Lie To Her (Bree Taggert #6)(11)

“Why are you bleeding?” she asked.
“A piece of glass from the window hit me,” Ricky sniveled.
Bree was on him in a second, taking control. She spun him around, shoved his face into the doorjamb, and cuffed his hands behind his back. She lifted the hem of his shirt, looking for weapons in the waistband of his low-riding jeans. “Anything sharp in your pockets? Is anything going to stick me?”
“No,” he cried. “You’re hurting me.”
Bree turned out his pockets. She found keys, cash, and two small packets of white powder. “What’s this?”
Ricky didn’t answer.
“You know I’ll get it tested,” Bree said.
“It’s just a little H.”
Heroin.
“I need a doctor,” Ricky whined.
“You’ll get one.” Bree pressed her lapel mic and called for an ambulance.
“You can’t arrest me.” True disbelief rang in his voice. “I didn’t shoot anybody.”
“You opened fire at law enforcement officers.” Bree turned him around to face her. Her heart clenched. He was just a kid. A high schooler, maybe fifteen or sixteen years old.
“I didn’t mean to shoot. I got scared. I freaked out.” Panic lifted the pitch in the boy’s voice.
He’s about the same age as Luke.
Bree felt sick. If the situation had gone sideways, she could have shot a kid. She’d thought of an alternative at the last moment, but if her diversion hadn’t worked . . .
Yes, the situation was Ricky’s fault, but when she looked at him, her mind’s eye saw Luke’s face. Her throat tightened.
“Everything OK?” Matt stood over Jasper, who was sitting on his ass on the lawn, his legs outstretched, his hands cuffed behind his back.
“I’m bleeding,” Ricky complained.
Bree took a deep breath, buried her emotions, and refocused on the job at hand. She widened the rip in Ricky’s sleeve to check the boy’s injury. A thin stream of blood ran down his arm. The wound was definitely not life-threatening. The skin below the wound revealed Ricky’s real problems. Red welts and scars ran down his pale inner arm. Track marks. His wound was superficial, but he was an addict.
“I’m gonna pass out,” Ricky cried.
Bree assured him, “You might need a few stitches, but you will not bleed to death. You will be fine.”
“I’m not fine. I’m gonna barf.” Ricky retched. Vomit hit the concrete and splashed onto Bree’s shoes.
“Sit.” Bree guided Ricky onto the step. “Put your head between your knees.”
The kid obeyed, the arrogance and overwhelming dumbassery apparently scared out of him. Tears and snot streamed down his face. “It hurts.”
But it could have been so much worse. Bree could have shot and potentially even killed him. The realization swam like mud through her gut until she wanted to puke. This wasn’t the first time she’d been involved in a shooting, but the other incidents had been with adults. They’d made the choices that brought them into her sights. This felt different. For all Ricky’s faults, he was just a kid, and she couldn’t see him the same way.
Ricky lifted his chin. “My dad’s gonna sue.”
Bree had no doubt he would. She’d resolved the situation without anyone getting seriously hurt, but the truth didn’t always matter. “Are you related to Jasper?”
Ricky shook his head.
“Did you come here to buy heroin?” she asked the teen.
“I don’t sell drugs!” Jasper yelled from the grass. He sounded indignant, as if the question were offensive.
“Are you sure there’s no one else inside the house?” Matt asked him again.
Jasper hesitated, then said, “Yeah.”
Bree didn’t like the way he’d paused, but she couldn’t clear the house until backup arrived.
A siren wailed in the distance.
Ricky’s posture stiffened. “I’m not saying anything else without a lawyer.”
Great. Now he uses his brain.
Bree suppressed an eye roll. “I need your parents’ contact information.”
Ricky balked. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”
Bree rubbed an ache in her temple. “You know I have to call them.”
Ricky grumbled but gave her his father’s phone number.
She glanced at Jasper, to the bleeding teenage shooter, to the vomit spatter, which she now noticed had splattered her pants as well as her shoes.
She almost said, Could this night get any worse, but stopped herself.
Because it could always get worse.
Two deputies arrived. Lights swirled from the tops of their patrol cars. Bree instructed them to lock the prisoners in their vehicles. She stopped at her SUV and retrieved her AR-15 for Matt. He couldn’t aim a handgun, but he could shoot a long gun just fine.
Working as a team, she and Matt entered through the front door. Ten steps into the house, a foul odor hit the back of her throat. The smell was unmistakable. “Decomp.”
“Yes.” Matt coughed.
Something—or someone—was dead.
The front door opened directly into a living room. The black vinyl couch was peeling and ripped. Several piles of cash and a game controller occupied the coffee table. The only other furniture was a huge, new-looking recliner that faced a big-screen TV mounted on the wall. A video game console sat beneath the TV.
A pistol lay on the floor.
Bree gestured to it. “That could be the one Ricky used to shoot at us. He said he left it on the floor.”
They moved quickly through the rooms. In the hall closet, they found a sawed-off shotgun under legal limits. Once the rooms were cleared, they’d wait for the warrant to come in before conducting a detailed search. Bree didn’t want any recovered evidence to be thrown out of court.