Her Mother’s Grave

Chapter Forty-Eight

Josie emerged from the pharmacy with Harris’s antibiotics in one hand and her cell phone in the other. Misty rattled on while Harris screamed in the background, the sound making Josie want to race to him and scoop him into her arms. But when he was sick, she knew all he wanted was his mother. Fetching the medication was the best way she could help. “I got some more infant Tylenol too,” Josie said. “I’m only a few minutes away.”

“Oh great,” Misty said. “You’re a lifesaver.”

A man stood leaning against the driver’s-side door of Josie’s Escape as she found her vehicle in the parking lot. She hung up with Misty and stopped dead in front of him. It was dark, and the parking lot was deserted except for them and a couple of other vehicles, but Josie could see dark eyes glinting from beneath his baseball cap. He wore faded blue jeans and a blue down vest over a flannel shirt. She estimated him to be in his forties. His hands were hooked in the belt loops of his jeans, one of his feet flat against the door of her car. A smile snaked across his face as she looked him up and down.

“Can I help you?” Josie asked.

He kept smiling at her in a way that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. One of her hands slipped inside her jacket and rested on the handle of her service weapon.

“Now that’s not very nice, is it, Chief?” he said.

“Do I know you?” Josie asked.

“No,” he said, “but you want to.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Josie said. “Out of my way. There’s someplace I need to be.”

He stepped aside slightly and put a hand on the door handle, as if to open it, but Josie hadn’t disengaged the locks yet. She didn’t want to get any closer to him, much less cross his path to get into her vehicle. “Allow me,” he said with fake politeness.

“I can take it from here,” Josie told him.

The hand on her gun was reassuring, but she knew she had to be careful—the mayor would have her ass if the chief of police was caught pulling a gun on a guy who was simply trying to open her door for her.

The man didn’t move, so Josie said, “What do you want?”

“Just trying to have a conversation with you, sweet thing.”

Josie kept her voice clear and firm. “My name’s not sweet thing, and I really don’t have time for this. I told you, there’s somewhere I need to go. Someone is waiting for me.”

“You know, you could be nicer to a gentleman just trying to be polite,” he told her, his sickening smile holding firm.

She’d had enough already. “Get out of my way,” Josie told him.

The punch came fast and hard, whizzing past the left side of her head as she ducked under it just in time, barreling into him with the full weight of her body and slamming him against her Escape. Josie heard him gasp the word, “Bitch.” Then everything else happened at once—she took a step back, her hand emerging from her jacket with the Glock, but before she could take a shooter’s stance, his fist swung out wildly, catching her on the side of her face. She felt the skin of her cheek swell. Stumbling to the side, she tried to keep her balance, lifting the Glock toward him once more. Lightning-fast, his other arm lashed out at her wrist. The Glock clattered to the ground and the man’s hands closed around Josie’s throat. He swung her around, and her body crashed into the side of the vehicle. Pain shot across the back of her skull.

The man held her there, squeezing her throat until her vision started to gray as she clawed at his fingers. “You said you wanted it,” he breathed into her face. “I’m gonna give it to you, Chief.”

Josie’s heart froze in her chest and then kicked into overdrive, jackhammering against her sternum. One of his hands left her throat and reached between her legs, tearing at her jeans, pulling them downward. It was all the opening Josie needed. She brought one elbow up and sliced downward onto the man’s forearm, breaking his hold. Her other elbow came up fast, smashing into his nose. He staggered backward, muttering the word “bitch” once more and holding his hands to his face. They came away bloody. He stared at them and then looked back at her. “Oh, so you really want this to be real, then. Well, now I’m taking what I came for.”

He lunged toward her, and she stepped out of the way, snagging one of his wrists and twisting his arm high behind his back. She kicked between his feet, spreading his legs and putting him off balance. Her forearm knocked his face into the window of the Escape once, and then again for good measure. Josie didn’t have cuffs, but she took his other wrist and twisted that behind his back as well. “Get on your knees,” she commanded.

She felt him struggle against her hold, and she twisted his wrists until he cried out in pain and his knees buckled. Pushing him onto the ground, she readjusted her grip on his wrists, both now bent at unnatural angles. Josie knew the pain was the only thing keeping him from coming after her again. Once his face was against the asphalt, she put one knee on his back and one on his neck. “You’re under arrest,” she said, and read him his rights.

“What the fuck is this?” he cried.

Josie took one hand away long enough to fish her phone out of her pocket and dial 911, dropping the phone onto the pavement so she could keep him pinned as she shouted into it. She rattled off the address. “Officer needs immediate assistance. Send nearest units. Contact Lieutenant Fraley.”

The man squirmed beneath her. “Are you fucking kidding me?” he spat. “This was not what we agreed on. This wasn’t part of the deal.”

Josie leaned closer to his face. “What?”

“You promised not to arrest me,” he cried.

“Promised not to arrest you? I don’t even know you.”

“It’s me,” he said. “Keith. I answered your ad.”

Josie felt her stomach sink. “My ad? What ad?”

He continued to struggle, bucking against her, grunting. “Your ad on craigslist, you crazy bitch.”