Free You're Gone (Finding Solid Ground) by Leah A. Futrell

this,” Charleigh argued. “You need to stay here and heal.”
    “Make me… a bet.”
    “I’m not betting anything. You stay here until they let you come home, stubborn man.”
    “Deja vu…” Jamie smiled.
    “Yeah. Madie will be here soon, darlin’. I love you.” Charleigh kissed him on the forehead.
    “Don’t do… anything… stupid , Char.”
    “ I’m going home to change and pack you a bag. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. I love you.”
    “ Love…”
    Charleigh only had one pit stop to make on the way home. She knew exactly where Gavin was hiding, and she had something to say. If the cops couldn’t find him there, they were stupider than she previously thought.
    And Jamie didn’t wanted to press charges. That wouldn’t stop Charleigh from getting a little vindication for her peace of mind.
    She pulled up just outside of the apartment building where Brad Cunningham lived. The old banged up Ford she had seen Gavin driving around town was parked right alongside the Candy-apple red Mustang that belonged to Brad.
    With her shirttail she opened the car door. Being the niece of a police officer, and years of watching Unsolved Mysteries , and most recently CSI: Crime Scene Investigation , Charleigh knew how not to get fingerprints on anything. She pulled a pair of latex gloves that she’d swiped from the hospital and looked through the front seats, the backseats, and the glove compartment.
    In the trunk, she found an old grease rag, that had something besides grease on it, and an old Louisville Sluggers baseball bat that had once belonged to her— it had her initials, CDR , carved into the wood.
    You ignorant fools , Charleigh thought removing both. After all, the bat did belong to her. She was sure the ‘something-besides-grease’ had come off someone’s hands after they got done with Jamie, and she stuck it in an old plastic bag in her truck.
    Then, just for the fun of it, Charleigh took the bat and knocked out both headlights of Brad’s car. She knocked out the taillights. She was working her way around the car, pounding all the while, to the windshield when Brad came running out of his apartment.
    “What do you think you’re doing?” He yelled not coming any closer than the sidewalk. There was no way of telling what Charleigh would do next. She might come after him.
    Charleigh took her first whack at the windshield. “Nothing you didn’t do last night to Jamie. How does it feel when somebody beats up on your baby, Brad? How does it feel?”
    “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Char…”
    She turned, aimed the bat at his head. “Absolutely none? You’re telling me the guy you’ve been best friends with since before your balls dropped beat my fiancé half to death and you know nothing about it? Get real, Brad.”
    Several other tenants from the apartment building had come out to see what all the screaming and noise was about. They were all college students. They knew Charleigh and Gavin, both together and separately, and about what had happened between them.
    She took several more whacks at the car, turning her back to Brad. It gave him the opportunity to grab her in a full-backwards bear hug and stop her from doing further damage to the car.
    “You can’t do that, Charleigh. No more.”
    “Oh, stop crying like the overgrown pussy you are, Brad.” She screamed, struggling in his firm hold. “It’s just a Ford, you moron.”
    Gavin appeared in the doorway of Brad’s apartment. He came over to stand a few feet away from where Brad still held onto Charleigh, who continued to fight and insult him.
    “What are you doing, Charleigh?”
    “Don’t act so innocent, Gavin . You know what you did. I know what you did, and you’re not gonna get away with it.”
    “That’s what you think. I already have.” Gavin smiled, moving a little closer.
    Brad had shaken Charleigh until she dropped the bat. As if that was her only weapon.
    “Oh, that’s what you think,” Charleigh