Naleighna Kai's Literary Cafe Magazine NK Literary Cafe Magazine - April 2018 Issue | Page 75

average Jane Doe could pimp the department too.”
Fast as lightning, Officer Buchanan whipped out her billy club and streaked across the
room to Kurt. He stumbled back into the wall, anticipating a blow that never came. An
insolent look darkened his face like he was ready to do something that would land him on
the evening news. The female officer didn’t seem the least bit rattled. She stood in front
of him, smacking the club against her open palm.
“You’ve got five minutes to pack for the night,” the stocky officer instructed again,
pulling his sleeve up to look at an enormous watch strapped to his hairy wrist.
“No, better yet,” Officer Buchanan amended, “let’s make that two nights.”
Stomping into the dining room with the other officer in tow, Kurt grabbed both sets
of keys off of the table, then flung Val’s key ring onto the floor. “I don’t need anything.
I’ll crash at my mother’s house.” As he passed Val, he announced, “I’ll be back Monday
afternoon. We’ll talk then.”
Both police officers filed behind him as he stepped out of the front door. “If we have
to come back here,” Officer Dell said to Kurt’s back, “somebody will be going to jail.”
A minute later, Kurt fishtailed his 2011 GMC Yukon down the street. The moment the
squad car pulled away, Val hurried from the window and double-checked the locks on the
front door. She scurried to the kitchen too, securing the deadbolt and latch on the door
that led to the garage. Her heart felt an instant of relief—until she heard something hard
crashing to the floor in the bedroom.
Calf muscles tight and shoulders hunched, Val tipped up the stairs. She let out a pent-
up breath when she realized that her cell phone had vibrated itself right over the edge
of the dresser and onto the hardwood floor. What she saw when she picked the phone
up and turned it over made the veins in her head feel like tiny straws with a raging river
surging through them.
An earlier text from a blocked number had caused her and Kurt to be at each other’s
throats in the first place. Now Whitley, the woman Val now knew to be her husband’s
mistress, had re-sent the message, for the third time that day.
It simply said, “How well do you know your man?”
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