All the Pretty Girls - J. T. Ellison [109]
Taylor rose to her feet. She strode to the man, who was still struggling. He stopped when he saw her, smiling a crazy smile. Her eye hurt, her head hurt, her legs were tired. But it looked like she had her man.
There were several flashlights trained on him, giving plenty of light for an initial assessment. She gave him a once-over. He was wearing black cargo pants and a black T-shirt. He was thin and wiry, with ropy muscles snaking along his forearms. He was wearing black combat boots.
“Quite the little ninja, aren’t you? What’s your name?”
“Fuck you.”
“Nice. Any ID on him?”
A few more pats, then a laugh. “He’s got his wallet in his pants pocket. What a frickin’ idiot.” The officer passed Lincoln the brown leather wallet. He opened it and extracted the man’s driver’s license.
“Smart move, Norville. Folks, I’d like you to meet Norville Turner. Norville, meet the people who are responsible for making your life a living hell from here on out.” He looked at Taylor, shaking his head in the gloom. “Brings his wallet along. Brilliant.”
“I didn’t do nothin’. You got nothin’ on me, pigs.” Turner started struggling again and was quickly subdued.
Taylor got eye level with him. Stared into his eyes, searching. Realized that they’d taken him down for good. She wrinkled her nose. He smelled like dirty oil. “Shut up, Norville. Your fly’s open, you dumb ass.”
He lunged and before she could jerk away, he spat at her. “Stupid cunt. What the fuck’re you doing? I didn’t do nothin’.”
Taylor wiped at her face, furious. His captors started in on him again, but she stood her ground, waiting. When all the struggling and yelling finally stopped, she smiled back at him. Then she hauled back her right arm and landed as hard a blow as she could right into his jaw. His head snapped back and his knees buckled. The officers around her whooped and laughed. Lincoln came to one side, Marcus to her other.
“When he wakes up, tell the fucker he’s under arrest.” Shaking her hand, her ponytail streaming down her back, she turned and walked away.
Taylor crashed back through the woods with Lincoln and Marcus in tow. Her head was throbbing and she was having trouble seeing out of her right eye. She felt wonderful.
Returning to the scene, they saw complete pandemonium at hand. More patrol cars had piled into the street, an ambulance was parked catty-corner to the driveway of the victim’s house, lights flashing merrily in the night. The ubiquitous news vans had arrived. Taylor checked her watch, it was nearly 5:00 a.m. The newsies would be able to give live shots on the early-morning broadcasts.
“Lincoln, Marcus, get on the horn with Price, tell him what just went down. I want to check in with the victim, see how she’s holding up. You’ll need to get the suspect down to booking, then make up a six-pack for me. We’ll want to see if the victim can ID him. Maybe the mask slipped. Either way, he’ll need to be processed. Make sure it all goes smoothly for me, okay?”
“Gotcha, boss. I’ll call ahead and have a photo array put together. I’m sure we can find five mug shots similar to this hosebag.” Marcus took her by the arm, turning her toward him so he could get a better view. “You’re gonna have one helluva shiner in a couple of hours.”
Taylor used gentle fingers to explore her face. Wincing, she decided she didn’t want to see what she looked like anytime soon. “Yeah, well, all in the line of duty, you know?”
Lincoln appeared at her side, offering a chemical ice pack he’d lifted from the back of the ambulance. “Here you go. You want me to stick around?”
“No, you two go handle downtown. I’m all right here. Thanks, though.” She nodded at them in dismissal and started toward the house, holding the ice pack over her eye, trying not to jar her head. It had been a while since she’d taken one in the face, and she’d forgotten how much it hurt.
Brian Post was exiting the house as she reached the front door.
“Hey there, good to see ya, LT. Heard you took the bastard down all by yourself.”
Taylor dropped the ice pack from her