Hold On

He put the phone to his ear, moving to his desk to nab the car keys.

“Merry, brother, don’t know what you’re doin’ but need you at my office as soon as you can get here. Found Ryker, or I should say, Ryker found me. He’s got company. They’ve all got a story to tell and these stories are ones both you and Mike are not gonna wanna wait too long to hear. Give me a call and then get your ass over here. They don’t got a lot of time and you need to hear it before that time runs out and they take off.”

While listening, Garrett had stopped not only because he got the news that the vanished Ryker had resurfaced and all the other things his brother-in-law had shared, but because Tanner’s voice sounded strange.

It sounded like he was close to laughing.

He took the phone from his ear and looked to his partner.

“Ryker’s at Tanner’s office,” he told Mike.

Up from his desk, ready to go, Mike’s brows rose. “No shit?”

“They’ve got someone with them and Tanner said we need to get there ASAP.”

“Then let’s go.”

They headed to the front stairs, Garrett texting Tanner, On our way.

“Things go okay with Mia’s dad?” Mike asked as they moved down the steps, both their eyes scanning the area at the bottom to see Kath back at her desk and Justin McClintock gone.

“No. But it went,” Garrett answered.

Mike didn’t reply. Then again, there wasn’t much more for Garrett to say.

On the sidewalk, as they hoofed their way down the block toward Tanner’s office, they had a brief discussion about the fact that they’d be swinging by Mimi’s to get a coffee on their way back.

This being after Mike and Tanner hopefully successfully stopped Garrett from going apeshit on Ryker.

They hit the door next to Mimi’s that had a brass plaque next to it that read Tanner Layne Investigations. The door led right to a set of stairs. The stairs led to a landing and one door, that door belonging to Tanner’s offices.

They pushed through, moved through the reception area, walked into Tanner’s personal office situated at the front of the building, and both of them stopped dead.

Even though he felt the pulse of alertness beat off Mike, Garrett reckoned it was only him whose vision went blurry with rage.

This was because Ryker’s long, beefy frame was lounging negligently in a chair in front of Tanner’s desk and he was eating a Hilligoss powdered sugar, chocolate-buttercream-filled donut. The donut wasn’t his first, seeing as his lips were lined with sugar and that sugar liberally dusted the front of his black tank as well as the lapels of his leather jacket.

He looked like he just got back from vacation and they were all there to check out his pictures, not like Garrett had been looking for his ass for days and in the meantime a woman who was linked, however loosely, to his shit got dead.

But this wasn’t it.

Along with Ryker and Tanner, who was sitting behind his desk, there were two people Garrett had never seen before in the room. A man and a woman. They were both in suits. Both trim and fit. And both, without a doubt, Feds.

The woman was at the window farthest from Tanner’s desk, looking out. The male Fed was in the middle of the office, standing close to the final occupant in the room, which was the last part of what pissed Garrett off.

Jaden Cutler.

“What the fuck?” Garrett whispered.

“Stay cool, brother,” Tanner warned, but when Garrett tore his eyes off Cutler to look to his friend, he saw Tanner’s eyes were filled with humor he was barely able to hold back. “And just to say, you’re gonna wanna lose it even more than you do right now after you hear what you’re gonna hear. It’s just that you’ll eventually find it amusing. Trust me.”

Garrett ignored Tanner and looked to Ryker.

“Been lookin’ for you,” he said.

“Know that, bro,” Ryker replied casually through donut dough and buttercream.