Saucey Dalton

Here is a little something I wrote that I hope to develop further in the future. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did when I wrote it.

***

The phone buzzed angrily on the nightstand. I groaned, removing the arm of my bed mate from around my waist and sat on the side of the bed. Popping my neck, I clicked on the little lamp on the table and grabbed the offending device. Swiping the green button, I answered groggily with, “Marshal Dalton.”
“Marshal, this is Lt. Summers from the Gainesville PD. We have a standoff and the suspects are refusing to talk to anyone except you.”
I glanced at the digital alarm clock. 3:43 am. “Who are the suspects?”
“Adam Thompson and Jeremiah Brown.”
I sighed.
“I take it you know them,” Lt. Summers said.
“Yeah, I know ‘em. Text me your location. I am on my way,” and I hung up.
The heat of August clung like a second skin as I stood and slipped on my jeans and tank top from the night before. I shook the shoulder of the sleeping form on the bed. “Get up,” I said as I threw my long brown hair in a ponytail.
The response was a soft, long moan and stretching limbs. “Ready for round two?”
“No,” I said, grabbing my service Glock from the nightstand. “You gotta go.”
“Seriously?” Jessica gave a pouty whine as she sat up in bed, the thin sheet slipping to her waist, exposing her generous breasts. “But it is four o’clock in the morning.”
“Not quite,” I responded as I ejected the magazine, checked my ammo, “but yeah, seriously.” I slammed the magazine back into the gun and pulled the slide. One in the chamber. I put it in the holster on my hip.
“Can’t I wait for you here?” she pleaded as I sat on the bed to slip on my high heel boots. She wrapped her thin white arms around me from behind. “I could keep the bed warm for you.” Her bottle blonde hair brushed over my shoulders as she kissed my neck.
I shrugged her off and stood, grabbing her pile of clothes and throwing them at her. “Out.”
Her soft young face turned hard and angry. “You know, I thought women would be different, but now I am not so sure.” She pulled her thin t-shirt on over her head. “At least when I am with a guy, he is the one who leaves at the ass-crack of dawn.” She stood, sliding her jean shorts over her slim hips.
I opened the drawer of the nightstand and put on the chain with my badge. I also pulled out a slim silver ring and slipped it on my left ring finger.
“And on top of that, you’re married?” She was livid. She took a step toward me, but stopped when she eyed the gun on my hip. “You didn’t tell me you were married!”
“You didn’t ask,” I said as I grabbed her purse, took her by the elbow, and led her to the door.
“Thanks for the great time,” I said at the door as I pushed the purse into her arms.
“Fuck you,” she said as the door closed in her face.
“If I had a nickel,” I sighed.

I pulled up to a small shotgun house, the blue lights of the squad cars blinking and reflected off of the white siding more a sick green with mildew. I got out and headed to the grouping of police officers near the black SWAT van. A boy, no more than twenty, greeted me with a stern glare. “Ma’am, you can’t…” He stopped when he saw the badge. “Marshal, I apologize.”
I gave him a hard look and said, “Never apologize,” then brushed past him.
An older man with a silver buzz cut approached me. I could see by the bars on his uniform that he was the Lt. His hand was out when he said, “Marshal Dalton. Thank you for coming.”
I shook his hand firmly, “Fill me in. What’s going on.”
“We had received tips that this house may contain a meth lab.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me. They had been picked up for trafficking before.”
“So we showed up with a warrant to search the house under suspicion of a probation violation. That is when they started shooting. They have calmed down a bit, as long as we keep our distance.”
“Why call me? Why not have SWAT move in?” I asked.
“As I said on the phone, they asked for your specifically. Any reason why that is?”
“I brought them in when they busted out of prison a few years back.” I shrugged.
“Well, there is another reason why we haven’t made our move. We believe they have a hostage.” Lt. Summers face changed, as though it turned a slight shade greyer. Then he said, “We think they may have your husband.”
The initial shock must have shown in my face because Lt. Summers’s eyes widened slightly. Forcing on my neutral, federal agent expression, I cleared my throat and said, “Alright. Let me talk to them.”
Lt. Summers led me into the SWAT van where comm was set up. The power to the house had been cut off and they had intercepted the phone lines, so the only way Thompson and Brown could communicate with the outside was through us. One of the officers manning the station made the connection, the ringing on the other end coming through the speakers.
A harsh voice with a smokers wheeze and a southern drawl answered, “I told you pigs that I ain’t talking to nobody until I talk to…”
“Hey Jeremiah,” I said.
There was a pause. “Marshal Dalton. It has been a coon’s age, hasn’t it?”
“What do you want Jeremiah?”
“It isn’t so much what I want. You see, I got your hubby here. Adam has a gun to his head, and you know Adam, he is a little antsy.”
I let out a breath, crossing my arms. Jeremiah continued, “We will let him go if you do something for us.”
“Yeah? What is that?” I asked.
“We want $300,000…” He stopped as a muffled voice behind him whispered something, then he said, “$500,000 and free passage to Mexico. Get us these two little things and we will let Jason go.”
Hearing Jeremiah say his name made my breath hitch in my throat. “Well? You still there?” Jeremiah asked.
“Yeah, I’m here. And what if I don’t, or can’t, meet these demands?”
“We will shoot your lover boy’s head clean off his shoulders.”
I heard rustling of fabric behind me as the officers shifted uneasily on their feet.
“So that is how it is?” I asked.
“Yup. Thems the breaks.”
“Alright.” I paused, then said, “Go ahead and shoot him.”
There was only silence on the other end, then the sound of Jeremiah and Adam speaking in hushed tones. I grabbed a vest, slipping it on as I jumped out of the SWAT van. Recovering from his shock, Lt. Summers followed me. “What the hell just happened?”
“Get your guys ready to go in.”
“But what about…”
“They don’t have Jason. Let’s move.” I left Lt. Summers with his mouth wide open, a dangerous expression with the bugs and flying insects buzzing about, attracted by the lights of the police vehicles.

It didn’t take five minutes for SWAT to move in and secure Thompson and Brown. With his face red from pepper spray, Brown glared up at me. “You are one cold bitch, you know that? What if we had him?”
I knelt down in front of him, balancing my weight on the balls of my feet. “Well, firstly, it is the middle of the night. Didn’t you think that maybe I might have been asleep right beside him?”
“Well, we didn’t think…” he started.
“No, you didn’t think. Now look at what you got yourself into.” Jeremiah’s head hung down.
Adam squared his shoulders, blood trickling from a cut over his right eyebrow. He said defiantly, “When we get out, we are going to find you both. We are going to kill him and make you watch. Then we are going to kill you.”
I pursed my lips and nodded, “Mhm. Well, good luck with that, though that may be a little difficult.”
“Why?” Adam couldn’t help himself.
“’Cause Jason is in the federal pen.” With that, I rose and stepped over to Lt. Summers. “You heard that right? Terroristic threats against a federal agent. Just a little something you can add to your report.”
I started walking to my car. Lt. Summers ran after me and stopped me as I reached for the door.
“Hey, why didn’t you tell us your husband was incarcerated?”
“You didn’t ask.”