My Husband Hung Up on Me the Night I Gave Birth novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: Ryan's POV: The Badge

Ryan's POV

I got to headquarters at ten to seven, with a cuffed man in my back seat and a plan I had never said out loud.

I walked him through the garage door and handed him to two plainclothes officers who had been told to expect a visitor.

Then I rode the elevator to the top floor alone.

The commissioner's assistant had not come in yet. His door stood open, and he was at his desk in shirtsleeves with a cup of coffee, reading.

He was sixty-one, and he had pinned my first badge on me.

"Tierney." He did not look up. "I hear your wife's been on every channel in the state. Sit down, son. I was about to call you."

"I'll stand, sir."

He looked up then.

I unclipped my badge and my holster, and I put both on his blotter.

The gun made a heavy, final sound against the wood.

He set down his cup.

"Explain that."

"Six years ago on Dutton Street, I shot a twenty-year-old man behind a liquor store, sir. He was holding a phone."

The commissioner didn't move.

"The report says he had a gun."

"The gun wasn't his. My partner took it from his trunk and put it in the boy's hand after he was dead. I signed the report. I've signed it every year since, in the sense that I never said otherwise."

"Dutton Street was a clean shooting."

"It was not."

I set my phone on the desk beside the badge and pressed play.

Hal's voice came out of it, hoarse and angry.

He admitted the gun in his trunk.

He admitted what he would say about me if I ever talked.

The commissioner listened with his hands flat on the desk.

When it ended, he said nothing for a long time.

"The boy's name was..." He stopped. "His sister's the one who runs that safe haven charity. Gwen Dearing."

"Yes, sir. She's also why I'm here."

I told him the rest quickly, because if I slowed down I wouldn't finish.

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