Maria wouldn’t wait for him, and he wouldn’t be able to become a teacher.
He didn’t want to think about those things. Given the same situation, he’d do it all again. Maria’s stalker shows up with a gun? Had to try to save her. Simple as that. How could he have known that Lester would have been gone by the time he arrived?
Had they listened to him, Colin figured that the police could have found Lester already. But precious minutes had ticked by while they put on the handcuffs and read Colin his rights, and it wasn’t until the officers had calmed their nerves that they were finally able to listen first to Maria’s story, which came out in fits and starts, and then to Felix, who’d said that he didn’t intend to press charges for the broken door and splintered frame. Both Serena and Carmen were crying throughout. Way too late, he’d finally watched two of the four officers leave in one of the squad cars in search of Lester. After that, surprising him, Maria asked the remaining officers to call Detective Margolis when her pleas to have Colin released were met with indifference.
Colin closed his eyes, hoping that the detective would be otherwise occupied.
A moment later, one of the officers announced that Margolis was on his way.
Margolis was going to love this. No doubt he’d put on one of his self-satisfied smirks while he gave Colin the whole I warned you all along that this would be coming speech that he was surely already rehearsing as he made his way here.
But again, no regrets. Maria and her family were safe, and that was all that mattered. That, and stopping Lester from showing up again… Maria had told the officers that Lester had become enraged as soon as he’d heard the sirens. Until that point, however, Maria had been able to keep him calm by talking to him. Or, rather, by letting Lester voice whatever was going through his deranged brain and simply agreeing with him. But what about the next time? Would Lester be so easily placated? Or would he just grab her and take her someplace where the police wouldn’t find them?
The thought made him sick, and he wanted to kick himself for failing to check out the hospital himself. How had Lester gotten out? If he’d become delusional when the detective arrived this morning, why hadn’t he been restrained? Or did they even do that anymore?
And there was another thing that was bothering him: How had Lester known Maria would be here? Maybe he went by the office and then her condo and saw that she wasn’t around, but…
His thoughts were interrupted first by headlights, then by the sound of a slowing car. He heard it pull over and come to a stop, listening as a car door opened and closed with a thud a few seconds later.
Margolis.
“Do you ever get that feeling like Christmas has come early?” Margolis said, squatting down next to him. Approaching Maria, he’d done a double take at the sight of Colin on the ground in cuffs and practically skipped over to him instead. “Because I think it just came early for me.”
Colin said nothing. Anything he said would just get thrown back in his face.
“I mean, here I am, just heading out to get a quick bite not more than ten minutes away, and I get a call urgently requesting my presence over here. And who do I find but my old pal Colin? I must say that I haven’t seen you looking this good in a long time.” Colin noted the reflection of Margolis’s grin in his highly polished shoes. “What did you do? Get in an argument with your girlfriend here? Maybe pushed Mom or Dad when they tried to intervene? Or did you go after one of the officers after they showed up and tried to calm you down?” He spat out his toothpick, letting it fall dangerously close to Colin’s face in the grass. “You might as well drop the silent act and tell me. I’m going to find out in a minute anyway.”
Colin let out a breath. “Traffic violations,” he said.
Margolis cocked his head in surprise. “No kidding?” When Colin didn’t respond, the detective shook his head, smirking. “I gotta admit that I never saw that one coming. But hey – I’ll take it any way I can get it. So let me talk to your girlfriend over there – if you still call her your girlfriend, I mean. Even if you didn’t so much as lay a finger on her, she doesn’t strike me as the visit-prison-every-weekend-to-support-her-man type, and I’ve always been a pretty good judge of character.”
Colin watched him stand. When Margolis turned and started toward Maria, Colin cleared his throat.
“Can I get up now?”
Margolis looked over his shoulder for a couple of seconds, then shrugged. “I don’t know. Can you?”
Using his head to brace himself, Colin lifted his hips and shot his knees forward in a single flowing motion, landing on his feet.
Margolis waved off one of the officers, who had taken a step toward Colin. He smirked again. “With moves like that, I’m sure all the guys in prison will want to dance with you. But tell you what – why don’t you wait right there while I figure out what’s going on here.”
Margolis signaled to the two officers to approach and Colin watched as they conferred in low tones. One of them thumbed toward Maria a couple of times; the other nodded in Colin’s direction. By then, a number of the neighbors had come outside and were standing on their lawns or in the street, craning their necks for a better view. He wasn’t the only one who’d noticed: Margolis did as well, and after a brief discussion with the family, everyone except Colin began to head inside. Surprising Colin, Margolis motioned for him to join them.
In the living room, Maria again went through the story from the top, including a description of what Lester had been wearing, only this time in a more linear fashion. Her family stood behind her, looking more upset than she did, while the two officers who’d arrested Colin flanked the front door. Colin watched as Margolis took notes, Serena occasionally interjecting. It wasn’t until Maria was finished that Margolis asked his first question.