Chapter Thirty-Eight

Brandy

“Trish?” I said incredulously. “The receptionist?”

“Their sister,” he said. “The only one of them who we wouldn’t put hands on. The only one who would be smart enough not to gloat or to try to use it themselves. She would do as she was asked, and try to protect and help her brothers.”

“Oh my God,” she said. “How do we get it from her? Will she just release it? What do we do?”

Panic settled in again after having finally left my system. I felt exhausted. I didn’t have a lot left in me, and I wanted to just lie down and go to sleep and never have had any of this happen. How could Trish have it? What was she going to do? Was she vindictive enough to just release it? Did they have some kind of plan for if he got caught?

“It’s okay,” Collin said, “Logan is with them. We just have to call him.”

Collin crossed back over to me, and I sank myself into him again, burying my face in his chest. His scent calmed me, and his arms around me made me feel safe and protected. As terrified as I might be, I knew he would do everything in his power to make sure I was okay, that I was taken care of. He would fight for me.

It was a completely new feeling. Even with my ex-husband, I’d never felt that. He was charismatic and bold and smart and funny, but I never got the feeling that he was a fighter. He wasn’t going to ever stand up to anyone about anything. He was a coward. He preferred to talk his way out of everything, and when all else failed, he ran away. Just like when he left me, leaving only an e-mail and a detailed letter to his lawyer.

Collin was different. He might have had issues that he was working through, but he was clearly a protector. A provider. He would do anything to make sure I felt safe. If someone else had the footage, I had no doubt he would move hell itself to find it.

“Logan?” Jesse said, speaking into the speakerphone. “Logan, are you there?”

“Yeah, I’m here,” Logan’s voice said, sounding disappointed. “I’m here.”

“Look, we found Phil. It was him all along. We have the thumb drive he had, but he said he gave one to Trish as a backup. We need you to make sure she doesn’t go anywhere until we can get there with the troopers. She has to turn it over. It’s evidence now, and…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Logan’s voice said, cutting in. “Calm down, everybody. I have the thumb drive.”

“What?” Jesse said, shocked.

“What?” Phil shouted from his place on the ground. He looked up at Jesse’s phone in incredulous anger. “What?”

Owen gently nudged him with his foot.

“Shut the fuck up, boss,” Owen said. “Your day is done. Or do you want me to put you in another armbar?”

Phil went silent but was clearly still stewing, looking up at the phone and seething.

“I have it,” Logan said. “The thumb drive. I’ve got it in my hand right now.”

“How?” Luke asked. “You didn’t know Trish had it.”

“I have my ways,” Logan said. “Just come on home. It’s over.”

“We can’t,” Collin said. “The police will be here soon. I can hear their sirens. I expect we won’t be home for a while.”

“Ahh, well,” Logan said. “I will go get the check book. How many of you will I need to bail out?”

Collin shrugged.

“Probably two,” Luke said. “Maybe three.”

Luke sighed.

“That’s going to be a lot of paperwork,” he said. “I’ll go get the book. Someone call me and tell me where to come get you.”

“We will,” Luke said.

“Thank you, Logan,” Collin said. “I appreciate it, brother.”

“Of course. Just let me know if I need to bail you out. I’ll be ready.”

The sirens were getting closer now, and we stood in the lobby, waiting. One of the crew members who had come back in opened the blinds and unlocked the door. They all stepped back, and everyone put their hands on their heads, just in case.

Suddenly, the doors burst open, and a stream of black-masked police stormed in, AR-15s aimed at all of us as they swept through the lobby and commanded everyone to get down and keep their hands up. Behind them, three cameramen, lights bright on the tops of their shoulder-mounted Sonys, filmed every second of the scene. One cop tried to stop them, but the other two went around him, and they spread out, making sure they could get a decent shot.

A few other people came in as well behind them. I recognized them as other producers and crew people from set. One of them was the assistant producer, the one that Phil seemed to always be verbally abusing in some way. She had on a hat and her ponytail sticking through the back of it like always. But instead of the usual stressed-out expression she usually had, she was wearing a smug, self-satisfied smile now.

She pointed to Phil and shouted for one of the officers.

“That’s him,” she said. “That’s the one who caused all this!”

A unit of about three of the officers surrounded Phil, making Owen and Jesse step away from him. At gunpoint, they brought him to his feet and frisked him before slapping handcuffs on him and forcing him to sit back down again. Once he was back on his butt, his back against the wall, they took Jesse and Owen into custody as well, and neither of them fought them.

“All right,” one of the cops said, clearly the one in charge of the scene. “Which one of you is Ronda?”

The producer who had called the police raised her hand, and he motioned for her to join us near the reception desk. My arms were tired of being above my head, and I tried to lower them, but Collin caught my gaze and shook his head. I’d just have to keep them up for a little bit longer, I supposed.

“I am,” she said, and joined us. “These people are heroes,” she said. “They came in and stopped him. He’s the culprit.”

She pointed to Phil, who looked utterly betrayed. He glared at Ronda with malice in his eyes.

“You bitch,” he said. “You turned on me! How could you turn on me?”

“I can vouch for her,” the other producer who had come in said. “That’s him.”

“Azzy? Both of you? What ingrateful little cu—” he began.

“Shut up,” the officer shouted. “I’ll talk to you in a minute.”

“It’s him,” Ronda said again. “He caused all this. He was trying to blackmail this woman here. We didn’t know that was his plan, and he had us all come here to film it. We have everything on footage.”

“Well, that will be helpful,” the officer said, acknowledging the cameraman, who was still shooting. “What happened to his face?”

“I did that,” Collin said. “I beat the shit out of him to subdue him.”

“You assaulted him?” the cop asked.

Collin shrugged. “I neutralized a threat. I didn’t know if he had weapons, but he was absolutely being threatening.”

“Hey, wait a second,” one of the officers said, pulling up a visor and staring at Collin. “Are you Collin Galloway?”

“Yes?” he said, confused.

“Like, the Collin Galloway? Were you a Marine back in ’09? In Fallujah?”

“Yes? How did you kn… Wait. Chavo? Chavo Guitierez?”

“Yes sir,” he said, saluting smartly. “Holy shit, boss, this is the guy I told you about. The one who saved our whole battalion and took out the suicide bomber.”

“What?” I muttered. My eyes were upturned to Collin, who looked sheepish, but his brothers were crowding around now, also curious.

“Yeah, this guy… man, this guy is a legend!”

“Collin?” Luke said, not in disbelief, but in confusion. “What did he do, exactly?”

“Yeah, Dwayne only told us he did something really heroic. What was that about a suicide bomber?”

“Don’t,” Collin said, but it was too little and too late. The excited officer named Gutierrez was already telling the tale.

“So we got ambushed, right? And this guy got shot, like, what, three times?”

“Four,” Collin admitted. “But I didn’t realize it.”

“Right! Four times he got shot, and he just freaking walked it off. Anyway, he saved these two guys from a tank, and brought them to a truck that survived the attack. Then he ran into a building to save a little girl and a baby, killing her suicide bomber father before he could blow them all up. But the bomb had been activated, right? So he gets out of the building just as it explodes, and then a freaking sniper, who had been part of the explosion, tries to attack him. He takes that dude out like a boss, and then walks back to the truck like nothing happened. Only he was shot, his whole body looked like ground meat warmed over, and his back was literally on fire.”

Collin hung his head. He was clearly uncomfortable.

“I didn’t realize any of that,” Collin said. “I was just trying to survive and make sure everyone else did too.”

“He’s a hero,” the officer continued. “Without him, the other truck would have run right into the trap, and everyone else would have died. Forty-some people made it through, and we only lost two. He made sure of that. Freaking hero, man.”

“Wow,” Jesse said.

“Yeah, wow,” Luke said. “I never knew. Collin, why didn’t you tell us?”

“I…” He looked down at me. A sad smile crossed his face, and then he turned back to his brothers.

“It’s not the whole story,” he continued. “It’s a lot of it, but not the whole thing.”

“I hate to interrupt,” the commanding officer said, not sounding the least bit sarcastic. “But I need to book the bad guy. Before I do that, I need to know what you did to his face. Because I might have to arrest you for assault.”

“That’s fine,” Collin said. “I’ll go willingly. I broke his nose, probably an orbital bone, and I think I knocked out one of his teeth.”

“Jesus,” the officer said.

“It could have been a lot worse,” Collin said.

“You know what? I believe you,” the officer said. “Would you be willing to give me a statement as to what happened here tonight?”

“I’ll give you a statement!” Phil said from his place on the ground.

“I’ll get to you in a second,” the officer said. “First, I want to talk to him. All right, Mr. Galloway. Tell me what happened tonight. Why did you have to put hands on this man?”

Collin sighed and looked over his shoulder at me. I nodded. Part of the story would involve embarrassing details about me, but they needed to be known by the officer at least.

“It started when this lady and I went on a date to a lake down in Foley…”