she went down... they all did.
“Ahhh!” One—three—five—eight officers pitched off the top step, tumbling head over ass down the stairs... and taking Balogun, Kaplan, Davis, Courtney, and me down with them.
RHODES PRESSED THE ice pack to my forehead while Micah tucked the blankets in tighter around us.
The five of us were in the family room—a room that didn’t see much use before I came, if the thick layers of dirt and dust were anything to go by. But Micah, Rhodes, Lily, and I had taken to spending the evenings in the family room, taking advantage of Lily’s short screen-time window to watch a movie together.
That night was the first night Alex joined us... but we weren’t watching a movie.
“—riot broke out this morning at the residence of former lifestyle and travel influencer, Soo Min Kim,” said a buttoned-up, conventionally attractive reporter. “Tragically, Mrs. Kim’s mother, Ha-eun Kim, was found murdered last night, but when authorities attempted to make an arrest, it did not go well.”
Cue the looping, stitched-together videos of me ranting, raving, and accusing an innocent man of perversion and bribe-taking all to keep my best friend out of jail... which didn’t work.
After they peeled themselves off the dirt, Balogun and Kaplan rushed a crying Courtney to their car and took off.
No one was hurt, so no one else was arrested, but I showed up at the station anyway, and made enemies out of a dozen more officers and detectives. To be fair, I called them pretty cruel names when every single one of them refused to let me see Courtney. After two hours of getting nowhere, Rhodes led me away promising he’d get Courtney the best lawyer he could—assuming her parents weren’t already on it.
That’s how I ended up under a pile of blankets on the couch with Lily snuggled against my side while I broke the new takeout-only-once-a-week rule with a carton of Hunan chicken.
“Mommy, what are crazy eyes?”
“Hmm?” I peeled away two layers of blankets to find her. “What do you mean?”
She wiggled a purple phone at me. “Nicky says you have crazy eyes on TV. Like a witch. What’s crazy eyes?”
“Uhh, I’d like to ask a question first. Where did you get that phone?”
Her beaming smile melted my heart. “Daddy Micah bought it for me.”
Three pairs of eyes latched on to Micah, who was chilling on the opposite couch with a glass of wine. “Had to,” he said with a shrug. “Sue was coming for my favorite-parent spot with all the skipping school for cupcakes and cookies, so I bought her the phone to defend my position.”
“Micah, stop saying stupid things in front of the child!” I snapped over his guffawing and Lily’s muffled giggling. “And, Lily, tell Nicky your mom doesn’t have crazy eyes. She has the prettiest eyes in the world, and he’s a stinky doo-doo head.”
“Okay!”
“No,” Alex sounded off. He reached over, stuck his hand in, and plucked the phone from Lily’s hands. “Lily, since you have a phone now”—he glared at a grinning Micah—“there are going to be rules. Rule one: don’t text mean things to people. Rule two: block anyone who texts mean things to you.” He tapped on the screen and did just that, deleting and blocking that Nicky kid. “Rule three: I hold on to this. You can have it during screen time, and only screen time.”
“Ugghhh,” Lily whined, poking her head up. “But, Daddy, that’s not fair. I didn’t text the mean things, Nicky did.”
“I know, baby girl, and you’re not in trouble. But having a phone is a big deal, so we can’t do too much too soon.”
Lily pouted, her little face crumpling. “But we’re having screen time right now.”
Alex halted. “That’s... that’s true,” he got out. Sighing, he handed it over. “But no more texting. Look at cute videos of koalas, or something.”
“Okay, Daddy!” Wriggling free of the blankets, she took off with the phone like she didn’t want to give Alex a chance to change his mind. As soon as she closed the door—
“What the hell, Micah?” Alex burst out.
“Agreed.” Rhodes’s voice was hard. “What the hell.”