ChapterFour
Mark
“Iwonder what your wife’s going to say when she finds out you arrested her brother,” Reid mused as we waited outside the room Cole was being treated in.
Sure, ordinarily, you wouldn’t leave the person alone. There’d be an officer in the room for the safety of the doctors and nurses and to ensure they didn’t escape, but it was Cole Townsend.
Plus, he’d been arrested for his own safety and would likely not have any charges pressed against him.
Feeling Reid stiffen, I followed where he was staring and just knew I’d be testing my ability not to shit my pants at some point soon. It was crude, but with the whole Townsend family headed toward us, the men looking even more pissed off at me, it was a fact.
“What the hell happened?” Colette, Cole’s mom, shouted when she was close enough. “Ebru told us this morning he had an emergency appointment at the dentist, and then we got a call saying he’d been arrested and was in the hospital? How is that possible?”
The most honest answer was because he was Cole, but I managed to hold it in.
“Uh, Mrs. Townse—”
My jaw snapped shut audibly when she held her hand up.
“Don’t start that Mrs. Townsend bullshit with me now, Mark Montgomery. I’ve known you since you were born, I even changed your diapers, and you’re married to my daughter.”
I could have done without her reminding the others of that colossal fact, given that they all glared at me even harder, and Jack mouthed, “You’re a dead man,” at me.
It was unlikely that Colette didn’t know the men would be doing something after those words, but she didn’t let it deter her. “You’ll call me Colette like you’ve always done. You’ll also be telling me what happened with my son.”
To be honest, this woman was much scarier at that moment than the men behind her were. Hell, they could be playing with a knife or polishing a gun, and I’d still be more concerned by her.
This was likely why my mouth opened and closed a couple of times, and the words never came to me, leaving Reid to explain instead.
“Uh, your son was found in the middle of the road, trying to make snow angels,” he began, sounding unsure instead of confident about what we’d seen.
“It’s over one hundred degrees out,” she snapped. “Why would he do that?”
“Well, see,” Reid scratched his chin, the stubble making a loud rasping noise that made me clench my fists. “The dentist gave him some medication.”
All the tension in the family visibly left at those six words, and there was a chorus of curses.
“We were called to help him so he didn’t get hit by a car. When we did, he jumped onto the roof of our vehicle and turned the flashlight on his phone on and said he wanted to be the ‘bad, bad, po-po warning lights.’” Reid choked out the words.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the worst of it.
Which Colette knew because her eyes narrowed on me. “Why aren’t you speaking?”
A genius idea hit me, and I pointed at the camera on my vest. “Why don’t we show you the footage so you can see it for yourself? It might be easier that way.”
“Easier on whom?” she ground out.
My voice was almost a whisper. “Us? Everyone?”
“Tell. Me.”
The sphincter test was truly underway.
“Don’t let them smell your fear,” Reid said under his breath. “Never let them smell it.”
Fucking hell, if I had to face off with Colette for much longer, everyone would be smelling it.
I cleared my throat. “Cole proceeded to turn the light on and off and made a screaming sound like a siren. We managed to get him down from the top of the car, but then he complained he was overheating and stripped off while he ran away from us. He was down to his underwear when he got to the main junction next to the bank.”