Saved From Suicide, Sold Into a Lie novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: The Chief's Order

Leanne touched my sleeve.

I knocked her hand away so hard that she stumbled into the back of a chair.

"Don't," I said.

Her face went white, and she did not say sorry again.

"Connor, please. Let me explain."

"You had five years."

Three hundred people watched me say it.

I did not care.

I turned my back on her and faced the aisle, where my wife stood with one hand on a four-year-old's head.

Joanna lifted her chin.

"Say what you want to say," she said. "Everybody's listening."

"You heard her crying," I said. "You heard me asking for you."

"She told me you were asking."

"And you said it was my choice."

"It was." Her voice cracked on the word and then hardened. "You were always going to do it, Connor. Every month you got worse. I was drowning in you."

A woman at the nearest table made a sound of disgust.

Joanna heard it.

For the first time that night, she looked unsure.

"I was a detective," she said, louder. "I carried a gun and I couldn't carry you. So I left. Is that a crime?"

"Yes," said the chief.

He had walked to the middle of the floor with his hands behind his back.

He did not look angry.

He looked tired and sick, because he was the man who had given the eulogy at her funeral.

"Detective Brightman, you filed no resignation and no leave request. Your department funeral cost this city forty thousand dollars. Your pension has gone to your husband for five years."

Joanna's mouth opened.

"Sergeant," the chief said, without turning his head.

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