Free Justice for Corrie (Badge of Honor: Texas Heroes Book 3) by Susan Stoker Page A

any more sleep over it. I’m already not sleeping, imagining the worst. In some way, maybe this’ll make me feel better. Make me feel like I’m not making up the creepy feeling crawling up the back of my neck each night. Please, Quint.”
    She heard him sigh. “I don’t want to…but okay. We’ll get it over with, but as soon as Dax gets here, I’m taking you out and we’re going to forget all this for a night.”
    “Thank you.”
    Quint ground his teeth together as he walked back to the counter and to the letter lying there. It was written on a piece of lined paper torn from a notebook. The lettering was overdone, obviously camouflaged. It was short and to the point. He’d used a napkin earlier to turn the letter over so he could read it.
    He looked at Corrie. She was standing tall, not looking worried at all, while her friend Emily looked completely freaked the hell out. The two women were holding hands, and with a second glance, Quint could tell that Corrie wasn’t as calm as she might appear. Her hand was clutching Emily’s so hard her knuckles were white.
    Fuck. He hated this. He might as well get it over with.
    “It says, ‘ We told you to keep quiet. You didn’t. Hope your affairs are in order. Too bad you’ll never see us coming .’”
    “It’s a little dramatic isn’t it?”
    “Damn it, Corrie. This isn’t a laughing matter.”
    Quint could see Corrie’s mood shift.
    “I know it’s not. Darn it, Quint. I was in that room stuffed under the sink wondering if I’d live to see another minute. I heard my friends being killed. I was there . I know this isn’t funny, no matter if whoever sent that thinks they are, with their little dig about my eyesight. But I can’t lose it. If I lose it, they win. Whoever ‘they’ are. I have to be smart, use my head. They’re trying to scare me, and it’s working, but I can’t let them get to me. I just can’t.”
    Quint had her in his arms before she got the last word out. “You won’t let them get to you. I won’t let them get to you.”
    He absently heard Emily puttering around the apartment, obviously trying to stay out of their way. Finally he drew back and looked at Corrie. He ran one of his thumbs under her eye. “Dry. You don’t cry easily, do you, sweetheart?”
    She shook her head. “I just…I cried a lot as a child. I don’t know why I don’t now. It’s hard to get completely worked up over things knowing how bad life can really be sometimes. Stubbing my toe hurts, or listening to a sad book or movie…but I have a hard time crying over those things when they’re honestly superficial in my life.”
    “I’m going to do what I can to keep you safe,” Quint told her, breezing over her comment about her lack of tears.
    “Okay.”
    “I am.”
    “Can we talk about this later?”
    Just as the words left Corrie’s mouth, there was a knock at the door.
    Emily rushed over to answer it as Quint stepped back from Corrie.
    “Yeah, we’ll talk about this later,” he promised. He turned, keeping one hand on the small of Corrie’s back. “Come on, that’ll be my buddy. I want you to meet Dax. Someday I’ll tell you the story of what happened to him and his girlfriend, Mackenzie.”
    After the introductions were over, Dax pulled on a pair of gloves and put the letter and envelope into a plastic bag and headed back to the door to leave.
    “That’s it?” Corrie asked incredulously. “You’re not going to take fingerprints, or ask me any questions, or otherwise grill me about anything?”
    “Yup, that’s it…unless you’ve got any more notes stashed somewhere or have anything else pressing you want to tell me right this second?”
    “Don’t you want to hear what happened?”
    His friend laughed. “Ms. Madison, it’s clear you and Quint are on your way out. I’m happy to stand here and discuss this letter all night, but it looks like you have other plans. My buddy hasn’t been on a date for a very long time and I’m fucking