Runaway Princess Bride novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Parking Lot

Clinton and his men come for her; she hits back in front of truckers and the sheriff backs off when the stranger shows a card with a crown.

"Stay inside," Tristan said.

I opened the door instead.

I had spent twenty-two years doing what my parents told me, and I was done letting men decide where I stood.

The motel sat beside a truck stop, and the lot was full of rigs with their engines running.

Clinton walked toward me across the wet asphalt with the bandage soaked pink on one side of his head.

His two men fanned out on either side of him.

One of them was the best man who had chased me through the kitchen.

"There she is," Clinton said, loud enough for the whole lot to hear. "My wife."

"I'm not your wife," I said.

"You signed."

"I never signed anything."

"Your mother did." He held up a hand with the gold ring on it. "Four hundred thousand dollars says you're mine, sweetheart."

A trucker climbing down from a cab stopped with one boot on the step.

Another one rolled his window down.

Clinton didn't care who watched.

That was the worst part.

He had never once thought there might be a price for being seen.

"You attacked me in a locked room," I said, loud enough for the truckers too. "You tore my dress and you put your hand over my mouth."

"You're hysterical."

"You told me my parents said to take what was yours."

Someone behind me muttered, "Jesus."

Clinton's face went dark.

He lunged and grabbed my arm, the same arm, in the same bruised place.

I did not scream.

I stepped in close instead, the way I had seen the cooks at the diner handle a drunk.

I drove my knee up between his legs.

He folded in half with a sound.

The best man grabbed for my hair.

A hand came out of nowhere and closed on his wrist.

The big man in the black coat, Tristan's driver, had crossed the lot without a sound.

He twisted, and the best man went to his knees and said a word I won't repeat.

The second man backed up with both palms raised.

All around the lot, phones were up.

Three truckers, a waitress from the truck stop diner.

A couple on a motorcycle were all filming Clinton Stroud on the ground, holding himself and cursing.

"Get her!" Clinton wheezed. "She assaulted me! I want her arrested!"

"Funny," a trucker called out. "I saw him grab her."

"Me too," said the waitress.

I felt the wet air go in and out of my chest.

I felt, for the first time in my life, that people were on my side.

Then blue lights lit the lot from the road.

A county cruiser rolled up fast and stopped crooked across two spaces.

The sheriff who got out was a wide man in a tan hat who walked straight past the truckers and crouched over Clinton.

"Sheriff," Clinton groaned. "Thank God. Arrest her. And this one," he pointed at the driver, "and whoever's in that car."

The sheriff stood up slowly and looked at me.

He did not look at my wrist or my split lip.

"Miss Wisniewski," he said. "You're under arrest for assault."

"Look at the video," I said. "Look at all of them."

"You can tell it to the judge."

"He's your brother-in-law," a trucker said.

The sheriff ignored him.

He reached for his cuffs.

"Sheriff."

Tristan had come out of the room, and he stood beside me in the rain without raising his voice.

He had taken off his wet jacket, and I saw the long scar through his left eyebrow for the first time.

"Before you do that, I'd like you to read something," he said.

The sheriff gave him a flat stare.

"And who are you?"

"A guest in your county."

Tristan took a card out of his wallet and held it out two fingers' width from the sheriff's chest.

The sheriff took it, because a man will take what's handed to him.

I leaned and caught a glimpse of it.

The card was heavy and cream colored, with no name on it.

It had a gold crown pressed into the top and a phone number underneath.

The sheriff read it once.

He read it again.

The color left his face from the forehead down, until he looked as pale as Clinton's bandage.

"Sir," the sheriff said, in a different voice entirely. "I didn't realize."

"Clearly," Tristan said.

"What are you doing?" Clinton said from the ground.

The sheriff slipped the card into his pocket.

"Mr. Stroud, I think you should stay down," he said. "Folks, put the phones away. I'll be taking statements about him."

Clinton stared at him, stunned.

For a second the whole lot was silent except for the idling engines.

Then the sheriff turned to me, took off his hat, and almost bowed.

"Miss Wisniewski, I'll need your side of this," he said. "Whenever you're ready. You're not under arrest."

I looked at Tristan.

He was watching Clinton, and his expression was so calm that it frightened me.

"What was on that card?" I asked quietly.

He turned his head.

"A lawyer's number," he said.

I believed him, because I wanted to.

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