Free Almost Ordinary (The Song Wreckers Book 2) by Crystal Firsdon Page B

working on my songs after the boys went to bed, as often as I was able. Crystal Records wanted to start putting the songs together by mid-January. Waiting too long between albums could sink a new artist’s career, they’d told me. With this deadline, the daytime hours weren’t enough for me to finish her album.
    “Yeah?” I called up.
    He asked me to come upstairs. My heart sped up as I set my guitar down and raced up to the kitchen. I hoped he wanted me with him because he, well, wanted me.
    I stopped smiling when I saw the pissed off, stressed out expression on his face. The hair on the back of my neck prickled, on alert. “What’s wrong?”
    Caleb pulled out a kitchen chair for me, then sat when I did. “My contact at Tipton P.D. called me.”
    “He has Adam’s confession?”
    He dropped his head. “No. There’s a reason he wasn’t able to tell me until now, and why this hasn’t made the news yet.” With a deep breath he looked up with a clenched jaw and pity that turned his eyes soft.
    I hated that.
    “The story’s been kept quiet because it’s going to be the front-page story in The Detroit Metro Press on Sunday. The Tipton Police Department is using Adam’s takedown as positive publicity to help diminish the incompetence scandal within the department that went down a few months ago.”
    I reached down to grab a baby, then remembered they were asleep. Damn it. I often held a baby when I became upset to help me feel better and keep things in perspective. Or to keep me from picking something else up and throwing it.
    “Fuck.” I’d been trying to lighten up on cursing. The kids weren’t around, however, and it made me feel better so I wasn’t going to practice restraint right now.
    “Yup,” Caleb said.
    “Fuck it all to hell and back. What a lame, pathetic stunt!” I smacked the table.
    “Yup.”
    I admit, the idea of my name being thrown out there, and everyone knowing what happened and wanting to talk about it, scared me. When the Creep was stalking me, very few people knew. When he tried to kill me, I lied to whomever I could about my scars, saying I had been in a car accident.
    “Shit,” I said, resigned.

Chapter 9
    My eyes flew open at five-fifty-eight Sunday morning. I ran out of bed and into a pair of slip on shoes, then out the door. I didn’t bother with a jacket even though it was cold. Sunrise would be coming soon. Too bad I wasn’t in the mood to enjoy it.
    Caleb waited in the kitchen for me, making coffee as I shook the paper out of its plastic sleeve and opened it onto the table.
    There it was, front page news. Caleb pressed the start button on the coffee maker and joined me. We read side by side.
    TIPTON POLICE TAKE DOWN DANGEROUS FUGITIVE. CHIEF CALLS THEM HEROES
    In what can only be described as police work as its best, The Tipton police took into custody a fugitive who was considered armed and extremely dangerous. Adam Kinder, 29, is in police custody after evading police for two days. He was wanted for questioning in an assault and attempted murder case that occurred just over two years prior. Upon being identified by an unknown source at Detroit Metro Airport two weeks ago, Kinder fled and hid from police, where he was found holed up in the apartment of his girlfriend, Belinda Nord, whom Kinder has confessed to killing.
    Belinda Nord, 24, was already dead when police stormed into her apartment to capture Kinder. The official cause of death is acute blood loss according to the coroner’s report. Nord suffered from at least ten stab wounds to her body, the most serious being to her neck.
    Another victim shot by Kinder was also in the apartment. He was released from the hospital a few days ago and is expected to make a full recovery. His name has not yet been released, and police have not yet commented on how he fits into the events that took place that day.
    Anonymous sources not authorized to speak about the case have told us that the case Kinder was wanted for