Free Blood Red by James A. Moore

think the whole thing was a joke, but as much as he wanted to respond that it was a serious situation, he bit his tongue instead. He had enough shit going down in his day without adding anything else to his list of bad events. Coswell was exactly the sort of sorry asshole that would take any comments he made and turn them around on him later. He was a prick.
    His cell phone vibrated in his pants pocket and Brian answered it without even considering that he wasn’t supposed to carry the damned thing on duty. Screw Coswell on that one, at least. He knew the man was carrying a phone of his own.
    “Hello?”
    The voice from the previous morning spoke into his ear. “How has your day been, Officer Freemont?”
    He looked at Coswell. The man was busily scratching his nuts as he looked at the marks on the car again.
    Brian walked away from the site, wanting to make sure his sergeant didn’t hear any of the conversation.
    “What did you do, you son of a bitch?”
    “Nothing that I can’t fix.”
    “Then you better get to fixing it!” He forced himself to calm down. It wasn’t easy. As of nine A.M., Brian Freemont had discovered that he had no checking accounts, no savings accounts, and was two months behind on his house payments. His finances were in ruins. He had to come to work and act like nothing was wrong in his life, but everything was wrong. Every single damned thing was very, very wrong.
    “Listen to me carefully. Listen to the numbers I’m going to read to you, and pay very close attention, Officer Freemont.” Brian held his breath. “Are you listening? Are you there?”
    “I’m here.”
    “Good, because I want this over with as much as you do.” The man started talking, firing off a litany of numbers that Brian knew very well. They were the numbers for his car note, his mortgage, his different bank accounts. His blood seemed to slow down in his veins as he listened and he had trouble catching his breath. The voice read off his Social Security number, the policies for his life insurance, for his vehicle insurance, for his retirement accounts. By the time he was done, Brian Freemont was sweating bullets.
    “Okay. Okay. What do you want?” He could barely recognize his own voice.
    “You have files at your home, or hidden away somewhere else. I’m guessing you have a lot of files; police files that could cause a lot of trouble for a few friends of mine.”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    The voice on the other end did not suddenly break into laughter, but he heard humor when it spoke again. “Yes, you do. You know exactly what I’m talking about. We’re not mentioning names yet, Officer Freemont. I could. I could give you several. But we haven’t reached that level of unpleasantness.”
    “What do you want?” His chest was burning, and Brian had to wonder if he was having a coronary.
    “I have five things to say, so listen carefully. One: I haven’t even hurt you yet. The worst thing you have going so far is a bounced check fee or two. Do you understand me?”
    “Yes.”
    “Good. Number two: I can hurt you. I have everything that makes you a person in this country. I can have you audited by the IRS. I can have your back taxes examined with a microscope and make sure you pay interest on every penny that you ever earned. I can make sure that all proof you ever paid any taxes goes away as easily as your bank accounts did. I can ruin you so badly that Humpty Dumpty will look good next to you. Do you understand?”
    “Yeah. Yes, I do.” Had he ever wanted to cry so badly? His hands were shaking and the world had bleached to a dark pulsing gray in his eyes.
    “Three: one of the girls you did wrong is pregnant. She wasn’t with anyone but you. That means she’s carrying your baby, and that means you are going to lose your wife if you aren’t very, very careful about how you handle this. She doesn’t want your child, but she’ll carry to term if I ask her to because she knows