J. Huss - PANIC

“It’s ten AM, Flynn.”

“Oh, well, no windows in the cell, how am I supposed to know?”

“You’re not, now just shut up and watch the fucking TV. Hit play, Lenny.”

And just as Lenny hits play I glance up at the screen and see Rook standing at a podium with a shit-ton of microphones in front of her. “What the—”

“Just watch,” black suit guy says.

She looks a little nervous as she begins, swiping at a stray piece of hair that whips across her face in the Denver wind. The crawl at the bottom of the screen says Denver County Courthouse. I listen as she tells her story. Mostly calm, mostly strong, but a few moments of hesitation and eye-wiping to thwart off the tears. She describes what she’s been doing for the past week. The trip to Chicago, Jon, the secret stash, the fire, the rescue.

She tells of corruption in the FBI, calls that bitch Abelli out by name as being one of them, then rattles off a list of people that has the crowd gasping, time… after time… after time. She ends with a name everyone who lived on the Front Range three years ago recognizes.

Davis Cooperson Smyth. The guy we killed in that last job.

Only that’s not how Rook tells it.

Because this guy’s name is on record as being part of the major human trafficking ring Rook just blew up with her statement. And Jon, the guy who tried to “kill” us last summer, was part of this whole thing from the beginning. She uses the word assassin as she holds up thumb drives and an iPhone that contains a video of Abelli—the network shows this video in-screen as Rook talks—beating the shit out of Jon and then ordering him shot and the house set on fire.

Rook’s house in the Chicago burbs. While she was inside. Trying to save people and put the bad guys behind bars.

She even flashes a bit of leg to show what’s left of her burns and the cameras can’t zoom in on her skin fast enough.

Yeah, she’s gorgeous, you assholes, and she’s mine, so back the fuck off.

And then Rook goes in for the kill shot.

“The FBI set up Ronin Flynn and his friends as the murderers of the wealthy Boulder businessman, Davis Cooperson Smyth, because they found out he was part of this disgusting crime ring and the other men involved wanted to neutralize the threat. Ronin Flynn, Spencer Shrike, and Ford Aston tried to stop the buying and selling of women and girls years ago, and they almost went to prison for their troubles. They’ve been badgered repeatedly by these criminals and the general public, constantly threatened and shunned in the community. And this past summer these bad men sent my abusive ex-husband to assassinate us. But he failed and I shot him in self-defense.”

Ho. Leee. Shit.

Rook just flipped that whole case on its head.

I laugh and when I look around every one of these guys laughs with me. The suit pokes me with his elbow. “She’s good, man. We know she’s full of shit, you know she’s full of shit, but hey, she’s still damn good. And I guess no one cares that one less sadist who was buying and selling humans in the hills above Boulder is dead. Your lawyer’s here too, by the way. This presser was outside the courthouse because the charges were just dropped and you’re gonna walk out of here just as soon as we process the paperwork.”

The guards let me hang out in their break room for the duration of my stay. They even give me back my clothes and feed me donuts and coffee.

And I can’t stop fucking smiling.

My little Gidget just saved my ass.

Shit, who am I kidding. My little Gidget just saved a whole bunch of people’s asses. Women and girls who were kidnapped and those who might’ve been in the future. She blew open a crime ring that spanned more than a hundred and fifty people.

Even after Rook leaves the podium we all sit and watch as the different news personalities discuss what just happened and run down the timeline.

At seven AM Eastern this morning the State Department was tipped off that a private jet traced to a Columbian drug cartel had landed at the Fort Collins airport with a known representative on board. At the same time, bank records from an account attached to Agent Abelli were also mysteriously forwarded to the same authorities, documenting a transaction the night before out of the Cayman Islands.

A half a million dollars was transferred from the drug lord to Abelli and that little money move has Ford written all over it. He set that sale up with the cartel guy and Abelli probably had no clue it was even going down.

The screen switches to the video Rook talked about in her statement. The one where Abelli tells Jon he plans on selling Rook to a Columbian drug lord for half a million dollars.

All three of the women sitting on the news panel on screen do a collective “mmm-hmm,” complete with neck roll, because Abelli is guilty as sin in their eyes.

Enter the court of public opinion.

Albelli has been tried and sentenced. And we’re only an hour into the bust.

On top of that, the network states that sources inside the State Department confirm that Abelli’s Cayman account can also be directly tied back to the money stolen from “that dirty bastard”—the woman anchor talking actually calls him this on camera—Davis Cooperson Smyth when he was killed three years ago.

Enter nice tidy noose hanging Agent Abelli by his own FBI-issued tie.

I can barely hold down a snicker because this little move proves that Spencer really is a genius. According to Rook, Abelli killed Cooperson Smyth for reasons unknown, but presumably related to this whole crime ring, looted his bank accounts, and stuffed it into a Cayman Island bank. Then used that account to accept money from a Columbian drug cartel so he could sell Rook Corvus into a life of sexual slavery.

One by one, people are arrested on live TV. The state senator in Illinois, the two US House members right out of their DC offices, several high-ranking FBI members including Abelli here in Denver, and on and on. Even the Columbian drug rep is held.

After the specifics are dissected the news people talk book deals and then the personal stuff comes out. A Japanese erotica cover flashes on the screen and they discuss Rook’s recent stint as a body-painting model on a post-production reality TV show.

I think Spencer Shrike is negotiating a new contract with the Biker Channel right fucking now.

They leave the Japanese book cover up on screen as they talk and this makes me smile. Because it’s the sweet one in the pink dress where she looks like Gidget, not the one with my hand between her legs where I look like the devil.

The whole country goes wild over Rook.

The mayors of Denver and Fort Collins almost come to blows trying to claim her when they do an impromptu news conference.

And every major news channel has a van outside the jail waiting to get a peek at us when they set me free. The tragic girl who swoops in against all odds to save a local golden boy from being the fall guy for an international crime ring.

When they say that shit, I really do laugh.

It takes DPD almost all day to process me out and at the end of it all black suit guy, whose name is actually Detective Carl Murphy, is riding down the elevator to the garage with me. I’m so ready to see my Rook I’m actually nervous.

She’s waiting where they keep the cop cars in order to foil the reporters. The elevator doors open and I hold my breath until she comes into view. She’s stopped mid-stride, like she was pacing. And then she is nothing but blurry motion as she runs toward me and flings herself at my chest. I catch her and pull her tight, cupping her ass and copping a feel at the same time.

Life beyond Rook’s face ceases to exist.

I kiss her. Not hard and desperate, no. I kiss her softly. I kiss her like the precious thing she is. I kiss her gently. And passionately. And carefully.