Hold On

“Yeah, Mike,” Ellen muttered back.

“Favor, Ellen,” Garrett said. “She’s got any info on Wendy’s friends—names, numbers, anything—get those down. We’ll also need access to the rest of the family after Marscha gives them the news. Yeah?”

Ellen nodded.

They exited the house, but Garrett did it with his hand inside his jacket, going for his phone in his pocket.

“Need two minutes,” he said to Mike as he moved off the front walk into the yard and not toward the vehicle at the curb, which was now surrounded by five cops, the ME, and Jake, their crime scene guy, who was taking pictures. There were also neighbors. They were hanging back on a sidewalk across the street, but they were there.

“Bet you do,” Mike murmured, moving down the walk toward the scene.

Mike, obviously, was in the know about Ryker, Ryan, and Jaden Cutler.

Garrett stopped in Marscha Derian’s yard, engaged his phone, and slid his thumb on the screen, vaguely annoyed that today would not be the day he’d have time to get a new phone.

But most of his attention was on what he was doing, not his phone.

It was also not on the beginnings of a homicide investigation.

He put the phone to his ear.

She was busy getting her kid ready for school. The phone not close. Whenever he called, or even texted, if her phone was close, she answered right away.

This time, it was answered after four rings.

“Uh…boss, school doesn’t start for an hour,” Cher said in greeting, her voice warm and filled with humor. “Can’t confirm I dropped my kid off safely just yet.”

“Get somewhere that is not close to your boy,” he ordered.

“What?” she asked, no longer sounding warm and amused.

“Get somewhere where Ethan can’t hear this discussion.”

She didn’t reply and he knew she didn’t because she was doing as she was told.

He also knew she was there when she asked, “Is everything okay?”

“Wendy Derian was murdered this morning, shot three times.”

Cher said nothing for a beat before she said softly, “I don’t know who that is, Merry.”

“She’s Jaden Cutler’s recently ex-and very recently deceased girlfriend.”

“I don’t know who that is either.”

“Jaden Cutler is your neighbor, two doors down.”

“Oh fuck,” she whispered.

“Pack,” he grunted. “I’ll go to the grocery store. I’ll buy a fuckin’ skillet. But you and Ethan are in my condo until whatever the fuck is happening is done.”

“Merry, I think—”

Garrett cut his eyes to the Fiesta. “Dead in a pool of her own blood in a goddamned Ford Fiesta sitting at the curb in front of her sister’s house.”

He actually felt her emotion through the phone—horror, a vague sadness for a woman she didn’t know, concern about Merry—before tentatively, “Did this…Cutler guy…have anything to do—”

“Unknown.”

Her voice was a lot less hesitant when she reminded him, “He’s just my neighbor, Merry.”

“He’s a threat, Cher.”

“I—”

“You move in with me, or you move in with your mother, or you move in with Colt and Feb or Vi and Cal. Strike that, your mother’s off the list. It’s me, Colt, or Cal. Pick.”

“Maybe you can come by the bar tonight and we can discuss—”

“Me at the bar with you while Ethan and your mom are two doors down from this guy?”

She didn’t say anything.

“Pick, Cher,” he demanded.

She still didn’t say anything.

“Pick, baby,” he pushed.

“You,” she whispered.

Thank fuck.

“Pack,” he ordered.

“You’re bossy when you’re freaked out,” she muttered.

“I’m bossy all the time,” he returned. “Pack.”

“All right,” she said, but it came out as a grumble.

Garrett drew in a deep breath.

It didn’t release the feeling.

The sour. The fear. The poison.

“Don’t worry about the skillet. I’ll bring one,” she told him.

He closed his eyes and dropped his head.

The fucking skillet.

That was what he needed.