Текст книги "Hold On"

Автор книги: Kristen Ashley

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 25 (всего у книги 35 страниц)

“Whatever?” I asked.

My son didn’t elucidate.

He asked, “Does Merry have a nice place?”

I told him the truth.

“No. It sucks.”

“Bummer,” he muttered.

“It has a decent TV,” I shared.

Ethan shoveled egg mush in his mouth and asked through it, “Can we take the Xbox?”

“That and a skillet,” I confirmed.

Ethan mouth scrunched to the side in confusion. “A skillet?”

“Merry’s been more interested in riding his Harley and catching bad guys than buying a decent skillet.”

Ethan grinned an egg-saltine-salt-and-pepper-mush grin.

My little man but still my boy.

God, I had the awesomest kid in the universe.

“You’re the awesomest kid in the universe,” I declared.

His eyes narrowed. “Are you gonna get gooey?”

“No. Except tellin’ you you’re the awesomest kid in the universe.”

He shoved his spoon into his bowl and scooped up more mush, muttering, “Already knew that.”

I grinned.

Then I grabbed my phone.

I texted, Ethan’s good with the extended sleepover as long as we can bring the Xbox with our skillet, and hit send.

Considering my man was embroiled in a fresh murder investigation that involved a woman I’d seen once, in her nightie, having an argument with my dickhead neighbor, I was not surprised his reply took an hour and a half.

When I got it, it was, Xbox affirmative. He get to school okay?

Seriously.

Totally.

If we went the distance, I so was going to be able to talk him into more kids.

Yes, boss. FYI, we’ve been accomplishing that difficult maneuver since the third day of kindergarten when he quit pitching a fit because his momma was dropping him off with bitches who made him take naps, I returned.

Whatever. Come by the station. Need to give you keys. Leave the Xbox by the TV. No one touches my TV but me. I’ll deal with it when I get home. Be home before you go to work so I can see to Ethan.

I stared at the text, wanting to take a screen shot of its awesomeness, print it out, frame it, and put it by my bedside so I could read it every day.

Since I didn’t want to be a whackjob who would do something like that, I just experienced another boon Merry gave me.

That being, me, now a woman who had a man in her life who was a man who was in her life. Being there. Taking care of her. Being a partner. Being a part of her kid’s life. Taking care of her kid. Liking that. Wanting it. Going for it.

After I let that goodness sift through me, I called my mom and explained the situation.

Needless to say, Grace Sheckle was pretty fucking happy my kid and I were moving in with Merry. So much, she didn’t care there was a possible homicidal boyfriend living two doors down from my house.

Not even a little bit.

I packed my bags. I packed Ethan’s. I disconnected the Xbox. I packed some groceries. I grabbed a skillet. I loaded this all in my car. I went to the station, got the keys, and stole a quick, distracted kiss from my man who was on the phone the entire time I was there.

While there, I also got a lot of greetings from a lot of friends, all of whom were busy, so I didn’t dally.

I took our shit to Merry’s and put things away as best I could.

His extra room was a junk room, not a guest room.

I’d deal with that tomorrow.

I went out to go to the grocery store to add to the seriously meager supplies Merry had in his kitchen, something I needed to do before I went to go get my kid from school.

And I left the Xbox on the floor in front of the TV.

* * * * *

Garrett

“Nothin’ here but girl shit,” Jake muttered.

Garrett and Mike stood across the table in the basement were Jake did some of his work. Scattered on it were Wendy Derian’s purse, the contents of the same, and the contents of her car.

“Yeah, except there’s no cell,” Garrett replied.

Jake looked up to him. “Nope.”

“We went through the room she was stayin’ in at her sister’s. Not one there either,” Mike noted.

Garrett looked to Mike. “Twenty-eight-year-old woman’s gonna have a cell phone.”

Mike looked to the table. “Shit.”

Woman in a hurry to get where she’s going.

Cell gone.

Not good.

“Got stuff to process, guys. You need anything else?” Jake asked.

“No, man, thanks,” Garrett answered.

They moved out of the room, but they didn’t move to the stairs to go back to their desks. They moved to the stairs to exit the building in order to do legwork. They had a list of friends and family to hit.

But Garrett knew where they were gonna start.

“Cutler’s?” he asked as he pushed the door out to the back parking lot.

Mike nodded.

They moved to the unmarked sedan they used on the job and didn’t speak, not even to discuss who drove.

They’d been partners a while. They had that down.

They took turns.

Today was Mike’s turn.

Garrett folded into the passenger side.

Mike set them on their way.

Cher’s house was quiet, her Chevy not in the driveway, when they hit her street and parked outside Cutler’s.

They got out. They went to the house. They knocked.

No answer and his truck was not in the drive or on the street.

“We’ll come back,” Mike said.

Garrett nodded and they took off. They went down the list and hit what they could—Wendy Derian’s employer and then her friends at home, some at work, ending with going back to the family.

Most were home. They’d gotten the news and news like that translated to an instant personal day.

But they got the same from everyone, which was the same as what they’d gotten from her sister.

Wendy was well-liked. She was funny. She was sweet. She was a decent worker (she wouldn’t win awards, but she showed and got the job done).

But she was stupid. Picked the wrong men. Never learned. Kept doing it.

No one liked Cutler. Friends were wary of him. Family detested him.

Even with that, there was a lot of shock. She might’ve picked the wrong men, but however bad they were for her, no one thought she’d end up shot three times because of it. Maybe banged up. Even beat to shit.

Not dead.

This read that whatever the men she picked did—whatever Cutler did—she wasn’t involved.

She went to work. She spent time with her friends. She did not exit her life for her man or to cover up whatever he was wound up in or the fact she was tied up in it too. She didn’t seem to be hiding anything or retreating from life, work, friends, or family.

She just kept getting mixed up with the wrong guys.

Mixed up so much with Cutler, the only thing friends and family did get was her demeanor during the time after their breakup to her death.

She was cut up by it. Told everyone who would listen that he was “the one,” the breakup came out of the blue, to her they’d been happy, and Cutler didn’t give her even a hint of a clue why he ended things.

That’s all they got. Including them coming up empty with the fact that she’d told no one where she was going the night before. No family member, friend, coworker, not a soul. The only person she’d mentioned it to was Marscha when she left, but she gave no detail.

At five fifteen that night when they went back to Cutler’s and found no truck with no response to their knock, they had dick. No witnesses to what went down in the cul-de-sac. No one liking Cutler enough to spend too much time with him to know anything about the other side of his life that he couldn’t show them with Wendy. And Jake coming up with nothing outside Cutler’s prints in the car, which were expected since she’d been living with him.

“Not got a good feelin’ about this,” Mike murmured as he headed them back to the station.

“Nope,” Garrett agreed.

“We got dick,” Mike told him, something they knew.

“I wanna hit that house again later when he might be home,” Garrett replied.

“We can hit her hangouts in the meantime,” Mike said. “I’ll tell Dusty it’s gonna be a late one.”

They hit her hangouts, which were not surprisingly the perfect places to pick up the wrong guy.

This meant that no one said jack outside expressing their shock and sadness at the death of a sweet gal that everyone knew but no one knew who might want to kill her.

She also had not been to any of these hangouts the night before nor did any of the regulars know where she’d gone.

And at a quarter to eight, when they went back to Cutler’s, there was still no truck and no lights on in the house.

“We’ll try tomorrow,” Mike said.

“Right. Gotta get home so Cher can get to work and I can look after Ethan.”

Mike grinned at the windshield. “Domestic bliss already?”

“Don’t know, but you’ll be the second to know when I do.”

Mike chuckled.

They went back to the station, did what they had to do to end their days, and Garrett got to his place just in time for Cher to give him a kiss and rush out to work.

Taking one look at Ethan on his couch, he shrugged off his suit jacket and installed the Xbox.

Ethan went for it with some video game, but he did it jabbering to Garrett about his day. The sound of the TV and Ethan talking made his condo seem a lot less crappy-ass than it always did.

Garrett listened as he went for some food, finding he had more of it in his kitchen than he’d ever had in his life, including the part of his life that he shared with his ex-wife.

He made a sandwich.

And later, he and Ethan polished off one of the three bags of Oreos Cher had stocked, doing this while watching sports talk shows before they both hit the sack—Ethan, because he was a kid and was supposed to go to bed early; Garrett, because he’d been woken up early by a murder and was glad to put the day behind him.

But before he turned out the light, he made one call.

“Was pissed at you. Now pissed that I’m worried about you,” he told Ryker’s voicemail, then ordered, “Call me, Ryker.”

He hung up, hit the lights, and stretched out in bed.

He fell asleep.

Ryker did not call.

* * * * *

He approached the car.

It wasn’t a Fiesta.

It was a blue Equinox.

He didn’t want to approach, but his feet kept moving, taking him there.

He stopped outside the driver’s side door.

Shards of glass in her hair and on her clothing, sitting in a pool of her own blood, her top drenched with it.

Cher.

Garrett’s eyes shot open as his body jolted.

He stared at the dark, feeling cold because of the dream and the slick of sweat on his skin.

“Fuck,” he whispered, lifting his hands, pressing the pads of his palms to his eye sockets, forcing stars to shoot through his eyes in order to obliterate the residue of that dream. “Fuck,” he repeated.

He got it.

Finally, he got it. He understood.

His poison was different from Rocky’s.

He thought it was the same.

It wasn’t.

Now he understood.

He just had even less of a clue what to do about it.

But he knew who did.

* * * * *

Cher

At quarter to four in the morning, I let myself into Merry’s.

I shrugged off my jacket and silently put it and my purse on the dining room table.

The Xbox was not on the floor but in one of the shelves that had been empty, but now was not, under Merry’s TV.

My kid was sleeping on the couch.

It was a pullout that Merry had pulled out and put sheets and a thick blanket on.

But it was still a couch.

Something had to be done about that, but Ethan didn’t look uncomfortable.

He looked out.

Tomorrow.

I moved down the dark hall and saw Merry standing outside the door to his bedroom.

A near-to-four-in-the-morning welcome home.

Nice.

I said nothing.

He said nothing.

But when I got close enough, he hooked me with an arm around my waist and pulled me into his room.

The door catching barely made a noise.

Merry shuffled me back as I lifted my hands to his chest.

“Need to get my kid a bed, baby,” I whispered.

“I’ll talk to the guys. See what we can arrange for tomorrow.”

I nodded.

“Catch a killer?” I asked.

I saw his grin even in the dark.

“Not yet.”

My legs hit bed, then Merry and me hit bed, him on top.

His mouth went to my neck.

“You tired?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I answered.

His hand slid up my side, taking my shirt with it. “How tired?”

I shivered the good kind of shiver. “Not that tired.”

His hand slid over my ribs and started going up.

“Can you fuck quiet?” he asked.

My hands slid down his bare back until they encountered pajama bottoms.

Soft.

Flannel.

Nice.

“Absolutely,” I answered.

His mouth came to mine and I felt his smile before he kissed me.

We fucked hard. We fucked quick. It was great.

And we managed to do it quiet.

Chapter Nineteen

Hoping I Was Wrong

Cher

Thursday, Early Morning

Merry’s bathroom door was closed.

I was at the sink, hands to the basin, eyes to the mirror.

Merry was at the sink too, hands to my hips, eyes to mine in the mirror.

And I was taking his cock.

Watching him, his muscles straining, his gaze burning into mine, his fingers digging into my flesh, his body moving with his thrusts in time with feeling his cock drive hard and deep, in order to stifle a whimper, I dropped my head.

One of his hands slid up my spine, caught my hair, and pulled my head back.

He wanted me to watch.

And when he was banging me, Merry always found a way to get what he wanted.

Fuck.

Hot.

“Don’t turn me on too much, baby,” I warned on a whisper.

In answer to that, he dipped his knees and drove up so deep, he had to have hit my womb.

Amazing.

“That isn’t helping,” I moaned.

And to that, he gave a gentle tug on my hair that felt like he was driving me down on his dick.

My head back, my neck bowed, Merry kept thrusting as he grunted, “Arch your back for me.”

I did and watched his eyes drop to my tits.

“More,” he growled.

I gave him more.

At that, he growled again, eyes glued to me in the mirror, and he fucked me harder.

Shit, I could see that being a turn on for a guy because it was a turn on for me.

I braced my hands on the basin and started rearing back into his dick.

“Fuck yeah,” he groaned, moving his hand from my hair to my shoulder and driving me back even harder.

“Merry,” I breathed.

He curled his torso over me, his cock still pounding, his other hand moving from my hip up my belly. He caught one of my breasts and watched himself tug hard at my nipple.

But I watched the raw hunger on Merry’s face as he did it and I felt what he did, and it shot from my nipple to my pussy, detonating. My head flew back and I clenched my teeth, driving my moan back down my throat where it felt like it was vibrating along with my orgasm against my man’s plunging cock.

I wasn’t done yet when he pulled out, turned me, lifted me, planted my ass on the edge of the vanity, then tipped and lifted it. His mouth to mine, he thrust back inside.

“Close,” he grunted.

I knew what he was saying.

I raised my knees, pressed them to his sides, and took his cock as I slid my hands into his hair and panted into his mouth while he grunted quietly into mine.

“Now,” he groaned, planting himself deep, and I yanked his head down, his open mouth to mine.

I slid my tongue inside so I could fully experience the orgasm he was growling down my throat.

I kissed him through it and I kissed him as he came down.

He took over the kiss when it left him.

Mine had been hot.

Merry’s was sweet and soft and long.

Both were fantastic.

But it had to end, so he ended it, lifting his head as he slid a hand up to cup one side of my face.

His eyes roamed my features for a long time.

“Fuck, it’s like you’re at your prettiest first thing in the morning,” he muttered.

God, I liked that.

“You’re just saying that because I let you wake me up at a God-awful hour and fuck me,” I teased.

He looked into my eyes. “Beat me to the punch, Cherie. That was my next compliment. You’re the best fuck I’ve had first thing in the morning…or ever. But I’m not bullshitting you when I say a good part of that is first thing in the mornin’ fuckin’ someone as pretty as you.”

To beat back the warm and squishy all that made me feel, I pressed myself tighter to him, my hands roaming his hair, his neck, his shoulders, murmuring, “And I thought it was my excellent lovemaking skills.”

He grinned. “I make love to you, honey. My girl fucks. And she does it…day or night…lookin’ pretty.”

I straightened in his arms. “I can make love too. You just won’t let me.”

I wasn’t sure this was true. I’d never tried it.

“We’ll test that when we got time in my bed where we don’t have to be quiet ’cause your boy is on my couch.”

Shit.

My eyes shot to the closed door.

“I should check on him,” I muttered.

“He didn’t hear.”

I looked back to Merry. “You sure?”

“I can’t see through walls and don’t got a dog’s hearing, but I’ve been a ten-year-old boy. It’s not even six in the morning. He’s out of it. He didn’t hear a thing.”

“He’s in unfamiliar surroundings.”

“He’s with his mom and a guy he trusts. He’s fine.”

That was true.

“I should still check on him.”

One side of Merry’s lips tipped up. “Can I slide my dick outta you before you do that?”

I gave him a look.

Then I said, “Yeah.”

He gave me a very different look before he dropped his head and kissed me as he slid out of me.

When he was done, he pulled my ass off the vanity and put me on my feet. Merry went to the toilet. I went to my discarded panties and pajamas.

I tugged them on and moved out of Merry’s bathroom and bedroom, closing the door behind me.

Slowly, quietly, I walked down the hall.

I barely reached the living room when I saw my kid, arm flung over his head, blanket tangled in his legs, pajama top having ridden up his belly, totally out.

I smiled.

Then I slowly, quietly made my way back down the hall and into Merry’s room to find him naked and in his walk-in closet.

I hit the door and leaned against the jamb.

“He’s out,” I shared.

“Told you,” he muttered to a suit on a hanger he was jerking across the rung.

“Shower time,” I said.

Merry looked to me.

I pushed away from the jamb and walked to the bathroom, discarding my pajamas and panties as I did it.

I made it to the bathroom first.

But it was Merry who turned on the shower.

* * * * *

I was at the sink in Merry’s kitchen.

“Is this your culinary brilliance?”

Merry asked that question and I turned in order to answer him.

But when I turned, I didn’t even open my mouth.

I stopped dead.

Because on one side of the kitchen was Merry, leaning against the counter in suit pants, a nice shirt, bare feet crossed at the ankles, a plate held up in front of him holding the eggs, bacon, hash browns, and toast I’d made him and my kid. And on the other side, my boy was leaning against the counter in jeans, a long-sleeved tee, bare feet crossed at the ankles, hair wet, his own plate held up in front of him.

“No, her culinary brilliance is her egg crackers,” Ethan answered for me.

“Egg crackers?” Merry asked my kid.

“She’ll make it for you tomorrow,” Ethan offered my breakfast services on a mutter, shoving hash browns in his face. Still chewing, he finished, “It’s her specialty.”

I pulled myself together and announced, “It’s gross.”

My kid looked at me. “You’d think that way. You’re a chick. It’s dude food.”

Dude food.

My son was funny.

I grinned at his funny.

But I said, “Whatever.”

Ethan looked to Merry. “Since Mom’s on lates, so she can go back to bed and crash, can you take me to school?”

Oh shit.

Even if it was his choice (or more aptly, demand), we were up in Merry’s space and in his face.

We didn’t need to be crashing in on his life too.

“Yeah,” Merry answered unhesitatingly, and looked at me. “Days off tomorrow and Sunday?”

I nodded.

Merry nodded back and turned his attention to his food.

“We gonna have my birthday party here, or we gonna move it to Gram’s?” Ethan asked.

Shit. His birthday was next week. And the party invites had gone to school with Ethan three weeks ago. They stated the party was at my pad.

But we weren’t at my pad.

Fuck.

“You can have it here,” Merry said.

“We’ll talk to your gram,” I said at the same time.

Merry looked at me. “When is it?”

“Next Saturday.”

Merry looked at Ethan. “Thought your birthday was Wednesday, bud.”

Ethan beamed at Merry because he remembered his birthday.

Since he was busy beaming, I answered for him, “Birthday’s Wednesday. Party’s Saturday.”

Merry, eyes to me, asked, “Feb’s got you scheduled off next Wednesday, yeah?”

I nodded.

“Your mom?” he went on.

I nodded again.

“Right, then I’ll make reservations at Swank’s.”

Ethan’s voice was pitched high when he asked, “Say what?”

Shit.

I hadn’t talked with Ethan about Swank’s yet.

Then again, I hadn’t expected Merry and me to make it far enough to get to Swank’s without me fucking things up in some way.

But here we were.

Thankfully.

“It’s a nice restaurant, kid,” I said quickly. “Steaks and—”

“I know what it is!” Ethan cried excitedly. “Brendon’s parents take them there New Year’s Eve every year. He says you can cut the steaks with your fork.” My son looked to my man. “You’re takin’ us there?”

Merry was grinning at him. “You want that, yeah.”

“I want it!” Ethan practically yelled, and looked at me. “This is so cool. I can’t wait to tell the guys. Brendon is a good guy, but he can also have a stick up his butt ’cause his folks are loaded. He’s always talking about stuff that Teddy and Everest and me’ll never do ’cause Teddy lives in a double-wide and Everest’s dad is a douche. I’m still, like, top of the heap because my mom doesn’t make me eat broccoli. But Brendon’s breathin’ at my neck ’cause he’s got a cable premium package and Netflix and Amazon Instant Video and Hulu. This’ll put me over the top. Way over the top now since my mom’s boyfriend is a badass cop with a killer SUV who lets me hang at the station and takes us for steaks you can cut with a fork. So this…is…awesome.”

I didn’t know whether to be thrilled to my soul my son was so happy or scared out of my mind that I would undoubtedly someday soon do something to fuck everything up with Merry and me, considering Ethan was in this deep with what Merry and me meant to his place in the middle-school-boy hierarchy.

Before I could make up my mind, Merry got right in there and made it worse.

“Even fearin’ spontaneous combustion, bud, you should know I got Netflix and Hulu. I also got the premium package that includes NFL Sunday Ticket.”

Ethan’s eyes went huge and he breathed, “NFL Sunday Ticket?”

“Yep,” Merry confirmed.

Breakfast forgotten, slowly, my kid swung his eyes my way.

Yeah, Merry just made it worse.

“Eat,” I ordered. “You’ll need as much fuel as you can get to rub it in to your friends how awesome you got it. But, just warnin’ you, I’ve been reconsiderin’ your diet. That might not mean broccoli, but I see vegetables in your future.” I looked to Merry. “That means yours too.”

“Mom!” Ethan cried.

“I like vegetables,” Merry muttered, and went back to his plate.

Ethan immediately stopped bitching and turned contemplative eyes to Merry.

At least there was that. I didn’t know if Merry’s proclamation that he liked vegetables would hold sway when Ethan was actually confronted with the real article. But at least it made him think.

“Eat,” I repeated my order. “Then you gotta wash up, get your shoes on, and get your stuff so you guys aren’t late.”

They ate, both my boys leaning against opposite counters in the kitchen of my boyfriend-of-two-weeks’ house where we were currently living.

Merry finished first and helped me do the dishes.

Ethan finished next, rinsed his own plate (the plastic kind you got in those sets at Target that cost nearly nothing, looked like shit, and felt like you were only one step up from eating off paper), and put it in the dishwasher.

Merry seriously had to learn the beauty of a yard sale.

“I’ll be back,” Ethan declared before he dashed to the bathroom in Merry’s hallway.

That was when I got in Merry’s space.

“Babe, gotta get my shoes and jacket,” he muttered even as he rested a hand on my hip.

“You do know you can never—not ever, not ever—break up with me now, no matter how I manage to fuck this up, because you just told my kid you have NFL Sunday Ticket,” I hissed.

First, Merry’s head jerked.

Then he stared down at me.

After that, both his arms closed around me so hard I slammed into his body and lost my breath as he busted out laughing.

I liked the sound. I liked the feel.

But I couldn’t breathe.

“Merry, you’re squeezing the breath out of me,” I gasped.

He instantly let me go. Then, just as instantly, both his hands framed either side of my head and his face was in mine.

“A spectacular early-morning fuck. A long shower. Damned fine eggs and toast. The promise of dude food, whatever the hell that is. And the first time I’ve laughed before eight o’clock in the morning since I can remember. Cherie, sweetheart, if this is you fuckin’ up, keep on doin’ it.”

Shit, he had to stop.

“God, I’m feeling warm and squishy again,” I bitched.

Merry started laughing again.

“Gross! Are you two bein’ gooey?” Ethan called with disgust from the living room.

“Yeah,” Merry answered, sliding his hands from my head to wrap his arms around me. “Your mom is funny. That deserves gooey.”

I stood in Merry’s arms, feeling a lot of good things, most of them about what Merry’d said, coupled with his hugs and laughter.

Then I stood and felt other things as I watched my son arrest, just standing there, his face slack, his eyes on us, but they were working.

And then I watched him grin.

Whatever just occurred to him, he intended to keep it to himself, and I knew this when he bounded to the couch I’d told him to fold up (and he did), plopped on it, and reached for his shoes.

“I gotta do the same,” Merry said, and I looked to him to see he was looking down on me. “Give me more gooey before I do it.”

I slid my eyes to my kid.

He was yanking on his sock.

I slid my eyes to my man.

He was looking at my mouth.

So I rolled up on my toes and gave him gooey by touching my mouth to his.

Merry’s eyes were happy and smiling when I rolled back.

Okay, maybe I could do this without fucking it up.

Maybe we could all do this without fucking it up.

That thought made me smile back.

This got me a squeeze from my man before he let me go.

He strode out of the kitchen on bare feet, came back in shoes while shrugging on his suit jacket and looking hot, and called out to my boy to get his shit for school and say good-bye to his mom.

Ethan already had his jacket on and was tossing his backpack over his shoulder, calling to me on his way to Merry and the door.

They both smiled and waved at me before they went out. They did this in different ways—Merry’s wave was low and cool, his smile handsome and hot; Ethan’s wave was high and goofy, his smile warm and sweet.

The door closed behind them.

Honest to God, watching all that, I knew it didn’t get warmer and squishier.

It just didn’t.

And I couldn’t imagine it ever would.

But for the first time in a long time, I was hoping.

Hoping hard.

Hoping I was wrong.

* * * * *

Garrett

Garrett sat in his truck outside Ethan’s school, watching the kid bounce toward the building in that way kids walked before they learned cool. Ethan was doing this twisted back toward Garrett, hand up, waving.

Smiling, he lifted his own hand and did a salute.

When he lost sight of Cher’s boy as he crawled along in the line of the cars of parents who’d dropped off their kids and were waiting to exit the school, he yanked out his phone and sent her a text.

Ethan’s good.

Then he sent another text, this one to Mike.

Gotta do something before I come in. Be there as soon as I can.

He got a text back from Cher as he was sending the one to Mike.

Thanks, baby.

After that, she put a bunch of x’s and o’s intermingled with some flowers and ended all that, for some strange and hilarious reason, with an emoji of a ghost and one of a flashlight.

This meant he was smiling when he made the call he had to make and put his phone to his ear.

“Yo, son, heard you caught that homicide,” Dave Merrick said in greeting.

His father was a retired BPD detective. In other words, with a son on the force and just because he was who he was, he kept in the know.

“Yeah, Dad. Listen, you got some time this morning?” Garrett asked.

“I’m retired, Garrett. What else do I got but time?” Dave answered.

“Gotta swing around,” Garrett told him.

“You had breakfast?”

“Cher filled me up.”

Dave was silent, which reminded Garrett that in the last few weeks, he had not had a lot of time for his old man.

It was highly likely Dave had heard about Garrett seeing Cher.

But he hadn’t heard it from Garrett.

On this thought, the woman behind him in a BMW and a hurry honked. Still crawling with the traffic in front of him, he looked in his rearview mirror to see her gesticulating at him irately, as if he alone was holding up the proceedings.

He started to say something to his dad, but within two seconds, when he didn’t make the nine cars in front of him vanish by magic, she honked again and he saw her mouth moving in a way that wasn’t hard to lip-read as she continued to gesture. Half a second later, when she caught his eyes in the rearview mirror, she honked at him again and threw both of her hands up in angry exasperation.

He looked to his right to see kids heading into school, some on foot, some parking their bikes on a rack outside, many of them turned to watch the woman.

Seeing this, he put his truck in park, asking his dad, “You gonna be there, I swing around?”

“Yep, son. I’ll be here,” Dave replied.

“Great. Be there in ten, maybe fifteen,” he told him as he threw his door open.

“See you then.”

He disconnected as he angled out of his truck, his phone beeping with a text from Mike that Garrett glanced at and saw said, Gotcha.

He moved toward her car, and the woman stopped gesticulating and stared at him as he looked beyond her to gesture to the cars waiting to swing out and pass them in order to keep traffic flowing.

He then shoved his phone in his inside jacket pocket, which gave him the opportunity to push his jacket back, exposing his badge on his belt as he dropped his hand and put it on his hip.

He made it to her side of the car and tapped on the window.

It whirred down and she looked out.

“Sorry, didn’t know you were police,” she muttered, cheeks pink, eyes hidden behind expensive sunglasses even though the sun had barely risen.

But her expression was easily read, showing irritation at the further delay, something she was not going to share to his face, and embarrassment because she’d been caught by a cop who could do something about her being an impatient bitch.

“It make a difference I’m police or not?” he asked.

“I’ve got an early meeting,” she explained. “Dropping off Asa, I’m late for work.”