Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 88290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
“But you didn’t ask any questions first?”
“I thought there was a crime in progress, so I immediately secured the young woman.”
“And when he was securing me, and threatening my dog, I had my phone call Hannah,” Kanti told me.
“Threatening your dog?”
“Yeah,” Kanti said, and her eyes suddenly filled with tears. I understood—her adrenaline that had been pumping hard was dissipating. “I was in my driveway like I said, ready to walk around to the back, when Shelton stopped me. It was awful, because he yelled and scared me, but when he reached for me, because I was carrying Seymour, he nipped at him.”
“Then what?”
“Well, then he’s shouting at both of us that he’s going to taser me and my dog, and I know that if he tasers Seymour, he might kill him, so I ran down the sidewalk to get away, not even realizing Hannah was already there. When he saw her, he ordered us both to get down on our knees.” She heaved out a breath. “I was so scared he was going to take Seymour away from me or call animal control or something, but Hannah started talking to him, and he forgot about me and started yelling at her instead.” She turned to my daughter. “Thank you.”
“Of course. I wasn’t about to let your baby get hurt.”
The tears were running down Kanti’s cheeks now.
“I have that all recorded,” Hannah assured me at the same time she lifted her phone and smiled. “That’s it, all. I will keep you updated on what happens from here.” She then lifted the phone higher so she, Kanti, and Seymour were all in the frame. “You guys are awesome. Thank you for all the support, and if anyone can identify the woman shouting the slurs, let me know.”
Kanti smiled as well, wiping her face with her hand.
“You’ve been filming the whole time?” Shelton asked Hannah as she clicked it off.
“Yes,” she answered absently, pushing buttons on her phone. “Have to download that now so I can share that in my Stories…okay. Now we’re good.” She looked back up at him. “Don’t worry, I only have, like, two million people following me at the moment. I lost a lot of folks when I stopped posting every day. It's an algorithm thing, but you probably don’t care about all that.”
“Send that to me, please, so I can send it to Hema and my folks.”
“Of course, doing it now,” Hannah told her friend.
Shelton walked over next to Hannah. “Gimme that phone so I can take that down.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
He reached for her.
“Don’t you dare touch my daughter!” I yelled.
He turned to me.
“You heard the man,” Officer Goodman seconded from beside me, having returned from herding the guests of the Garbers back to the house along with Officer Khalid. “Don’t touch his daughter or I will cite you. That young woman is well within her rights to––”
“Illinois is a two-party-consent state so––”
“Except that when you first rolled up here, you presented yourself as a police officer to these two,” she corrected him. “I watched the beginning of this whole thing on Hannah’s IG while I was walking back here, and you said you were the police, which puts you well in the wrong, and that is a Class Four felony punishable by up to three years in jail and up to $25,000 in fines, my friend.”
He was glaring at her.
“So do you want to let this go or not?”
“Yes,” he muttered, and then turned back to Hannah, who was standing now, and said something I didn’t hear.
“That’s fine,” Hannah replied with a shrug. “Come after me. My father is the chief deputy of the Northern District of Illinois. That’s the marshals service, sir, so I’m sure he’ll be interested to hear that you just threatened me.”
Shelton’s mouth fell open and he went pale, and that was kind of awesome.
“Though I suspect that you’re going to have a lot more trouble from Kanti’s mom.”
I snickered.
“That’s valid,” Kanti said, standing up. “Because Morrow and Leeds, you’ve heard of them, the law firm with the offices downtown on four floors of the Tolman building—that’s my mother. She’s the Morrow, and she’s the one who’s gonna be pissed.”
“So pissed,” I agreed.
“My father, Cormac Morrow, who does the evening news on Channel 7, and the chief deputy, they’re both scary. No argument. But my mother, sir. My mother is terrifying.”
“And she’s the baby,” I added.
“I am, in fact, her baby.”
“I suggest you tell your boss that there’s gonna be a lawsuit,” Hannah told him.
He spun around and went for his car, which Blount was already sitting in, scrunched down low in the passenger seat.
“Okay, look out,” Kanti announced, quickly passing me Seymour and walking over to the hedge that divided her house from the Ridgeways next door, and threw up. Hannah bent over, and I could hear her starting to hyperventilate.