"Get your fucking hands up!" the sheriff ordered through a small portable bull-horn that muffled his voice as if he was repeating our order back to us from the old drive through of the Dairy Queen.
Reggie's hands shot up in the air. "Drop the wrench!" Deputy Harbord shouted.
Reggie looked up to his raised hands and dropped the wrench as soon as he realized he was still holding it. It bounced off the concrete and clattered down into the oil bay.
I lifted my head out from under the hood of the Shelby and wiped my hands with the rag I kept over my shoulder. I took in the scene in front of me as I lit a cigarette and wondered which of my arrestable offenses could've warranted such theatrics.
"To what do I owe the pleasure?" I asked sarcastically. Leaning up against one of the tall tool boxes that lined the outside of the work bay, crossing my legs at the ankles. I took a long drag of my cigarette and blew the smoke out of my nose.
Sheriff Fletcher was as crooked as they'd come. After I found out he'd helped Owen when he'd raped and almost killed Abby, the motherfucker was lucky he was still fucking breathing.
I couldn't kill everyone.
At least, that's what Abby kept telling me.
"Jacob Francis Dunn?" the deputy asked, slowly approaching the work bay. Sheriff Fletcher stood his ground by his car, gun at the ready.
Fucking coward.
"Griff, put that thing down," I said, gesturing with my cigarette to the gun he had aimed at my chest. "You know me. Don't pretend like you fucking don't." I put out my cigarette on the heel of my boot. "You've know me since the ninth grade when I fingered your girlfriend in the back of the room during English Lit while you gave that presentation on Jane Austen." Griff's face dropped. "Don't worry though. I only made her come once."
"Not exactly the thing to say to someone holding a gun to your head," Griffin spat, his face turned red with irritation. "And it was Shakespeare, asshole."
"So you do remember. It was so long ago, man. You remember the name of that whore you used to date?" I goaded. I already knew the answer.
"Kristy, her name was and is Kristy. And if you say one more word about my fucking wife I'm going to squeeze this here trigger," he warned. "Now put your fucking hands up." He redirected his gun from my chest to my head.
"Everything all right over there?" Sheriff Fletcher called out, still hiding behind his car door.
"I got this, Boss." Griff called back without taking his eyes off me.
"What exactly do you fuckers want?" I asked, irritated that they'd interrupted me while I was resuscitating the Shelby. I'd just started Mustang CPR on her when they'd pulled in.
"Jacob Dunn, we have a warrant for your arrest. We came to take you on in," Griff said, proudly.
"You gonna arrest me?" I asked. "What the fuck for?"
Griff reached behind his back with the hand that didn't have a finger on the trigger and produced a pair of handcuffs from his back pocket. Just about then I noticed that the good sheriff was no longer hiding by his patrol car. Then, I was slammed into from the side, and my chest smashed up against the hood of the Shelby. Cold metal cuffs were slapped tightly around my wrists.
"What am I being charged with?" I asked again as they both yanked me up to my feet, shoving me toward the cars. Sheriff Fletcher planted his hand firmly on the chain connecting the cuffs. "You are under arrest for the murder of Owen Fletcher," He finally answered, before leaning into my ear and whispering so only I could hear. "You messed with the wrong fucking family, boy." His breath hot on my neck, I fought to contain my gag reflex. There was no way I was going to let that fucker know he'd gotten to me in any way, and that included cringing because of his hot garbage breath.
At that moment, Bee pulled her truck into the lot. When she saw what was happening, she jumped down from the drivers seat, leaving the door wide open, the engine still running.
"Jake!" she yelled, her little legs blurring together as she sprinted across the lot.
I planted my feet in the dirt and locked up my knees in an attempt to hold my ground so I could talk to my wife, but the sheriff pushed on the cuffs and I had to again move forward so I wouldn't wind up face first in the dirt.
"Baby, call a lawyer," I told Bee when she came running up, the idiot lawmen pushing me right passed her.
"Jake! No!" Abby shouted. I was shoved onto the sticky back seat of a patrol car.
"You're gonna need more than a lawyer, boy," Sheriff Fletcher said, slamming the door behind me. He then plopped himself into the driver’s seat. "Jesus Christ himself isn't going to get you out of this."