Hold (Gentry Boys, #5)(49)

Inside the station there wasn’t much going on. A bored-looking teenage girl sat on a plastic chair and scowled at the world. The smell of coffee and fast food assaulted the senses. And somewhere unseen a man laughed raucously. Sitting behind the long front desk in the lobby was a middle-aged woman in an Emblem PD uniform. She looked up when we walked in and her pencil-drawn eyebrows started twitching.

“I’m Cord Gentry,” I started to say. “My brothers and I are looking-“

“I know who you are,” she snapped. Then she let out a wheezing sigh to let us know we’d just f*cked up her scenery. “Go sit over there.”

“Welcome back, boys,” Chase muttered. I sat beside him and Creed grudgingly took the chair on my other side. He drummed his fingers on his knee and glared stonily ahead.

“The prodigal Gentrys return again,” I said, listening to our cheerful greeter get on the phone and call someone, presumably Gaps, to announce his ‘f*cking friends’ were here.





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


CREED



I didn’t really give a shit what kind of grudge that idiot at the station desk was nursing. If she figured she could flare some nostrils and glare me down then she figured wrong. Probably one of my blood relations had wronged her in some petty fashion and the name Gentry had struck a sour note. But I’d never seen her before and didn’t feel like dealing with anyone’s historical anger when I was still trying to process a dead mother.

“Big C,” called Chase from two seats down. He waved to me over Cord’s head.

Cord, meanwhile, was slumped in his chair and looking grim.

But Chase was watching me with a mother hen kind of worry. What did he think I was going to do? Go ape shit in the Emblem police station? Head out on a blood hunt to sniff out Benton? I wasn’t the kind of volatile guy I used to be. I had a wife and a kid at home and they were my priorities now. This was just a sad obligation. We would fulfill it and then we would go.

“You got a restroom?” I asked the scowling wonder, who was still glowering at us from behind the desk.

“Public restroom is down the hall, first right.”

Cord blinked at me when I stood up. He must have been so lost in his head that he hadn’t heard the conversation at all. “Where you going?”

“Nature calls.”

“Oh.”

I nudged him with my foot. “You hanging in there?”

He nodded. “Yup.”

Chase and I exchanged a look and Chase reached over to pat Cord on the shoulder. Cord was usually the one who kept the balance. But getting that phone call in the middle of the night seemed to have shaken him up the most. I could tell from the second he stepped into my truck this morning that he wasn’t okay. If it was guilt he was feeling then he should know better than that. After all, a woman who would let her own children suffer in squalor and be abused for the sake of a terrible man and her own addictions couldn’t be redeemed. If it was rage at Benton, well, there was really no good place to put that either.

Not that I would mind getting my hands on him for ten minutes.

After taking a quick leak and washing my hands I lingered in front of the dirty bathroom mirror for a minute. If I allowed it, my senses could reproduce the stink of the trailer and the cold sweat of fear that broke out on my neck whenever I heard my father’s voice. There was a time when I used to drink so hard I’d black out. I had reasons. Bad reasons, but still reasons. I’d think of him and I’d have murder in my head and my heart. Drinking was the only way to dull the rage, although I’d hear from my brothers the next day how I’d gone out of my head, muttering and cussing until I vomited the pain out and lapsed into darkness.

The harsh fluorescent lighting glinted off my wedding ring and I balled my hand into a fist, holding it over my heart. The past was the past. It couldn’t be rewritten. And some things couldn’t be forgiven. But I had a life with a lot of love in it. And as soon as we were done here we’d go home and move on. We’d made it. We’d won.

I switched the light off on my way out of the bathroom. I could see Chase and Cord straight down the hall. They were standing, talking quietly to that goofball cop everyone called Gaps. He acknowledged me with a nod as I joined the group.

“Hey Creed,” he said, offering his hand for a shake. “Was just telling your brothers I was damn sorry to make that call this morning.”

He had a clammy grip. I released his hand and tried not to wipe my palm on my jeans.

“It was inevitable,” I said.

Gaps looked sad. “Damn shame nonetheless.” He glanced around and shifted his weight. “He’s still back there you know. Usually he screams bloody murder to be let out but all night he’s just been sitting in a cell staring at the floor. Not crying or nothing. Just quiet. We told him he was free to go but he’s still just sitting there. I know you guys don’t see your folks but do you want to-“

“FUCK NO!” Cord shouted and everyone in the station stopped to stare. I would have said it if he didn’t but I was surprised at his vehemence. Cord didn’t lose it too often.

Chase put a hand on Cord’s shoulder. “Think we’ll pass on the family reunion, Officer.”

Gaps looked at us each in turn with sympathy in his eyes. He was an all right guy. At least that’s what Deck had always said and I trusted Deck’s judgment as much as I trusted my own.