Bad Boy’s Revenge(39)

“Yeah, that part sounded wrong to me.” Delta forced me into bed. “Look, I’ll help you. Just relax. None of this is good for you or the baby.”

“I need to…” I tripped over my own words. “I have no idea. I have to get Maddox out of jail before Chief Craig does something horrible.”

Delta sat on the bed, eyes wide. “Like what?”

“Like hangs him from the ceiling with a sheet wrapped around his neck.”

“Are you serious?”

“Nolan went insane and tried to kill us. Now he must be working with the chief to get rid of Maddox once and for all.”

Delta ran her hands through her wet hair. She must have rushed to the hospital straight from her shower, tucking into sweats and only one sock on the way. “Josie, this is beyond us. We can’t take down the chief of police and the mayor ourselves.”

“I know.” I couldn’t think fast enough. The damn fire still puffed smoke into my brain. “What about the District Attorney? Maybe he can start an investigation? God, I don’t know.” I covered my face. “The chief probably has friends who’d protect him. Maddox was so worried about exposing him because he had so many connections.” I groaned. “Oh, no. The chief might do something to Chelsea.”

“Can you get ahold of her?” Delta bit her fingernail. “Maybe tell her to get out of town?”

I nodded. “If I can make her to leave Saint Christie, then the Chief can’t use her to control Maddox.”

The thought struck me so suddenly it caused a wave of morning sickness. Or maybe it was just fear. Delta was a champ and held my hair back as she helped me through the sickness.

At least the baby was okay, even if my stomach was in knots.

I fought the nausea and removed my IV. “We have to go. I have an idea.”

Delta didn’t like it already. “Please, stay in bed.”

No. No more waiting. No more secrets.

“All my life, I’ve played by the rules,” I said. “This whole town tricks you into thinking it’s innocent, and I was fooled. I said Maddox was out of his mind for wanting revenge, and he thought I was naïve for seeking justice.”

“Don’t tell me you’re going vigilante.”

“No. Chief Craig and Nolan caused these lies and conspiracies. I won’t live in a world where manipulation is the only way to solve problems and vengeance is the only real punishment. It ends now.”

I couldn’t leave in a hospital gown. Delta offered me her windbreaker. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m ending the corruption. We’re going to find Chelsea, and we’ll make her confess to the affair. Then no one can hurt her or Maddox anymore.”

Delta said it was a stupid idea, but she covered me as I raced to the door. We ran to the stairwell and busted out of the hospital through the side exit into the parking lot. She led me to her car and rooted through her gym bag for a pair of pants and a shirt.

I dressed in the car on the way to the motel. Delta drove fast, peeling out of a red light with as much displeasure as her accelerator could squeal.

“I should find Chelsea,” she said. “You need to be in the hospital.”

“You used to make me cut school with you.”

“Yeah, running out on your IV isn’t like skipping gym.”

“Chelsea might only talk to me. She was never close to Maddox. Hell, she only came around when she needed help or money.”

“Sounds like a great sister,” Delta said.

“She was his only family, broken as it was. He tried so hard to take care of her. I’m sure she’ll help him too.”

“Now who’s naïve? What if she runs? Or goes to Chief Craig?”

Then Maddox would be killed. I couldn’t fail. It wasn’t an option.

Delta pulled into the motel. Grit still coated my lungs, and I coughed all the way to the room. A light shone through the corner window. I knocked hard enough for the entire town to hear.

Nothing.

“Chelsea!” I shouted for her. “It’s Josie Davis. I need to talk to you.”

Not a sound.

I banged harder.

“Chelsea, please!”

She was content to ignore me, and why not? The town didn’t give her a reason to show her face. We pretended her family never existed. The town avoided them until I shoved Maddox into their lives and forced them to confront the problems that no one talked about. Drug use. Domestic abuse. Their parents were born rotten, but Maddox and Chelsea only shared a common name with them. They deserved better.

“It’s about Maddox.” My words hissed over a gasped breath. “He’s in danger. You’re the only one who can help him.”

The door opened partway, still connected with the chain. Chelsea peeked out. She guarded herself with a scowl, but her voice wavered over her brother’s name.

“Maddox is in trouble again?”

“This wasn’t his fault,” I said.

“Find that hard to believe.”

“It’s Chief Craig, Chelsea.”

The door nearly closed. I forced it open again. “I know what’s been happening. I know Maddox was giving him money to keep you safe.”

Chelsea groaned. “Why doesn’t anyone understand? John loves me. He wants to run away with me.”

Delta shared my glance. The poor girl was completely taken with a man who would destroy her.

“Right now, Chief Craig is saying Maddox tried to hurt me. He didn’t. If I go down there and argue with him, he’ll murder Maddox. I can’t do anything to help him.”

She touched the bruise on her face. “But what can I do? I’m nothing.”

“You have to come forward about the affair.”

The door almost closed again. Delta and I both pushed it open. Chelsea teared up and hid her face.

“I can’t do that,” she said.

“It’s for Maddox.”

“John will hate me.”

“Do you really want to be with a man who would threaten your brother? After everything Maddox has done for you?”

She picked at the paint on the door. “Josie, I’m a junkie. I’m a whore. No one in this town would believe me. John is the only way I can escape this life and become something more.”

“Will he actually help you?” I asked.

“I…he said he would.”

I didn’t believe her, and I knew she didn’t believe him. “Maddox and I will help you. But you’re the only one who can save him now. Please, Chelsea. I can’t do this without you.”

She shook her head, blonde hair falling over her eyes. The door slowly closed. Latched.

“No!” I pounded the frame. Delta pulled me back. “Chelsea, please. I’m begging you. I love Maddox. I’m trying to protect him. I won’t let anything happen to you, but you have to help me.”

“Josie…” Delta tugged on my arm. “Come on. We gotta get you back to the hospital.”

“Chelsea!”

“We can try again tomorrow. The doctors are going to freak out if you aren’t in your bed.”

I broke down. I couldn’t leave. I fought away from Delta’s arms.

“He won’t survive the night.” I coughed too hard, and the words tumbled from me in a blitz of fear. “The chief will kill him tonight. No one would know it wasn’t a suicide. No one would care!”

Delta took my hand. I batted her away. “We’ll figure something out.”

“No! It has to be now! It has to be this. God only knows what will happen to him—and if Nolan…” I didn’t want to imagine it. I’d be sick thinking about it. “Nolan will come after me too. We’re not safe. We need—”

The door opened.

Chelsea shouldered a book bag and bundled a jacket in her arms. She hid the track marks, but the bruise on her cheek said more than the scars on her arm.

“He wasn’t really going to leave his wife, was he?” Her whisper broke my heart.

I shook my head. “No.”

“He spent the money Maddox gave him on a necklace for her. I saw it.”

I pulled her into a hug. “It’ll be okay. Trust me.”

“How are we going to do it without…” Chelsea’s lip trembled. “John has a temper.”

Easy. We needed to expose the secret, and I worked for a newspaper. It wouldn’t be a Pulitzer Prize winning article, but it’d reveal the corruption.

“I’ll take you to my editor,” I said. “We’ll give him the story and bring down both Chief Craig and Nolan Rhys. It’ll be on the Saint Christie Reporter blog in the morning and printed in the paper by the evening.”

I led Chelsea to Delta’s car, squeezing her hand as she hesitated before the door.

“But what if John wants to get revenge?” she asked.

“We won’t let him,” I promised. “Because we’ll have justice.”





Chapter Twenty Two – Maddox



The cell’s metal bars separated me from Chief Craig.

I didn’t know if they protected me or him.

The police denied me the hospital and elected for medical treatment at the station. That was probably a lawsuit waiting to happen, but I doubted I’d get a chance to talk to an attorney. We skipped the phone call. The finger prints. All due-process.

Whatever happened tonight wouldn’t be lawful.